Activism ignited

Kristi York Wooten wrote about the release of historian Howard Zinn’s new activism-themed documentary, The People Speak, for Newsweek. The People Speak premieres on the History Channel Dec. 13 at 8PM ET.

First Annual Service Fair

Sustenance Group was proud to participate in the Service Fair at Atlanta’s Galloway School December 1. More than 49 organizations were represented, and most of the school’s student body attended, as more than 600 students learned about opportunities to get more involved in their community – and their world. Sustenance Group coordinated participation from ONE, CARE, Water is Life Kenya, Coleccion Luna, Bread for the World, UNICEF and Heifer International. Super teacher Lexi Fields inspired and coordinated the event along with a group of parent volunteers. Read more about her work here.

Monica Tannian teaches students and teachers about Water is Life Kenya

Black Friday Gives Back: The Black Friday Giving Campaign

This holiday season:

Take a stand against useless spending!

Instead of taking all your hard-earned cash to the mall for useless nic-nacs and fuzzy sweaters that no one ever wears, give a gift that gives back!

Join Sustenance Group’s BLACK FRIDAY GIVING CAMPAIGN and kickstart the holiday shopping season NOW with a gift that makes a real impact! Join us on Twitter and Facebook and help spread the word!

Click here to donate to organizations that empower families to lift themselves out of poverty, gain access to clean water and medical care, fight injustice and recover from violence.

The Sustenance Scarf

We’re not in the business of selling goods, but our soft, 100% cotton Sustenance Group scarf emblazoned with our logo and the mantra, “stand up! take action, take a stand against poverty,” is becoming a big hit with our partners and members. Quantities are running short. All profits go CARE. Cost is $20 each. Email us at info@sustenancegroup.org if you’re interested in purchasing one of these limited-edition goodies.

Photo: Alison Church/special to © AJC

Building a NEST

Trunk Show for Microfinance

Kristi York Wooten, Denise Disharoon, Mychael Knight, Amy Flurry (photo by Erin Ashford)

Sustenance Group teamed with fashion designer MYCHAEL KNIGHT, jewelry designer DENISE DISHAROON and guest style editor AMY FLURRY for a fabulous trunk show at Stanton Home Furnishings and Provenance Antiques to benefit NEST, a nonprofit organization that empowers female artists and artisans around the world. Using a unique combination of interest-free microfinance loans, mentoring from established designers, as well as a market in which to sell their crafts, Nest helps its loan recipients create successful small businesses. Nest instills pride of ownership, preserves ancient artistic traditions and successfully moves women from poverty to self-sufficiency. Bella Cucina provided delicious bites and Catamarca Imports let us sample their wonderful wines. And – the best part – every one who came through the door learned something new about the ways microfinance is changing the lives of women around the world!

Lunch with Nick Kristof

The Atlanta Women’s Foundation hosted a luncheon on Thursday, Nov. 12 featuring keynote speaker Nicholas Kristof, who addressed the importance of empowering women around the world to help themselves. Sustenance Group members were there to support the cause! Also onboard: Marsha Wallace, founder of Dining for Women, who received a big surprise 24 hours later when Kristof tweeted about how cool her organization is! (MORE PHOTOS COMING SOON!)

Announcing a NEST Fundraiser November 14

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND TO RSVP!

Launching the Demand Dignity Campaign with Amnesty International

Jared Feuer, Kristi Wooten, Nancy Bauer, Will Cordery © J.R. Ward II Photography

Amnesty International staff members Jared Feuer and Will Cordery hosted a private reception for Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan on October 30, 2009 at the Four Seasons Hotel in midtown Atlanta. Khan’s visit was part of a national tour to promote the launch of Amnesty’s new Demand Dignity Campaign, which puts rights at the center of poverty eradication and seeks equal rights protection for all people.

The intimate gathering was a Who’s Who of Atlanta’s human rights activists, including top-level representatives from The King Center, CARE, the Atlanta Film Festival, the Center for Civil and Human Rights, and other civic and nonprofit groups.

Irene Khan with CNN's T.J. Holmes © J.R. Ward II Photography

Emceed by CNN’s T.J. Holmes, the presentation featured an introduction video by fellow CNN journalists Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, as well as a moderated Q&A with Khan. Khan also talked about and signed copies of her new book, The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights, which exerts the premise that framing poverty in human rights terms will yield concrete and timely results for people grappling with the economic crisis in the US and around the world.

Khan was also interviewed by Holmes on CNN the following morning. Click here for the transcript of that interview. For more information about Amnesty International, click here.

Taking the Walk

Nancy Bauer and Indra Tobias taking the walk

Sustenance Group members and friends joined ONE members at the Georgia Tech campus on Wednesday, October 28 to walk a mile without shoes in support of Hanson’s “Take the Walk” campaign. Every mile walked raises funds that help bring medical care, clean water, education, and shoes to people living in extreme poverty in Africa. Hanson and its fans have logged an impressive 32, 000 miles walked around the world so far! Click here to find out more and to host your own walk or join a scheduled walk.

That same evening, Sustenance Group, CARE and ONE volunteers were invited to be special guests of Hanson at their concert at the Tabernacle in downtown Atlanta. It was a great day of activism and music!

Working toward a Global Fund for Education

Steve Valk, Mary Njoroge, and Ken Patterson

On October 27, 2009 Sustenance Group members Steve Valk and Kristi Wooten met with RESULTS Global Grassroots Manager Ken Patterson and Mary Njoroge (Executive Director of Tracking Education Achievements in Africa and former Director of Basic Education for Kenya’s Ministry of Education) to discuss strategies for promoting legislation that would call for the creation of a Global Fund for Education. The “Education For All” movement is an integral part of the Millennium Development Goal, which seek to ensure that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, those in difficult circumstances, and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete, free, quality, and compulsory primary education.

“The desire to attain an education is strong in the developing world, because the benefits go beyond reading and writing,” Njoroge says. “This is especially true for girls, who often are kept from school because of cultural or religious obstacles or because a lack of resources, such as private latrines, compromises their privacy, hygiene or safety. Children who attend school are more likely to learn how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. The Global Campaign for Education estimates that if every primary school child had access to a classroom, 700,000 cases of HIV could be prevented each year. In 2000, the countries of the world agreed to a goal to provide universal access to education by 2015. Countries like Kenya and others are doing what they can to build better schools and retain more teachers, but they cannot do it alone.”

For more information about how you can become involved in the movement, and to read more of Njoroge’s Op-Ed, click here.

Take a Stand against Poverty featured on CARE site

Read the post here.

Foreign Aid featured in AJC opinion today

Sustenance Group member Greg Sims, Southeast Field Director for Bread for the World, was featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this morning, with an opinion piece about foreign aid:

FOREIGN AID

Time to rethink how we distribute assistance

Professor Charles Raynal (“Support grows to retool foreign aid”, Opinion, Oct. 11) rightly draws attention to the benefits of smarter U.S. foreign assistance: enhanced national security, and better fiscal stewardship. This month’s observance of World Food Day, however, challenges us to rise above self-interest alone. Recent figures confirm that more than one billion people now go to bed hungry.

Strengthening the capacity of USAID to respond to this mounting hunger crisis in flexible, sustainable, and accountable ways would not only serve our own interests, but reflect our best moral impulses to help “the least of these.”

Senators Isakson and Chambliss can lead the way by co-sponsoring S. 1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act .

Greg Sims, Decatur

Click here for the link.

Mango Tree founder Nancy Bauer featured on ONE blog

Sustenance Group Founding Principal Nancy Bauer was featured on the ONE blog today, with a write-up about the 2009 Take a Stand against Poverty event. Click here to read the post.

Nancy Bauer, Kristi York Wooten, Angela Harvey

Galloway School reports on Take a Stand against Poverty

Sustenance Group was featured in a press release from The Galloway School in Atlanta today, referencing our contibution in the 2009 Take a Stand against poverty event. Read the story here.

Hanson features clips from Take a Stand against Poverty

2009 Champion in Philanthropy Award winners, Hanson, featured clips from the Atlanta Take a Stand against Poverty event on their website. Pictured with the band is Sustenance Group’s Kristi York Wooten, who presented the award along with CARE’s Dr. Helene Gayle.

CARE and ONE Take a Stand

Kristi York Wooten, Isaac Hanson, Zachary Hanson, Dr. Helene Gayle, Taylor Hanson (photo by Erin Ashford)

Burundi Drummers (photo by Erin Ashford)

Dr. Thomas Frieden, David Lane, Dr. Helene Gayle, Fredricka Whitfield (photo by Sirpa Horstman)

For the third year in a row, Sustenance Group members have joined with volunteers from CARE and ONE for an awareness event to commemorate the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Each year at this Atlanta event, a team of global health and advocacy experts help get the word out about strides that are being made in the fight against extreme poverty, and audiences are entertained by international musicians. Advocacy and policy are front-and-center, and the CARE Action Network and ONE recruit new members at the event. This year’s program featured new Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Frieden, CARE’s President and CEO, Dr. Helene Gayle, ONE president David Lane, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield. CARE’s Derreck Kayongo gave a rousing call to action and asked the audience to stand up and be counted toward a Guinness World Record goal of more than 116 million people remembering the Millennium Development Goals around the world on October 17.

Atlanta’s Burundi Drummers put on an amazing performance as always, and CARE’s 2009 Champion in Philanthropy Awards were presented to two young women, Megan Maziar and Katherine McKerrow, recent grads of Atlanta’s Galloway School, who were honored for their work to raise $50,000 for the Save Darfur Coalition at a benefit concert in 2009 featuring Collective Soul.

The big surprise – and highlight – of the evening was an award presentation of a 2009 Champion in Philanthropy Award to and performance by the Grammy-nominated band Hanson, who shared songs and stories about their work to bring clean water, shoes, education and medical care to children in Africa. Hanson also talked about the walks they do in conjunction with TOMS shoes in every city on their tour: the band walks one mile without shoes and encourages its fans to do the same. Each mile walked raises money for their work in Africa. (CARE and ONE will walk with Hanson in Atlanta on October 28, for more details, click here.)

Take a Stand against Poverty also featured a CARE microfinance marketplace with goods made by women from around the world, and a seafood buffet donated by Six Feet Under restaurant. This year’s event also featured an opportunity to sign up for Join My Village, a new joint venture between CARE and General Mills which helps support 75 villages in Malawi.

First Annual Sustenance Summit

On Wednesday evening, October 7, representatives from several of Sustenance Group’s partners met to discuss plans for upcoming collaborative efforts, including the December 1 Service Fair Day and World AIDS Day evening event. Partners represented included Mango Tree Foundation, Bread for the World, Amnesty, CARE, ONE, Heifer International, Water is Life Kenya, and RESULTS. It was an inspired evening of discussions, a great meal from Shaun’s, and excitement about future events. Stay tuned for upcoming Sustenance Group gatherings and opportunities to volunteer.

The big shout-out

U2 played Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on Tuesday, October 6, and when the band took the stage, they were greeted by a huge crowd inside the circle, many wearing CARE’s signature-themed T-shirts with the phrase, “I am powerful.” Many ONE volunteers worked throughout the day to sign up hundreds of new members, and were rewarded with a chance to go onstage wearing their Auung San Sui Kyi masks.Near the end of the show, Bono gave a huge shoutout to CARE!

“One” was a highlight.

CARE launches Join My Village at the Clinton Global Initiative

Dr. Helene Gayle onstage at CGI with President Bill Clinton

New York – The second day of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) came to a close with a special session that focused on harnessing innovation for development.

“Innovation can mean a new business model, a new technology, or a new way of delivering services to the poor,” President Clinton said. “No matter the form it takes, innovation is key to the challenges that face our world. There are so many people around the world we have yet to reach – we must find new ways to develop and implement innovative solutions on a massive scale.”

President Clinton convened the special session on Investing in Girls and Women by announcing new commitments fueled by innovation, including a new project called Join My Village, which features Sustenance Group Director Kristi York Wooten as a Village Team Leader.

General Mills and Dr. Helene Gayle, CEO of CARE launched “Join My Village” to tap the power of online communities to connect women in the U.S. with families in Malawi, igniting a new level of consumer education and involvement. Ongoing reports from the field will enable consumers to participate in the lives of some of the poorest women and girls in Africa. The roject features 10 villages in Malawi but ultimately raises funds and supports 75 CARE Malwai projects.

Conversations with the Carters

Last night, Sustenance Group Director Kristi Wooten attended the annual Carter Center town-hall-style meeting with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. The primary focus of the event was to discuss recent activities by the Carter Center, which is involved in promoting peace, human rights, and disease eradication in dozens of countries around the world.

The event made international headlines for a remark that former President Carter made about South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s recent outburst during an Obama address. See the video here.

Take A Stand Against Poverty

For the third year in a row, Sustenance Group is proud to partner with CARE and ONE to present this annual event in commemoration of the UN’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty:

CLICK HERE to reserve your tickets today!

First Annual Sustenance Summit in Atlanta this October

Sustenance Group is proud to announce its first annual Sustenance Summit, October 7, 2009 at 7 PM in downtown Atlanta. This event is not open to the public. However, there is no cost to register and invited Sustenance partners, members, and their guests may RSVP to info@sustenancegroup.org through September 30, 2009. (Food and beverage will be available ala carte at a reasonable price per person. Once you RSVP, location will be emailed to you.)

Paul Farmer speaks at grand opening of Heifer Village

Little Rock, AR – Several hundred people (including Sustenance Group Director Kristi Wooten) gathered for the dedication of Heifer Village at the Murphy Keller Education Center on the Heifer International Campus in downtown Little Rock today. In bright morning sunlight on a small stage, Heifer International Board of Directors Immediate Past Chair Charles Stewart welcomed guests and introduced Mayor Mark Stodola and Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, who praised the local community for supporting the NGO and “keeping it close to home.”

Partners in Health founder and internationally-renowned physician Paul Farmer gave the keynote address, in which he stressed the importance of partnerships – local, regional, national and international – “to break the cycle of poverty and disease.” “A vulcanized approach will not work,” he said. “We should look at partners as family,” he continued, “And we must be from the same family tree.”

The village, housed in a modern building (green design and construction, of course), consists of exhibits, meeting spaces, educational resources, and store – all of which educate the visitor about Heifer’s mission to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. Truly worth a visit if you’re ever near Little Rock.

For more information, visit http://www.heifer.org/

The aid debate continues …

Read Moyo’s Dead Aid? Fan of Jeffrey Sachs’ school of thought? Think William Easterly is a smart cookie? Join the conversation with Sustenance Group Director Kristi Wooten on HuffPo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristi-york-wooten/the-sachs-moyo-easterly-a_b_210473.html

Mango Tree Foundation event brings in more than 200% of fundraising goal

June 1, 2009 was a great day for Mango Tree Foundation and Sustenance Group. The “Chicks for Chicks” event exceeded all expectations! An amazing group of more than 120 women gathered to learn about the women of Yo Mujer in Bogota, Colombia. The Yo Mujer project helps internally-displaced women who’ve experienced violence because of the drugs and terrorism in the countryside and have been forced from their homes with their children, frequently with only the clothes on their backs. The capacity crowd enjoyed an empowering and unforgettable singing performance by Change Rocks Foundation’s Yewande Austin, bid on silent auction items, and nibbled on delicious food including Jake’s “HOT CHICKS” ice cream. At the end of the evening, Mango Tree Foundation founders Nancy Bauer and Lynn Patterson reported that receipts totaled more than twice the amount of the evening’s goal! Attendees were pleased to find out that the event had absolutely no overhead costs, thanks to generous donations from the proprietors at Paper Mill Village!

Stay tuned for more updates about Mango Tree and new events produced by Sustenance Group.

Visit http://mangotreefoundation.org for more details.

photo of Nancy Bauer by Sirpa Horstman

photo of Lynn Patterson by Sirpa Horstman

photo of Yewande Austin by Sirpa Horstman

ONE blog supports Senator Isakson’s statements about Africa as “the continent of the 21st century.”

http://www.one.org/blog/2009/05/20/at-the-hill-at-the-right-time/

In defense of celebrity philanthropy …

Millennium Village Mama - photo courtesy of the Earth Institute at Columbia University

Knowing that John Legend and Jeffrey Sachs were teaming for the first annual benefit dinner for the Show Me Campaign in New York this week prompted Sustenance Director Kristi York Wooten to write this blog about celebrity philanthropy in the Huffington Post.

June 1 event to benefit Mango Tree Foundation’s Yo Mujer project: NOW FEATURING YEWANDE AUSTIN!

Heading to the HILL with CARE

Several Sustenance Group members participated in the CARE National Conference and Celebration this week in Washington, DC. It was a great time for advocacy, and we met with Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), among many others, about three key issues: hunger and food aid, preventing child marriage worldwide, and addressing global climate change.

Check out the week’s events on CARE’s site and for the ONE blog.

Here’s a video of Isakson talking about his support of CARE:

Bringing clean water to Africa

Sustenance Group is pleased to announce a partnership with Water Is Life Kenya. The new project includes an educational component that kicks off with a pilot program at Atlanta private schools in August, 2009 and will culminate in a concert event in spring of 2010 to raise funds for new wells.

For more information about how you can donate your time or services, contact us at info(at)sustenancegroup(dot)org.