Who wants to hablar en espanol conmigo? jaja

Dear Molly:

Congratulations! You have been selected to receive a 2008-09 Wisconsin Idea Undergraduate Fellowship (WIF) for your proposal, “Building Leadership Capacity in the Latino Community through Grassroots Organizing.” Please notify me as to your acceptance of this fellowship by Wednesday, March 26th.

A big part of this project is interviewing Spanish-speaking immigrants...in Spanish.

Quien quiere practicar conmigo? En serio!

I don't mind that you are holding my hand

Check out exploding dog for more entertaining pictures. You come up with the title, and he draws the picture.

So I'm a feminist, do you want to talk about it?

This post was sparked by this post from Danielle who is doing fabulous things in DC with an amazing organization!

Last year I took a class called SEED (students seeking educational equity and diversity). On the first day we played a game called "step into the circle if." Which works as you would imagine, someone in the middle states something about themselves by saying "Step into the circle if," and everyone who identifies in that way steps into the circle.

Our class was made up of primarily women (in a class of about 20 I think there were 6 males). When someone said, "Step into the circle if you are a feminist," every single woman in the room and one man stepped into the circle, besides me and one other woman. I was surprised by this, but I had such an aversion to the word "feminist."

As that day's class went on and we talked about issues that women face, I noticed that I was one of the people getting most heated about these issues. I was unmoving on what rights I thought ALL women deserve, the equality we deserve, and steps that need to be taken to change the "status quo" of women in society.

I suddenly realized that I was a feminist, that I am a feminist. Because feminism is not about waging a war against men, in fact it has nothing to do with men at all. It's about declaring my value as a human being on this planet.

I think it's easy to say (especially in the United States) that equality is increasing, discrimination in the workplace isn't happening anymore, etc. Regardless of whether or not this is true, there are still issues to tackle:

"I had no concept of what female leadership looked like outside of AIESEC and no concept of what working with a group of women more talented, successful and ambitious could be like."
-Danielle

This is not an uncommon occurrence. Women everywhere are making it to their mid-twenties, mid-forties, until the day they die, without ever seeing women in successful leadership roles, much less groups of women leaders affecting positive change. This is not to say that it's not happening, it just certainly needs to become more visible. Seeing reflections of ourselves in these types of leaders will spark new ambition and aspirations. It should also become more visible so women couldn't miss these role models if they wanted to, otherwise we could make it through our entire lives missing out on something that we didn't even know we were missing out on. And I don't mean that every single woman needs to see a positive role model and then want to start a feminist revolution...women should choose whatever is right for them. But by presenting all parts and opportunities of the female existence, I think we will begin to facilitate a clearer road to equality.

Not exactly the help we were looking for

I planned an International CV writing workshop through the career services center on campus for @er's from Madison who are going on exchange. Good you think, right? Everyone DOES need an international CV to enter the online system. Theoretically good, yes.

I knew it was going to be a really good workshop when within the first 10 minutes he said: "You've got to be aware of where you're applying, think of what language they would want to be reading your resume in. For example, did you know that not everyone in Brazil speaks Spanish? Some of them speak Portuguese there." [leans forward and does the widest smile, the kind that's so wide your eyes have no choice but to shut, holds for 2 seconds, and then moves on]

I could have let that go if he didn't show us the Euro Graduate website and proceed to talk about how you apply for something in France forever, after I explicitly had told him (when we were setting this up) that our @er's rarely to never go to Western Europe. I also told him that we didn't need help writing resumes, just converting resumes into CVs...he talked about writing resumes for 50 out of 60 minutes.

This year, mainly through @ endeavors, has made me realize that one of the things that I absolutely hate the most is when something someone else is doing is a poor reflection on me. I'm sure everyone in the audience was thinking, "What the heck Molly, did you not tell this guy ANYthing about what we're about or what we do or what we need help with?"

When I did tell him, he apparently chose not to listen. So I was sitting in the audience, frowning on the inside, thinking I wanted to tell everyone that they could just go if they didn't want to stay.

My apologies go out to everyone who spent 7-8 pm last night in the CV writing workshop.

Does anyone have any legitimately good resources on writing an international CV?

Que pasa en el mundo hoy?

What happened in the world today?



After the intense week that followed the FARC killing across the border of Ecuador, and then Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nicaragua cutting off diplomatic ties with Colombia, things are looking up.

The singer Juanes said he was offering to give a free concert on the border between Venezuela and Colombia.

"Como colombiano quiero extender mi mano derecha a todos mis hermanos ecuatorianos y mi mano izquierda a mis hermanos venezolanos" (As a Colombian I want to extend my right hand to all of my Ecuadorian brothers and my left hand to all of my Venezuelan brothers)

And soon enough, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela ended their border crisis at a summit, and broadcasted all 3 presidents shaking hands on television across Latin America.

Ojala que things keep improving!

An Ideal World = or ≠ A Perfect World?

My gears are still turning after a conversation (ok, gchat, oh the digital divide, but a subject enough for another post) with this cat.

Our conversation weaved through a multitude of topics including: white privilege, the "self-made man," being a product of our environments, ability, opportunities, affirmative action, the idea of a level playing field-and the inability to actually create one.

I am an idealist. I would prefer not to admit defeat. In my ideal world all of the children are fed, housed, and educated, and living in loving families. I had been constantly striving towards this ideal with the belief that I could make progress on it in my lifetime, and that it was achievable in generations to come. But what if the existence of our free society as we know it is dependent upon this very goal never coming to fruition?

Adam: "Because if everyone had the same opportunities how would our society function? Who would choose to serve you McDonald's if everyone had the chance to go to college? Who is going to say I have a college degree and I'm going to be a janitor?"




"Unless we change our society and live in a commune, which people tried in the 1970s in the hippie era, and failed. Communism tried it too, Marxism failed. Democratic capitalism rules the day, and requires the 'have-nots' and the haves."


That's a sad realization to come to: that if we make the progress that everyone hopes for (that I hope for), when functioning to the highest degree, we would eventually have to raise people to be have-nots in order for our society to keep working. Which means we would essentially have to choose who deserved to be a have-not. But this ideal world is all based upon the fact that no one has to be a have-not.

Is the solution to this counting on our social service programs failing so that people will slip through the cracks, and we don’t have to force them down into them? Or, modern day example: preaching strict immigration laws and then selectively reinforcing (or not reinforcing) them to fill the positions that the American society does not want.

Adam: "Let's say that the world was perfect, is that desirable? What would we fight for? What would we believe in?"

"And what is "perfect" is a man made construction, in many ways nature works perfectly, even though things die and suffer and starve, it works perfectly. We add the "moral" component of right and wrong, thus nature might be ideal right now, but not for us.
That's why the two questions are:
1) is an ideal world possible?
and 2) is an ideal world desirable?"

I said: Well, I think because we're human it's impossible, but I guess that makes me wonder if the fight is futile and worthless then, because I don't think it could actually occur. Ultimately, I wouldn't want a perfect world.

Adam: "But you might want a better one. And that's what you fight for, and you realize that it's the fight that you enjoy, and the fight that is worth it, not the destination."

"If everything was perfect and you were happy all the time you would be bored out of your fucking mind."

Yes, I would.

I’m still trying to decide if this is a sad realization I’ve just come to, or an enlightening one, or both. What do y’all think?

Man it’s been a rough week: coming to the realization that I can’t save the world, and not even so much that I can’t, but just that even if I could I wouldn’t want to AND that maybe the best place for all of these efforts isn’t in the nonprofit sector…and I’m majoring in nonprofit management (and community development!), but still, I’ve got some thinking to do.

I Spy: So many things wrong with this picture

Santos, speaking on television today, said 16 other [FARC] rebels, including Reyes' female partner, were killed when Colombian planes fired upon the camp in Ecuador from within Colombian airspace.
-bloomberg.com

Really? You shot over the country lines but then entered afterwards to retrieve the body? Really? This sounds more like a game of capture the flag. The conflict of facts on this particular subject is evidenced in all of the news articles. I think it also begs the question: Why is there never clear information released from any party when it is a matter of the Colombian government and the FARC—it makes it difficult to pick a side, or find legitimacy on either side.

I don’t know that I would call the attack “fair play” as far country borders go, however I do believe that:

Colombian officials have long complained that Ecuador's military does not control its sparsely populated border and has not tried to remove rebel camps.
-CBS

If Ecuador is not going to monitor it’s borderlands, and instead has let the FARC set up shop, wreaking havoc in Colombia from Ecuador, I don’t think that qualifies it as a neutral zone.

Chavez called the Colombian government "a terrorist state" as he sided with the leftist rebels it has battled for decades, saying its military "invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador's sovereignty."
-CBS

Chavez is legitimately crazy. When I was in Colombia (summer 2007), if Colombians were gathered in a public area anywhere for longer than 10 minutes, someone would inevitably yell “Fuck Chavez!” I think they were on to something.

The slaying of Reyes and 16 other guerrillas, Chavez said, "wasn't any combat. It was a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated."
-CBS

Clearly the intention was to kill these FARC members, would combat have improved the situation? Were you looking for an epic battle scene?

Chavez interrupted his program Sunday for a moment of silence in honor of the slain rebels.
"We pay tribute to a true revolutionary, who was Raul Reyes," Chavez said later, recalling he had met rebel in Brazil in 1995 and calling him a "good revolutionary."
-CBS

A true revolutionary…the same one who:

Colombia's prosecutor's office said Reyes was wanted in connection with more than 120 different criminal processes, including 60 charges of murder and four for kidnapping.

President Hugo Chavez ordered tanks and thousands of troops sent to Venezuela's border with Colombia on Sunday, accusing his neighbor of pushing South America to the brink of war and saying his government's embassy in Bogota will be closed.
-CBS

Chavez actually threatened war if a similar occurrence would take place along the Colombian-Venezuelan border. It seems like Chavez likes the prospect or idea of war…he is legitimately crazy.

It is also rumored that Ecuador is going to send troops to their border with Colombia. It is already nearly impossible for the majority of Colombians to leave their country because of the country’s regulations; they don’t need more border reinforcement. And what will happen when people who have been displaced because of the violence of the FARC show up at the border to escape it (as thousands already have), will the border controls from Venezuela and Ecuador send them back?

His death is likely to intensify a struggle for power within the half-century-old peasant movement to overthrow the government, said former Colombian President Ernesto Samper.
-bloomberg.com

This issue is so complex and has so many parts of it that are unexplainable, I wish there was some solution at hand for mi pais. I think the fact that this conflict is a half-century old with the FARC definitely speaks to how far off course they are today. The FARC was initially established as the military arm of the Colombian Communist Party. Today they are a left-wing guerilla, recognized as a terrorist organization by many, and in control of 15-20% of Colombian territory. They started to out to protect the disadvantaged, and now their violence has driven millions out of their homes, I would argue creating more disadvantages. I have friends whose land was taken over by the FARC, I don’t know why they think that would help in the creation of equal opportunity for all citizens. The FARC was also established to take action against a government who was not providing equal opportunities for all of its citizens. The government has taken huge strides in the time since the FARC was established, now making public education, healthcare, public works projects, and social improvement efforts at the top of their agenda. Success has manifested itself differently across the country, but I would argue that Medellin is it’s best example (which I will write more about in a future post).

After years of debating how to assess the government's response to the displaced, government findings presented early this month revealed -- quite amazingly -- that more than 80 percent of displaced people in Colombia now have access to health care and education. Eighty-one percent of newborns to children 7 years old have received all their required vaccinations, and 86 percent between 5 and 17 regularly attend school.
-Washington Post (y que bonita: http://www.ligademujeres.org/)

After all of this, I still know that there is a lot of corruption and scandal in the Colombian government that is not just related to the FARC. The FARC also inspired the AUC and other right-wing paramilitaries, who were partly created to protect themselves from the FARC. With a right-wing agenda there is often overlap between the government and the paramilitaries that can spur collaboration between the two, or cause the government to turn a blind eye to the injustices of the paramilitaries. However, taken for face value the government should theoretically be opposing both the paramilitaries and the guerillas. Instead they sometimes collaborate with one and fight the other, while the two are constantly fighting…makes for an unproductive situation.

Ay. It will be interesting to see what happens.

for-profit philanthropy, an oxymoron?

My issue has always been the lack of “mission-based management” in for-profit businesses. I feel like it’s so easy to forget what you were originally fighting for, when the end goal is money, and not what you are fighting for. I also think that when people elect to work in the nonprofit sector, which generally means lower wages, they’ve elected to work for and are dedicated to the cause.

So, I’m worried about people losing sight of the mission. The funny part is, I don’t believe in altruism either, at least in the strict sense. I think for everything you do there is a motive lying somewhere, and it’s better to define it before you begin.

Example: When I spent last summer volunteering in Colombia did I want to help? Yes.
But...
Did another part of me also want to learn Spanish? Yes.
Did another part of me want to grow my personal network, skills, and resume? Yes.
Did another part of me want to explore the world? Yes.
Did another part of me want to experience the foreign factor? No. (I didn’t actually know that much about it before I left, it was an added bonus once I arrived)

So was it selfless? No.

This article, A Capitalist Jolt for Charity, in the NYT made me question my normal “nonprofit or bust” mentality.

I can’t deny the facts: “Very few nonprofits get big. Only 144 of the more than 200,000 nonprofits established since 1970 had grown to $50 million or more in revenue by 2003.”

But I still worry that “outside investors raise the risk that the original social ideals will be lost in a single-minded pursuit of profit.”

Epals is a for-profit business that is providing amazing tools for education. I had to call my sister, who is a 3rd grade teacher, right away to tell her about the site when I discovered it, because man I wish that they had the site when I was in school.

I think the for-profit sector definitely has the ability to spur incredible social change, I'm just apprehensive because I've spent so much of my time gearing up for heading straight to the nonprofit sector forever.

Oh, the for/nonprofit conundrum.

So what do all of you guys think: do efforts to improve the world belong in the nonprofit or the for-profit sector? Where will these efforts have the most success?