The Big Official Announcement of What I'll Be Up To
A lot of you have heard this from one corner or another, or caught vague mutterings from my journal about "Tanzania" or "2Seeds" or what have you. But now I am finally writing the entry in which all becomes clear!
So as I've probably mentioned, I've graduated from St. John's with a shiny liberal arts degree. I've come slightly closer to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up; I know that I want to get people excited about great ideas and organizations that do good work. I want to be a liason between other people and really awesome things that they could benefit from and enjoy.
There are more traditional routes to gaining the experience needed to do that for a living- public relations internships, etc- but in the end what I got really excited about was being a Project Coordinator for the 2Seeds Network, which is a nonprofit in its third year of running small, efficient, and effective development projects in rural Tanzania. Their goal is to improve food and income security at a grassroots level, and their philosophy is one of personal responsibility, sustainability, and teamwork.
I was basically hooked when I learned that they meant to 'teach a man to fish' (as opposed, of course, to the less sustainable method of giving him a fish, which leaves him hungry and bereft the very next day.) They do this by leveraging the resources that are already present, but disconnected and underused, to build lasting infrastructure at a community level. These resources are, for the most part, the people of Tanzania; so the catalyst for any change must be a human one. That's where I and the other Project Coordinators come in. Each team of 2-3 Project Coordinators is assigned to a small village around the town of Korogwe, and they collaborate with each other and the people of the village to create, implement, and run their own development project.
I am so excited about this! The kind of things I loved to do at St. John's- putting research together, working with people, getting others excited about ideas- will have immediate and tangible results here. One of the things I learned about myself over the past four years is that I'm kind of ambitious, and this definitely makes my ambition happy. I can't think of anything... realer? I think that's the word I'm looking for- that I could do straight out of college; I will actually be in charge of something, and making a difference in the world.
I’ll be leaving for Tanzania within the first two weeks of August. In the meantime, I'll be learning Swahili, studying development theory and agricultural terms, starting up our social media sites (Kijungumoto Project on Facebook, Kijungumoto Project on Twitter) and fundraising the $6,000 that I will need to sustain myself and my project for 9 months in Tanzania.
One of the reasons I must raise all of that money myself is that I am not being paid for my efforts; all the Project Coordinators are volunteers. However, there are more important reasons I am in charge of all of my own fundraising. Fundraising accustoms me to identifying and maintaining support networks, much like the ones I will be building in Kijungumoto. And keeping donors updated on their investments trains me to be accountable to all the people who may invest in my project and my work, whether those people are investing money, goods, or other things of value, such as their time or reputations. Lastly, it gives the people I know a way to continue to be involved in my life, as my posts on the project website/Facebook/Twitter are likely to outnumber my livejournal entries! However, I will make an attempt to post to livejournal, too- it will likely be slightly more personal/less formal than what I post on the official website.
If you would like to support me and the work I’ll be doing, I invite you to make a tax-deductible donation of any amount (2Seeds is a 501(c)(c) public charity) to the Kijungumoto Project. You can do so via the 2Seeds website (http://2seeds.org/donate ; put Kijungumoto Project: Attn: Kelly Trop) or by a check made out to "2Seeds Network, Inc. PO Box 3196 Washington, DC 20010" with "Kijungumoto Project - Attn: Kelly Trop" in the subject line. I know I've never met some of you in person, but I count you just as much among my friends and supporters as people I know IRL. However, this is a chance for you to enter my 'real life'- as well as the real lives of everyone in Kijungumoto, Tanzania.
Anyway, regardless of whether you donate or not, please consider following my progress and my project as it unfolds at http://www.2seeds.org/kijungumoto/, which will be the central hub for finding official text and multimedia updates from August to April!
/soapbox
So as I've probably mentioned, I've graduated from St. John's with a shiny liberal arts degree. I've come slightly closer to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up; I know that I want to get people excited about great ideas and organizations that do good work. I want to be a liason between other people and really awesome things that they could benefit from and enjoy.
There are more traditional routes to gaining the experience needed to do that for a living- public relations internships, etc- but in the end what I got really excited about was being a Project Coordinator for the 2Seeds Network, which is a nonprofit in its third year of running small, efficient, and effective development projects in rural Tanzania. Their goal is to improve food and income security at a grassroots level, and their philosophy is one of personal responsibility, sustainability, and teamwork.
I was basically hooked when I learned that they meant to 'teach a man to fish' (as opposed, of course, to the less sustainable method of giving him a fish, which leaves him hungry and bereft the very next day.) They do this by leveraging the resources that are already present, but disconnected and underused, to build lasting infrastructure at a community level. These resources are, for the most part, the people of Tanzania; so the catalyst for any change must be a human one. That's where I and the other Project Coordinators come in. Each team of 2-3 Project Coordinators is assigned to a small village around the town of Korogwe, and they collaborate with each other and the people of the village to create, implement, and run their own development project.
I am so excited about this! The kind of things I loved to do at St. John's- putting research together, working with people, getting others excited about ideas- will have immediate and tangible results here. One of the things I learned about myself over the past four years is that I'm kind of ambitious, and this definitely makes my ambition happy. I can't think of anything... realer? I think that's the word I'm looking for- that I could do straight out of college; I will actually be in charge of something, and making a difference in the world.
I’ll be leaving for Tanzania within the first two weeks of August. In the meantime, I'll be learning Swahili, studying development theory and agricultural terms, starting up our social media sites (Kijungumoto Project on Facebook, Kijungumoto Project on Twitter) and fundraising the $6,000 that I will need to sustain myself and my project for 9 months in Tanzania.
One of the reasons I must raise all of that money myself is that I am not being paid for my efforts; all the Project Coordinators are volunteers. However, there are more important reasons I am in charge of all of my own fundraising. Fundraising accustoms me to identifying and maintaining support networks, much like the ones I will be building in Kijungumoto. And keeping donors updated on their investments trains me to be accountable to all the people who may invest in my project and my work, whether those people are investing money, goods, or other things of value, such as their time or reputations. Lastly, it gives the people I know a way to continue to be involved in my life, as my posts on the project website/Facebook/Twitter are likely to outnumber my livejournal entries! However, I will make an attempt to post to livejournal, too- it will likely be slightly more personal/less formal than what I post on the official website.
If you would like to support me and the work I’ll be doing, I invite you to make a tax-deductible donation of any amount (2Seeds is a 501(c)(c) public charity) to the Kijungumoto Project. You can do so via the 2Seeds website (http://2seeds.org/donate ; put Kijungumoto Project: Attn: Kelly Trop) or by a check made out to "2Seeds Network, Inc. PO Box 3196 Washington, DC 20010" with "Kijungumoto Project - Attn: Kelly Trop" in the subject line. I know I've never met some of you in person, but I count you just as much among my friends and supporters as people I know IRL. However, this is a chance for you to enter my 'real life'- as well as the real lives of everyone in Kijungumoto, Tanzania.
Anyway, regardless of whether you donate or not, please consider following my progress and my project as it unfolds at http://www.2seeds.org/kijungumoto/, which will be the central hub for finding official text and multimedia updates from August to April!
/soapbox