Take the NextAid Challenge for International Youth Day!
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Heads up for next month! August 12th is International Youth Day and  the year following
has been established as the International Year of Youth (August 2010- 2011)! International
Youth Day was established by the UN as a celebration of young people's energy,
imagination and initiatives and as a way to recognize youth's crucial
contributions to enhancing peace and development.
On this International Youth
Day, NextAid would like to honor the group of incredible youth we have been working with in Kawangware, Kenya. This inspiring group of youth creates tangible
and lasting change for the orphans and vulnerable children in their community;
we are aiding them in their mission by creating the Kawangware Vision Center
(KVC) - an eco-friendly multipurpose facility that will improve their
organization and micro business.
In the spirit of International Youth Day and the KVC, we will be launching The NextAid Challenge on August 12! We are challenging all of our supporters to each raise $2010 (2010 is the year of youth after all!) for KVC! So start thinking creatively about how you can raise the funds for the incredible youth of Kawangware and stay tuned for more information! Follow us on Twitter and join us on Facebook to learn more about youth around the world and how NextAid is rising to the challenge!
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NextAid Able to Send More Kids to School in S.A With Your Help!
| Thanks to our wonderful DJ supporters - Richie Hawtin (BIDS BUILD HOPE Online Auction) and Nickodemus' (NextAid South African Launch Party in Cape Town) - we raised over $7,000 for our "Send a Child to School" campaign!The money will enable 80+ children
to
attend school in South Africa through loveLife's goGogetters Program! In South Africa, schools uniforms are a
requirement - a barrier to education for those who can't afford them. All is costs is $75 to
provide a child with a complete uniform (bottom, 2 shirts, shoes,
socks, pullover and backpack), stationary and books. School offers children the basis for a
brighter future and serves as a protective factor against HIV/AIDS. To support the goGogetters Program and the
5,000+ youth that participate in the innovative program, please make a
donation today.
Inspiring words from Judy-Marie of loveLife:
NextAid is providing the opportunity for Americans
to provide much needed and appreciated tangible resources to South African
orphans and vulnerable youth. By doing this they are not only impacting
the life chances of many individual children, they are contributing towards the
achievement of programmatic outcomes for the goGogetter programme where South
African grandmothers are working to ensure that teenage orphans and vulnerable
youth in the country don't become double victims of HIV and AIDS.
NextAid's contribution addresses problems like these expressed by the
goGogetters:
"Rebone lives with her aunt who is unemployed; they are
nine in the family. There is no income in the household. She sometimes goes to
school without a meal and bare footed. She helps the neighbours with their
chores, so that they can give her food and she wears her friend's uniform".
-
Rebone Morake, 12 years old.
"Tsholofelo does not receive a grant and skips school because
she does not have school uniform. She sleeps with man (sic) to get money. She comes
from an unemployed family of five siblings and she wears an old uniform from
the neighbour".
- Tsholofelo Pooe, 13 years old.
These contributions are deeply appreciated, in the words of goGogetter Jessy
Nkosi from Mpumalanga: "Thank you very much, I feel like a bird because of
happiness".
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NextAid's Exciting New Initiative in Sierra Leone and Namibia
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 This past June,
NextAid Co-Founder and Executive Director, Lauren Segal-Avenna, attended the
Women
Deliver Conference in Washington DC. There, she joined the thousands of
people and organizations
that gathered together from around the world to make reproductive health
a
global priority. Pregnancy is the greatest killer of girls ages 15-19
in the developing world and the
United Nation's response has been to establish
Millennium
Development Goal # 5, the reduction of maternal mortality. NextAid is
contributing to this worldwide movement to improve maternal health by
working
closely with select African First Ladies to design and build two Women and Girl's
Health
Resource Centers in Sierra Leone and Namibia. NextAid will be supporting
this
new initiative at our August 7 event at the Jim Henson Company
Headquarters; the
event will be a day for us all to learn about why girls are the greatest
investment we can make for our future. For more information on our brand new initiative and upcoming event, contact NextAid. To learn more about why investing
in
girls is such an important step for our future watch The Girl Effect video
or visit the White Ribbon Alliance for ideas on how you can get involved.
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Call to Action: Mandela Day 07.18
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Sunday July 18 is Mandela Day - an annual celebration of Nelson
Mandela's life and a global call to action for people everywhere to take responsibility for making the world a better place. On
Mandela Day, you are asked to honor the 67 years Nelson Mandela has dedicated
to fighting for the rights of humanity by giving 67 minutes of your time to a
cause you care about. Whether it's supporting NextAid or serving your local
community, Mandela Day is a time for us all to opt in and show that we can make
an impact.
Here are some ideas of actions that you can take to support NextAid on this inspiring day:
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Get Your Tickets TODAY: 6th Annual FOR THE FUTURE Mega-Benefit!
| It's that time of the year again.. NextAid and the San Francisco dance music community return with our 6th
annual For the Future Mega-Benefit at Cafe Cocomo, SF on August 1st. For over 6 years the SF dance
music community has rallied behind NextAid, channeling the positive energy from
the dance floor to create change for children and youth in Africa. Benefit-goers should arrive early to the 13hr dance-til-ya-drop event for a special 3-hour CityDeep Session with Halo, David Harness and Brendon Boden and stay late for a DJ set with Moniker. Favorite playing on the indoor/outdoor stages throughout the day include Cali, Chris Smith, Galen,
Marissa Guzman, Miss Watkins & DJ4AM, M3, Adnan, Fil Latorre, Little John,
Michael Anthony, Sammy D and Solar! So what are you waiting for? Get your discounted pre-sale tickets today!
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Updates from Our Friends: SOIL's Continued Efforts in Haiti
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We wanted to bring you an update from an organization close to the NextAid family that has been
committed to helping the people of Haiti on the ground since 2004. Sustainable
Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) was founded in order to protect soil
resources, empower communities, and transform wastes into resources in Haiti. Like NextAid, SOIL believes that the
path to sustainability is through integrated approaches to the problems of poverty, poor public health,
agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction. Since the January 12th
earthquake, SOIL has been working tirelessly to improve the quality of living
for Haitians affected by the earthquake by providing them with clean water and
food, distributing temporary shelters, and ensuring that people have access to
medicine and hygiene kits. Furthermore, they have been continuing their
sanitation work by implementing ecological sanitation systems in camps
throughout Port-au-Prince. While the earthquake may seem like the distant past,
there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. To help Haiti rebuild,
please make a donation to our friends at SOIL. |
A Message of Extreme Gratitude from NextAid's Director
| I have been reflecting a lot about how incredibly valuable our supporters are to me, to us at NextAid and to our beneficiaries. We are so fortunate to have practically an army of volunteers and supporters across the world behind us every single day.
A few weeks ago, 2
tragedies occurred to members of the extended NextAid family within one week. Two incredibly giving young men, both just in their 40's, passed away from health conditions, totally unexpectedly. Lee Sloca and Selwyn Schachat literally dedicated their lives
to helping others and its totally unfair and cruel that they've been taken away from the all the people who loved them.
Lee had been volunteering off and on with NextAid over the last several years, he recently hosted Agasto (from the Kawagware project) when he came to visit in December. He was an awesome poet and poured his heart into using poetry to help at-risk youth in Los Angeles and beyond. He dreamed of going to Kenya to work with our partners there. We will be sending a book of his work to the youths to honor him. Our sympathies go out to his family, friends, and all the people that he helped that are feeling this great loss.
Selwyn
supported NextAid in enormous ways in our early days, helping us raise
funds for our pilot project in South Africa, where he's from. Selwyn exemplified the meaning of selflessness. His passion, beyond his family, friends, and South Africa, was music. He recently produced a song for the World Cup and asked NextAid to collaborate on an remix and event. We never got the chance to sit down and discuss the next steps. We are currently looking for remixers who want to make a track in his memory. Our hearts go out to his wife, 2 little kids, and the rest of the Schachat family.
I would like to take this time to express my deepest gratitude to
people like you who have invested their time, money, and energy into
supporting me and our work. Its because of your dedication that NextAid has
been able to create tangible and lasting change in the lives of African
youth.
Much love -
Lauren
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