Gaia Community: Jeff's Blog

A video worthy of 8 min of your time

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:41:09 GMT

You all know that I am the founder of Humanitas WorldWide and all of the members came together through Zaadz / Gaia. If you have read any of my blogs, you know I have a heart for those who suffer daily in extream poverty. This video I just viewed, tells it all

http://www.projecthonduras.com

You'll see in the 8 minutes it takes to view the video that water is the key to everything.

I will be traveling to Hoinduras later this year. I would love to take you with me. There is much to do in Central America. They are our brothers and sisters to the south and they need our help.

Pax

Jeff

Tags: Honduras, water filtration, clean water

A Roadside Memorial

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:39:23 GMT

I was on the road today and I passed by this roadside memorial.

Roadside Memorial

What was unusual about this memorial was the shoes. So many pairs of what looks like new shoes. Many still had the barcode tags on them. Up in one of the tree branches was a Costco name tag belonging to Tiffini. Was she the departed one in the photo? Surrounding the photo of the departed one was more Costco ID's from Jeannie, Robbie, Letty, Susan, Ryan, Raymond and others. Why shoes?

Tags:

A low cost solar system for developing nations.

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:20:22 GMT

This afternoon, I finished the assembly of this 30 watt, portable solar system.

Portable Solar System

It may not seem like much, but for people in developing nations, it's a miracle.

We completely forget about just how important electric power is. Without it you can not power up:

A computer
Cell phone
Any phone
Refrigerator
Microwave
Lights
TV's
DVD Players
Hair Dryer
Washer and Dryer
Dishwasher
Radio
Playstation
XBox
Game Cube
PSP
Nintendo DS
Digital Camera
Video camera
Coffee machine
Toaster
Air Conditioning
Room fan
Need it go on?

Four billion people on Earth live in poverty. Many of these people have never had electricity in their "homes".

Think for a moment what it would be like to have no electricity in your home. It happened to me the last two summers, when we lost power for 4 days, due to the extreme heat that caused everyone to turn on the air conditioners and blow up a transformer. We baked in a silent home and watched the food in the powerless refrigerator, spoil.

This portable solar system will provide light where there has never been any before. It will power a radio so people can hear what is going on in their own country. It can power a sewing machine so a woman can have a home based business. It can power a portable DVD player with educational DVD's that may be the only source of education a child may ever have. It could power a water well pump.

What you see are two, 15 watt solar panels, delivering 30 watts of power. Attached to the solar panels is a charge controller and a small battery. The solar system is powering the radio / lantern, seen in the photo.

So how much did it cost to build?

135 McChicken sandwiches
61 Cups of Starbucks House Blend Coffee
15 Movie tickets
13 fast food combos for 2

You can help bring a miracle to a family that has never had electricity, for a small sacrifice.

I can order a 40 foot container load of solar panels and batteries and have them shipped directly to Central America, where we can install the systems and give these people a jump start out of poverty.

I can't do it alone...

Tags: Solar Power, Humanitas WorldWide, Poverty reduction

The 5/25 Problem and why the World Hates Us

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:21:27 GMT

I have heard many times that the USA population is about 5% of the global population. We represent 5% of humanity and it's been said that we consume 25% of the Earth's resources. I don't have a hard core citation to prove this is true, I only have a gut feeling that this is very true.

Tonight I decided to personalize this. I have a 9-year old son, so to make it personal, consider this:

We place 100 nine year old kids in a line
The first 5 kids (the USA) gets 5 bottles of water each
The next 75 kids get one bottle of water each
The remaining 20 kids get no water.

The 20 kids that get no water, get to die.

This makes me want to puke. No wonder many throughout the world hates us.

Everyone in the world wants to come to the USA to be just like us. The problem is, our model of excessive consumption and waste is not a good model to adopt. 50,000 people die every day from starvation and preventable illness, while we stress out over what color our new SUV should be, or how big the HDTV should be. It's wrong...just wrong.

Tags: Poverty, Compassion, Morality

One more tale of frustration from both sides of the picture

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:50:56 GMT

I just read this story and it clearly spells out the problem we have of not helping those less fortunate in their own countries.

Mother enters USA illegally
Mother is deported
Mother turns around and walks 3,000 miles back to the USA
Mother is caught and deported again

There is plenty of hatred for the illegal aliens in the USA. I read about it all the time on other web sites, yet no one who spews their hatred and frustration is willing to do something about it.

We can end this. I read another story of a single mother who worked at a Burger King in Honduras. She and many others were fired without cause and deniged their final paychecks. She has no idea how to pay her $39.00 a month rent. $39.00 is about 8 cups of coffee at Starbucks. If we help these people to get a jump start on life, they will stop thinking about walking 3,000 miles to the USA to find work. I would not have the nerve to walk through Guatamala and Mexico, risking prison for entering the country illegally, but these poor souls do it every day.

Caught in the middle
Immigration laws put focus on treatment of most vulnerable: kids
12:00 AM CST on Saturday, December 8, 2007
By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News
dsolis@dallasnews.com

Mirian Villalobos had plenty going for her. The 25-year-old had a dimpled son, a handsome husband, a new house, and a happy suspicion she was pregnant again.

Then, it unraveled.

On a balmy Sept. 6 in Wilmer, outside Dallas, she was pulled over by the police as she rode on the back of a motorcycle driven by her husband, 30-year-old Juan Espinoza. She was stopped for not wearing a helmet, but a routine check of her record found an arrest warrant. She'd been ordered to report for deportation in 2002.

Caught in the middle: an infant named Kevin Isaac, born a U.S. citizen with a father in the U.S. legally and a mother in the U.S. illegally. Ms. Villalobos was deported.

Unable to bear the separation from her son, now 9 months old, she returned to the U.S. in November and was detained in Arizona.

On Thursday she was deported again to Honduras – without seeing her young son and now six months pregnant, her husband says.

Her story is one echoing through many families with mixed immigration status, as a crackdown on illegal immigrants cleaves communities. There are 3.1 million children in the U.S. with one or two parents without legal immigration status in 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

"This is all so grave," says Mr. Espinoza, perching his son on one arm at a Dallas restaurant. Little Kevin Isaac has his father's deep dimples and his mother's round eyes.Before the first deportation, an attorney for Ms. Villalobos had asked that she be allowed to stay in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. The request was denied by the Dallas regional office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within the Homeland Security Department.

A U.S. citizen child confers no benefits to parents, or a parent who is in the U.S. illegally, except in very rare cases, said Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for ICE. Parents are ultimately responsible, he said.

"Any parent should take into consideration how their decisions to defy our nation's laws will affect their families," Mr. Rusnok said.

On Oct. 4, Ms. Villalobos was deported and flown to Tegucigalpa, the capital of her native Honduras.

As her husband tells it, Ms. Villalobos was left at the airport in a city she didn't know in a Central American country she left as a teenager. Immigration officials gave her a goodbye of "Que se vaya bien" – may it go well for you.

Honduras, with a population of 7.4 million, is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere with a per-capita income of $1,170 per year. In 2006, 20 percent of the economy's gross domestic product came from remittances, the money sent home to Honduras by its emigrants, according to the World Bank.

By comparison, remittances made up only about 3 percent of the GDP of Mexico, a nation of 104 million with a far stronger economy.

A risk for love

Once on Tegucigalpa's streets, Ms. Villalobos begged for money to make a phone call to her husband in Irving. Then, "she risked all," her husband said.

Over the next few weeks, she walked or rode in vehicles across three international borders to get back to her family. She joined a group of other migrants making their way to the U.S. border, and many of those days Ms. Villalobos didn't eat, her husband said. He was especially fearful of her passage through the Sonoran desert of Mexico.

"This is all for the love of her family, for her child, that she would risk so much," he said.

When she reached Arizona, she called her husband.

Ms. Villalobos had been detained by the Border Patrol in Hereford, not far from the international boundary.

She was held in a detention center in Florence, Ariz., as alien #78-930-458, before being deported.And Mr. Espinoza's nightmare replays. His wife is alone in Tegucigalpa without money, without family, and now visibly pregnant.

"I am so afraid that she will try to come again, and now she is so pregnant," Mr. Espinoza said. "We don't have a place to live over there. We have been here a long time now. She is asking for food on the street."

The scope of the crackdown against illegal immigrants in mixed-status families is raising new questions. And many are beginning to question the treatment of the most vulnerable of immigrants: women, pregnant women and their children.

The law and children

So many U.S. citizen children have been affected by deportations and worksite raids that the Urban Institute, a research center in Washington, D.C., is conducting a study to determine the different types of treatment in family courts and criminal courts vs. immigration courts. It was brought on in part by immigration raids a year ago at meatpacking plants in Cactus, Texas, and other locations owned by Swift & Co.

Joseph Hammell, a Minneapolis attorney assisting the Urban Institute, said there were few protections for citizen children caught in an immigration deportation involving parents in the U.S. unlawfully. There are no court-appointed attorneys, for example, he said.

"There is no one really looking out for the child," Mr. Hammell says. "This is one thing that has riled people.

"Our immigration laws seem to be inconsistent with our broader societal issues in terms of protecting children, and that inconsistency needs to be addressed, even if that means moderate reform in the statutes to protect the best interests of children."

The government will allow U.S. citizen children to accompany the parent or parents to their country of origin, says Mr. Rusnok, the ICE spokesman.

Rudy Castillo, Ms. Villalobos' attorney up until the first deportation, acknowledged that Ms. Villalobos' case was a difficult one. "There are more and more cases where there are no remedies or little remedy," Mr. Castillo said. "It depends on their previous run-ins with immigration. Those are all red flags for new relief."

Mr. Castillo didn't bring up the fact that Ms. Villalobos was still nursing her son at the time of her arrest. "What was conveyed to me was that she was in some kind of peril because of a new pregnancy," he said.

Under a 2000 memo reissued by ICE in mid-November, agents were reminded to identify arrestees who are, among other things, single parents of minor children, pregnant women, or nursing mothers.

While in detention, Ms. Villalobos received prenatal medical attention, according to an ICE document.

"All aliens with a final order are removed as long as they are medically cleared to fly," Mr. Rusnok said. "In the case of pregnant detainees, both mother and child are thoroughly evaluated."

Ms. Villalobos never saw her son while she was detained the first time in Haskell, Texas, 200 miles from Dallas, or in Arizona, her husband said. She was able to write a letter, though, in which she told her husband how she wanted to hold her son again.

Groups that want to tighten both legal and illegal immigration are also taking aim at the 14th Amendment, which provides birthright citizenship to children like Kevin Isaac Espinoza.

At Numbers USA, executive director Roy Beck says U.S. citizen children of an illegal immigrant aren't "an anchor" for staying in the U.S. Moreover, Numbers USA wants to change birthright citizenship provisions of the 14th Amendment.

"By federal law, these children have been made citizens," Mr. Beck says. "We, of course, advocate changing those laws."

Mr. Beck adds, "They should go home. They should all go home."

In Irving, the Rev. Pedro Portillo ministers to many Central American immigrant families, some with family members without authorization to be in the U.S. Many families now live in fear because a family member has been deported or may be deported, Mr. Portillo said.

"There are so many people like this," said the Salvadoran-born pastor. "So many are calling me. What are we going to do with so much pain?"

Since the first deportation, Mr. Espinoza has worked sporadically, by choice, as a long-haul truck driver, moving loads destined for Home Depot and Wal-Mart in out-of-state locations. He has work authorization under a provision known as Temporary Protected Status that has covered many Central Americans who fled the 1998 devastation of Hurricane Mitch. That natural disaster took an estimated 11,000 lives.

'I'm so desperate'

Mr. Espinoza cares for his son as best he can. But he says his best isn't nearly enough. He is two months behind on his mortgage payment of $1,127 on a 1,400-square-foot house. The tan house with brick-red trim sits on a street of spectacular pines and oaks. Already, he's received notice that he may lose it.

He leaves his son with a sitter when he is on the road, but the little boy grows sullen with each leave-taking, Mr. Espinoza said.

As little Kevin grows fussy. "Hola, nene" – hi, baby – he says, stroking his apple-cheeked son.

"The baby has suffered so much," he says. "I'm so desperate."

And now Mr. Espinoza must plan his next move. He says he doesn't know exactly what to do yet. He hasn't lived in Honduras for nearly a decade and his wife was gone almost as long.

One thing is certain, though, he says, "I cannot live with my family separated."

Tags: Honduras, poverty, American Dreams

My 100% Solar Powered Radio

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:51:15 GMT

Here is the latest in my quest to design low cost solar power options for the developing world and you too!

Solar Powered Radio

I found these solar panels at my local electronics store. A single panel is not very useful, but when combined with others, they produce enough solar electricity to power this radio. The radio has a hand crank to charge the batteries and a small solar cell on top. I wanted to see if the radio would work on pure solar power, so I did not install the batteries. The radio works fine as long as the panels are in sunlight. Naturally with the batteries installed, the radio would work at night and the solar panels would recharge the batteries the next day.

This may not seem like much, but in developing nations where electricity is not available, this would be seen as a minor miracle. Honduras has a distance learning program for kids in rural areas. The only problem is without solar power, they can not power up a TV or radio so the kids can learn! and you know what happens when kids without and education grow up to be adults without and education.

If there are any Zaadz members that are smarter than me (and I'm sure there are) please consider helping me figure out all this stuff. Humanitas WorldWide has a mission to end poverty and suffering in Central America and it all starts with the basics:

Clean safe water to drink and irrigate crops
Safe, comfortable shelter
Solar, wind and hydroelectric power
Education and health care

An unending cycle of poverty can be broken with very little investment.

Tags: Poverty, Illegal Immigration, Honduras, The American Dream, solar power

Humanitas WorldWide Gift Shop is Open. We need your support

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:01:08 GMT

Humanitas WorldWide has now opened our gift shop. All proceeds will go to change lives and save lives in Central America. We have a line of Seiza meditation benches that make perfect gifts for yourself or a loved one. Seiza benches are made to order and are constructed of hard wood, built to last a lifetime.

http://www.humanitasworldwide.org/html/support1.html

Jackie will be introducing her line of fine jewelry later this week. The gift shop will be growing daily so visit often.

I'm writing this post on my solar powered Apple PowerBook. Solar Power works!

Jeff

Tags: Humanitas WorldWide, solar power, Seiza Bench, poverty

The Beast is Dead

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:22:51 GMT

The Beast is dead. The beast is the rail line that ran from southern Mexico to the US border. It was a freight train that hundreds of people from Central America would risk their lives to jump onto and take a free ride to find a dream in the USA. The beast is no longer in operation, but that does not stop Central Americans from coming here anyway.

Humanitas WorldWide is all about bringing relief to those who are suffering in extreme poverty. We can't do it alone. Please read my blog about Olga Sanchez and why it 's very good news to know the Beast is dead.

End of the line isn't end of their journey

template_bas

The Chiapas-Mayab Railroad in Mexico gave U.S.-bound migrants a shortcut; its closure has left few options.

By Héctor Tobar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 25, 2007

TENOSIQUE, MEXICO -- A freight train once ran through this town near the Guatemalan border. It carried cattle feed, cement and steel. Every day, a hundred or more men and women jumped on its rattletrap cars and hitched a free ride northward.

Few locals miss the train, which stopped operating in July. But for the Central American immigrants who pass through southern Mexico on a desperate, 1,200-mile odyssey to the United States, the line's closure is a disaster of epic proportions.

Map

Small groups of men and women now walk for days along the tracks, carried forward by the false hope that the trains might be running at the next station. A few stop only after walking 100 miles or more. Many more from Central America continue to arrive in Tenosique and other border towns believing that the railroad will soon restart.

"They say the train might start running on Monday," said Pedro Joaquin Rios, 25, from Honduras, as he stood on the rail line one mile outside Tenosique, in eastern Tabasco.

"If it doesn't, the idea is to get to Coatzacoalcos walking," he added, referring to a city about 200 miles away on the Gulf coast.

The absence of the train has led to a local boom in immigrant smuggling. On Thursday, a boat with 26 illegal immigrants, most of them Salvadorans, sank in the Pacific off Oaxaca. By Sunday, 15 bodies had washed up and two survivors had been rescued.

For a generation of Central American migrants, the Chiapas-Mayab Railroad was an essential shortcut on the long journey north to the U.S. border.

After crossing illegally into Mexico,countless migrants were robbed by armed men who stalked the rail lines, and many migrants were maimed or killed falling from the boxcars. In spite of the dangers, Central Americans continue to seek out the trains that no longer run.

Jesus Maldonado, a Catholic priest who runs the independent Tabasco Human Rights Committee, recently met a dozen people who had turned themselves over to police near Chontalpa, Tabasco, after a 180-mile walk on the rail lines in punishing tropical heat. The migrants were treated and then deported.

"They were completely destroyed physically and emotionally," he said. "We always hated the train. But now we see how much worse the suffering is without it."

Built almost a century ago, the Chiapas-Mayab Railroad had long been a rusting anachronism. In its final days, the Mayab line that ran through Tenosique linked the Gulf state of Veracruz to the Yucatan peninsula. The second line, running through the state of Chiapas, was closed after flooding from Hurricane Stan in 2005 damaged or destroyed 70 bridges, rail officials said.

The U.S. company that operated both lines, Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc., announced in June that it was liquidating its Mexican assets due to the poor state of the equipment and the lines and declining freighttraffic.

The shutdown has been widely reported in Central America, but many refuse to believe it.

"They say in the news the train here isn't working, but people think that they're trying to fool us," said Juan Jose, an 18-year-old from Honduras who declined to give his last name. He was spending the night in a Tenosique church before resuming the journey north to Texas. He said he would start out on foot and try to evade the immigration authorities he knew were patrolling outside town.

"People leave Honduras with that dream" of reaching the U.S., he said. "They won't let anyone take that dream away from them."

Human rights workers said as many as 70,000 people jumped on the boxcars in Tenosique each year for a 1,200-mile train and bus journey to the Texas border.

Authorities and human rights workers in the Mexican border states of Tabasco and Chiapas say their efforts to convince people that the trains won't start again soon have been futile.

Without money to pay smugglers, and having traveled too far to turn back, many continue onward on foot with little sense of the obstacles that face them, Rodriguez said. Others hop onto public transportation and are quickly spotted at the numerous immigration checkpoints on the highways.

After the Mayab line through Tabasco stopped running on July 29, as many as 1,500 migrants were stranded in Tenosique for several days. Many camped out near the crumbling station -- until Mexican immigration officials arrived to sweep them out of town.

"The police came and burned down their camp," said Maldonado, the priest.

But migrants continue to trickle into Tenosique. Without trains, their options are few, including paying a local smuggler to get them deeper into Mexico by vehicle. Or they begin what many consider a quixotic trek on foot.

In Tabasco, the migrants walk through a verdant but perilous landscape of snakes and swamps, with newly aggressive Mexican immigration authorities on their heels. Immigrant detentions in Tabasco have doubled in the last two years.

Even though the line that runs along the Pacific coast of Chiapas has been shut since 2005, people are still walking along the tracks there, human rights groups say. Small groups have arrived with bleeding and blistering feet in Arriaga, 150 miles from the Guatemalan border, said Heiman Vazquez, who runs a shelter there.

"We've seen people who've needed emergency treatment for snake bites," Vazquezsaid. "When they get here, they don't have money. Some people look for work. But there are so many people, the pay is very low."

When the train stopped running, more than 1,000 people were stranded in Arriaga. Fewer migrants stop there now. Instead, many pay locals to guide them by foot or vehicle around the checkpoints where Mexican immigration officials stop cars and buses.

"In Tabasco, human rights officials say smugglers are charging $200 for the trip from the Guatemalan border to Villahermosa, the state capital. From there, many migrants try to catch bus rides to Coatzacoalcos, from where northbound trains are still running.

Mexico's train system remains deeply ingrained in Central America's collective psyche as the vehicle of choice for escaping poverty.

For the poorest immigrants in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the train was a kind of "public transportation," a cheap alternative to the $7,000 to $10,000 a smuggler might charge for the journey from El Salvador to a U.S. city, said Jesus Aguilar, director of the Central American Resource Center in San Salvador.

Now the absent train is but one more obstacle in a road filled with them, Aguilar said.

"All of these difficulties have only sharpened the migrants' survival instinct," he said. "They tell themselves, 'If there's 10 walls to jump over, I'll jump over all 10.' "

Such determination was in evidence recently at a downtown Tenosique church, where a group of 15 stranded Hondurans and Salvadorans was resting before continuing along the tracks.

Their journey had already involved long bus trips through Guatemala's Peten rain forest, assorted bribes to Guatemalan police, a jungle boat trip on the Usumacinta River to the largely unguarded Mexican border, and then a two-day walk to Tenosique.

A slight teenager named Orlando Jonathan, who said he was 16 but looked much younger, was on his second attempt to reach the United States. He had been detained a week earlier by Mexican officials after walking 13 miles on the rail line from Tenosique.

"They sent me back to Honduras, and it took me three days to get back here," he said.

"My mother is waiting for me in Los Angeles," he added. He hasn't seen her in eight years.

Mexican immigration officials and police routinely detain migrants on the railroad bridges that lead west from Tenosique, human rights officials say.

One recent afternoon, a reporter and two human rights workers encountered a group of immigrants hiding in the tall grass beside the tracks outside Tenosique. They were trying to elude a state police patrol.

The grass was beginning to cover the rails, leaving only a narrow corridor to walk through.

"I just killed a snake here -- I almost stepped on it," said Oscar Maldonado, 35, after he emerged from hiding with a friend. "There's a lot of mosquitoes here. We're going to get sick."

Moments later, three more young men emerged. And then another, larger group joined them -- about 10 men and women, some of them wet because they had jumped into a nearby swamp to escape the authorities.

"There were 30 of us, but then everyone scattered into the bushes," Maldonado said.

Efrain Rodriguez Leon, a human rights worker, tended to one woman who had cut herself on a rancher's barbed wire fence in the rush to get away. He shook his head.

"They're only three kilometers [nearly two miles] from Tenosique," he said. "And they have 2,000 more to go."

hector.tobar@latimes.com

Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau and special correspondent Alex Renderos in San Salvador contributed to this report.

Tags: Poverty, suffering, depression, Honduras

Our New Logo

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:07:44 GMT

Now that Humanitas WorldWide is an official Non-Profit Corporation, it's time to debut our logo.

Humanitas WorldWide

The three colors do have specific meanings.

Red represents the color of the blood that flows through all living beings, including our brothers and sisters throughout the world that live in poverty and extreme poverty.
Green is the color of a healthy Earth and it is the attitude we must all have. The Earth is our home and we must take better care of her.
Rust represents the imbalance there is among humanity. 20% of the population (as in us of the First World) takes 80% of the Earths resources. There are 6 billion people on Earth and 4 billion live in poverty.

Tags: Humanitas WorldWide, Poverty, Extreme Poverty

It will soon be dark and my neighborhood has no power...

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:14:28 GMT

Except for me!

All the power in the neighborhood just went out about an hour ago. Last summer, on a day about as hot as today, a transformer blew up and we had no electricity for 4 days. We were then on very limited power for about a week thereafter.

I'm writing this blog with my solar powered Apple PowerBook G4. The VOIP phones and the routers are all functional. If I had a bit larger power inverter, I'd turn on the A/C.

This system did NOT cost $20,000.00+. It is not a system that attaches to the grid and causes my meter to run backwards. My investment was about the same as a new laptop PC.

This is the kind of system I developed for use in the Developing World. Two billion people world wide have no electricity whatsoever. We can bring power to people who have never been able to brush their daughter's hair after dark or read a book.

I need your help to make this happen...

Tags: Solar Power, Developing Nations, Third World, Poverty

Humanitas WorldWide Inc. is official

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:57:22 GMT

Yesterday I got the word that Humanitas WorldWide is now an official non profit organization! What started out as only a dream has become a reality. Humanitas WorldWide is 100% powered by Zaadz. Every member of Humanitas is also a Zaadz member.

Now is the time to have all like minded people come together physically or virtually and start living the Zaadz motto to Change the World. The task is mammoth in porportion but the rewards are far greater.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who has supported us up to this point.

Namaste

PS. This blog was written with a 100% solar powered Apple PowerBook G4. Now that is cool!

Tags: Humanitas, Humanitarian, world poverty, Solar Power

Humanitas WorldWide Inc.

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:03:47 GMT

Here's a canvas bag I just made today using a 100% solar powered sewing center.

Solar Powered Sewing Center

The Overlock machine, desk lamp and sewing machine are all solar powered. This test assures me that we can make a difference by employing solar power to power up small businesses in the developing world.

Canvas Tote Bag

The bag is 14" x 10" x 5". We will be offering them to anyone who wants one as a fund raising item.

Tags: Solar Power, Humanitas WorldWide, Poverty reduction

Speaking of that McDonald’s Breakfast Sandwich

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:06:05 GMT

I found this item this morning and it illustrates the point I've been making since we started Humanitas WorldWide, every contribution, no matter how small, can save or change a life for the better.

Fast Food

Speaking of that McDonald’s Breakfast Sandwich

We cross-posted Tom’s last post on the Huffington Post yesterday. Below, he replies to some of the comments he received.

I appreciate the concerns raised about the budget impacts of conquering extreme poverty and global disease. But this relatively small investment can bring amazing returns. Take a look at malaria. Malaria is entirely preventable. A report out of Kenya just yesterday showed that, over the past five years, child deaths from malaria were cut by more than 40 percent. The Kenyans didn’t do anything drastic. They simply were able to buy mosquito netting to stop kids from being bitten. Those nets cost about $5 each. The price of a combo meal at McDonald’s is a pretty small price to save a life.

We have a tradition as Americans of leading the way to solve global problems. This next election is an opportunity to make sure that our next president is committed to this effort. Not only is this the right thing to do, it will make for a more stable world. Do that, and we have a more secure America at home.

Tags: Malaria, poverty, needless death

Social Entrepreneurs

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:08:05 GMT

This was sent to me yesterday. The sender thought this was a good way to define what Humanitas WorldWide is all about. I couldn't agree more. We have a world full of challenges or opportunities, depending on how you look at it. There are either 4 billion people that live in extreme poverty, or there are 4 billion people that are potential global consumers as soon as their standard of living increases a bit more then is is currently. That's a lot of potential customers!

<quote>

A social entrepreneur identifies and solves social problems on a large scale. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value.

Unlike traditional business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs primarily seek to generate "social value" rather than profits. And unlike the majority of non-profit organizations, their work is targeted not only towards immediate, small-scale effects, but sweeping, long-term change.

"Social entrepreneurs identify resources where people only see problems. They view the villagers as the solution, not the passive beneficiary. They begin with the assumption of competence and unleash resources in the communities they're serving."

David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas

Tags: Extreme Poverty, Humanitarian, MDC

Why I want to stop Olga Sanchez's Humanitarian Work

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:43:40 GMT

Olga Sanchez is a wonderful humanitarian in Mexico. I wish she was put out of business.

How she became a humanitarian is unfortunate . The people she serves are victims of "The Beast". The Beast is the train that travels from Southern Mexico to Northern Mexico. Men, women and children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador illegally cross into Mexico and ride the Beast through Mexico on their way to the USA, looking for a better life for themselves and their children

The Beast is a freight train and no passengers are allowed. Passengers must hide in the bushes and when the Beast passes by, they run and jump on board. Most make it, but those who fail, generally fall onto the tracks and loose a leg, an arm, a life.

The Beast

Olga Sanchez takes the injured person home and nurses them back to health as best she can. I want to put her out of business.

Every day, our Brothers and Sisters leave their home countries and head North to the United States where they hope a better life awaits them. Some leave their kids behind to become children of the streets where a life of terror is all they can look forward to.

The only way we can put Olga out of business is to stop the northern migration to the USA. We must bring the dream to them. A dream not of cell phones and fancy cars and shopping malls, but a dream of clean water to drink and fresh food to eat and an education for the kids and stable employment. They come here because they are fresh out of Hope.

We can bring the dream to our Brothers and Sisters in Central America.

I read today a story of people who migrate to Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, looking to take the low paying jobs the Mexicans have left in search of better jobs in the USA. It's a huge shift, Mexicans migrating to the USA by the thousands, looking for a better job and Central Americans migrating into Mexico to take the jobs left behind.

We can stop this...if you are willing to help.

Olga's story is here
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0731/p07s02-woam.html

Tags: Poverty, Humanitarian, Honduras, Central America

Searching For Illusions

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:16:09 GMT

Honduran men on the way to the USA

I read today that the President of Honduras was in Washington D.C. last week. One of the issues he wanted to discuss was the mass deportation of his citizens who are in the USA illegally. This essay below confirms my belief that if we bring the American Dream to Central America, they will stop coming to the USA. In the same issue of This Week in Honduras, there was another story of the Americanization of Honduras. The author was sad to see his culture being exchanged for fast food, shopping malls and cell phones. This is not the American Dream I propose we bring to Honduras.

Searching for Illusions

http://www.marrder.com/htw/editorial.htm

Any measure or agreement from our government to regulate the situation of thousands of Hondurans living illegally in the United States should be visualized with an open mind.

Many Honduran immigrants have benefited from the TPS, a legal resource that was created with the aim of helping the nationals of the countries affected by Hurricane Mitch.

We do not doubt that many Hondurans living illegally in the U.S. work hard to help their relatives here and that the remittances sent give a certain appearance to boost our national economy.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on July 10, that amongst other subjects, they talked about the “massive amount of deportees.” Just this year, 15,145 Honduran men have been deported as well as 1,473 women, 169 boys and 26 girls, according to numbers provided by an official of the Center for the Returned Migrant, an organization that keeps such statistics at Toncontin Airport.

Why do Hondurans risk their lives in search of an illusion? We could say it is because there are no jobs: please then, let’s look at the neglected farm fields, the unfinished industries and the unrealized dreams here in our own country.

The United States certainly qualifies as a nation of consumers. In the U.S. ‘time is money.’ While the immigrant there works hard to earn his money, he is working inside a system where he will likely never meet the ‘status quo.’

It is no secret that illegal immigrants have created enormous problems in the U.S., in education, healthcare and housing, to name a few. Something has to be done and we believe it is right for the U.S. to implement measures to address these problems.

Thousands of Africans have immigrated illegally to Spain since the 1970’s. Because of this influx, Spain has taken on tremendous burdens and their problems are serious - environmental, sanitary, political and economic. They are not only looking for money; their search is much deeper.

We believe then that Honduras has all of the resources needed to sustain its population in a dignified manner. All of us, starting with our authorities, should have a national goal to become a Honduras that welcomes and supports all of its citizens.

Tags: Poverty, Illegal Immigration, Honduras, The American Dream

A Low Tech, Thousand Year Old Solution to Water Filtration

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:35:21 GMT

One of the biggest problems facing people in developing countries is the lack of safe drinking water. Since our focus in on Honduras, I can say that in rural areas, 100% of the people are generally effected by intestinal parasites or other nasty side effects of drinking contaminated water.

Quite frankly the problem is the people upstream are contaminating the water with human and animal waste and the people downstream are drinking the stuff! Everything from urine and feces and baby diaper stuff and caustic soaps (laundry is done at the river) and animal parts (what do you do with the guts of a fish, but toss it in the river) get into the river. The biggest problem is there will always be someone up stream no matter where you are!

There is an ancient form of water purification available to the people of Honduras and other places that can give them healthy, safe drinking water. It's called Slow Sand Filtration.

Biological Sand Filtration

A Biological Sand Filtration System can be built from a mold, using concrete for about $25.00. The media (the sand) comes from wherever you are. A Biological Sand Filtration System needs no electrical power, and no maintenance. BSF's can be large for a community or small for a home. They are very simple to use.

Water from the source, a river or pond is collected and poured into the top of the BSF
The nasty stuff that gets you sick is generally killed off by a layer of good bacteria that develops on the surface of the BSF.
As the water slowly makes it's way to the bottom, it is further purified.
What comes out the other end of the BSF is pure, clean, safe drinking water.

Concrete Biological Sand Filter

Difficult problems do not always require high tech, expensive solutions.

Fifty Thousand kids under five years of age die every year in Honduras as a direct result of drinking contaminated water. Our mission is to put an end to that. We can do this.

$25.00 will build a Biological Sand Filtration System and that will keep kids healthy.

Healthy kids can go to school
Mom and Dad can go to work instead of staying home with a sick child

We need your help.

Namaste
Jeff

Tags: Biological Sand Filter, Honduras, Contaminated Water

Why we need to buy this property

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:58:39 GMT

This photo below is beach front property in Honduras. This lot is priced at $30,000.00. This same lot in the USA, would be priced at... five million, 10 million?

Beach Fron Peoperty in Honduras

Why do I want every Zaadster to help buy this property?

Humanitas World Wide is dedicated to the goal of eliminating extreme poverty in Honduras by 2025. This is the global goal of the U.N. Millennium Project
Humanitas needs a base of operation in Honduras. We collectively purchase this land and then we as a group of people dedicated to "Changing the World" will build a 100% self sustaining home/office/retreat center, powered by solar and wind energy.
We will have a base of operations in Honduras that will always be staffed by you, a Zaadzster dedicated to Changing the World in Honduras. When you have your much needed vacation from work, you'll spend it in Honduras, working to help change lives for the better. You'll have a place to stay and a beach to walk on. Think of this as a Time Share Condo for Humanitarians

Beach with Mountain View in Honduras

So how much is this land going to cost?

10,000 Zaadsters will contribute 3 dollars each
1000 Zaadsters will contribute 30 dollars each
500 Zaadzsters will contribute 60 dollars each
250 Zaadzsters will contribute 120 dollars each

We can do this. I have an extra 3 bucks and I could find an extra 120 dollars if I sold some stuff I really don't need, or have a yard sale.

Here is your chance to start making real difference. Honduras is the poorest country of the Americas and they need our help. They need intelligent people like you, to come up with real solutions to complex problems.

The time is now my friends. Very few of us may have $30K in our pockets, but we all have between $3.00 and $120.00 extra.

Namaste

Tags: Honduras, compassion, simplicity, poverty

Why they keep coming to the USA

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:54:14 GMT

Kids just trying to find their parents

In the vast migration that is changing the US, a Honduran boy rides a freight through Mexico. Each year thousands of undocumented Central Americans stow away for 1,500 miles on the tops and sides of trains. Some are parents desperate to escape poverty. Many are children in search of a parent who left them behind long ago. Only the brave and the lucky reach their goal.

2003 Pulitzer Prize winner Don Bartletti traveled with these kids, documenting thier journey through Guatamala and Mexico in search of their parents who left them behind to find a better life in the USA. Poverty is the norm in Honduras. Most adults have little or no education and few marketable skills, yet they come anyway, hoping for a dream to grasp onto.

Things can be different in Honduras. Our government is doing little to help. They are spending a billion dollars a week in Iraq. We can Change the World in Honduras and Africa and other places where suffering and death are assured on a daily basis.

Everyone of us in this "Republic of Zaadz" can make a difference.

Tags: Poverty, suffering, depression, Honduras

A very doable solution for Developing Nations

http://jeffsfo.gaia.com — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:03:45 GMT

If you don't know by now, I am the founder of Humanitas World Wide an emerging Humanitarian Organization powered by the Republic of Zaadz.

One of our goals is to get men and women in developing countries started operating their own businesses. Our focus is on Honduras at the present time. Many of the women and girls in Honduras work in clothing factories, producing the clothing we all see for sale at Target and Wal Mart. Next time you are in the store, have a look at the label and I'm sure you'll eventually see "Made in Honduras". The sad thing is the people that are employed by these factories get paid very poorly, quite literally no more than $1.50 or so a day.

I have been developing a Solar Power Station that I hope will be able to power up a home (we must remember that a "home" in Honduras may be a single room no bigger that 12 X 20 feet) and provide enough power to allow a person to have a home based business and start earning real money.

I am beginning to understand more about electricity than I ever thought I needed to know. The solar power station I have built is an 18 watt, 1.2 amp system with a 26 Amp Hour battery and a 300 Watt power inverter. The inverter is what changes the 12 volts DC to 110 volts AC so you can operate anything within reason; laptop PC, Desk Lamp, Radio. Air Conditioning and a refrigerator would need more power.

I just looked at the back of my Brother Sewing Machine and saw good news.

Brother SE 270D

On the back of the machine is says the machine only draws 0.7 Amps. Now it's time to translate this into plain English.

The Solar Panel delivers 1.2 Amps of power to the battery, or 1,200 milliamps.
The Brother Sewing Machine draws 0.7 or 700 milliamps when in actual use.

This means that the solar panel is still delivering almost twice as much power to the battery, that the sewing machine will pull out of it. This means that a man or woman in Honduras could have their own micro clothing factory in the comfort of their own home.

This Brother Sewing machine is about $400.00 retail and my solar system as it stands was less than $400.00. Toss in a few incidentials to go with the machine and we can put someone in business for about $1,000.00

I like that...I like that very much.

Tags: Poverty, Solar Power, Honduras, Humanitas, Self reliance