Fundraising is Painful and Scary

Fundraising is painful and scary even at the best of times - but oh so much more when you are fundraising for your own personal experience. While in my time abroad I will spend my time assisting others it is myself who will be assisting others, learning about the world around me and working towards my personal self discovery. While I understand many people may be happy for the opportunity to live through my experiences, and many wonderful donors have spoken to this thought, I cannot help but feel bad for asking for money from them ... to the point where I thought of fronting some of my 'fundraising' money from my own personal savings.

I am now very close to reaching my goal and so extremely thankful for the people who believed in me and the cause which I will be pursuing, enough to help me fund my volunteer placement. I believe I owe all of those who have helped fund my placement my full commitment to my placement through thick and thin. Their belief in me will be a driving force behind the energy and good vibes I hope to bring with me each day I am at my placement (on that note - do not fault me when I am unable *because I do not doubt that some days I will be unable* but know that I will carry on). I will also not allow this international placement to be the ending point rather I intend it to be an EPIC beginning from which much more will spread, and the knowledge and insight I gain in Kenya will be used to enlighten and inform people in my community in Canada.

I have always thought that I wanted to work internationally in developing nations, and I believe a lot of the reason for this ambition was driven by the belief that the people in the developing world desperately need saving, and my saving in particular.  Meanwhile the world is full of problems and it is the ones which are most broadcast that our thoughts regularly drift to. One of those countries whose issues are greatly publicized is Africa.

Suffering is hard to define for I believe it is an individuals experience and often is subjective to the lifestyle and history of the individual, and thus it is hard to decide who's suffering needs the most relief and who may need the most assistance in finding this relief. Canada is hardly without its set of problems and individuals who are greatly suffering within this great nation (overall , yes I believe this is an amazing nation although I may be picking out some of its flaws). Although many people may not think of Canada as a place of suffering overall most people would to some level agree that there is some suffering in Canada. After all human's are human no matter where in the world you are - and with human tendencies come both the good and the bad. Canada sees its fair share of substance abuse, domestic violence, discrimination (sexism, ageism, raceism ect), unemployment, homelessness and the list goes on. Although it may be safe to say that there are less people suffering in Canada than in most African, or developing, countries the numbers suffering are still staggering. While as I mentioned suffering is difficult to quantify or even qualify, as defining suffering is near impossible, and often hidden under the surface, I feel as though the number of homeless people may be a good indicator of suffering. I believe that homelessness is a good indicator of suffering because it is usual from substancial suffering that people are driven to live on the streets and it may be this continual suffering, or perhaps another form of suffering which keeps them on the streets. Many of the situations associated with suffering which I listed above such as substance abuse, unemployment, domestic violence ect. may have been experienced by people who are homeless at some level, or for a significant period of time in their life. You might find some fault with this level of measurement and comparison, for there are without doubt some errors in this marker of suffering and I acknowledge these but feel like it is a visible, thus countable marker that is associated with variety of sources of suffering.
Canada's National Secretariat on Homelessness estimated that homelessness "affects approximately 150,000 in Canada, although other reports identify as many as 300,000 homeless in Canada"  (IntrapSpec.ca, 2011).
(http://intraspec.ca/homelessCanada)
Stats on homeless rates in Africa are not nearly as reliably collected as there are many barriers to doing so however I was able to find a couple quick useful stats:
-  In Cameroon more than 7000 people, most of who were low-income earners were left homeless in 2008 when the government carried out mass forced evictions and demolitions against the inhabitants of the City of Yaoundé (ofcourse because this is forced homelessness the conditions are not necessarily similar to the normal of homeless people in Canada and other areas)
-  capital of Kenya – Nairobi has approx. 4 million inhabitants. More that 70% of these people live in slum areas. Although this does not mean these people are homeless it does mean that these people are living in less than desirable accommodation.
(http://fairkenya.wordpress.com)


Looking at these figures alone it would be safe to say in quantity there are more individuals who are suffering in Africa than in Canada. Although this does sway me to dedicate my time and energy to helping these people I feel as though being Canadian born I owe it to people of my country to use this time and energy to help them. The jury is still not entirely out on this one but I think I may be coming closer to reaching a decision.

When speaking of suffering I believe it is also important for us to recognize and examine what we see as the 'poster child' for human suffering. Societal discourse has lead us to recognize certain things as suffering and through media especially we associate certain  feelings with certain 'types' of suffering and in doing so create feelings of compassion towards some types of suffering and stigma towards others. Like many other scenarios, such as mental health, the things that are the least visible are often the most misunderstood and least cared for. I am sure most of my readers would be able to associate a visual image to a World Vision commercial and it would most likely look something like; a young child taking care of his/her siblings, their undernourished body sitting on the ground, while flies fly around. Because of constant media attention this scenario is the one with which we most readily associate with suffering and thus draws the most compassion. Youth who have be subjected to a very unfavorable lifestyle who have no to little control over their circumstances draws a lot more open arms than a elderly person suffering from dementia. If I really want to help others I need to keep my mind open to the different forms in which suffering can come.

To to sum things up fundraising sucks!
BUT I believe great things will come out of this experience for which those who have supported me in this endeavor will be very proud of :) I will make sure of it!

As for how I plan to live out my life and in which ways I hope to help others...
(although time will tell) I think I want to do BOTH international work and local work! Easy solution eh?! I think the key things which I wish to bring attention in the context of this decision is that I believe both developing countries AND Canada could use some help here and there, by working in both areas I can also have the opportunity to exchange information, knowledge and inspiration between areas in different countries which I believe may have more of an exponential affect than anything else I can do.

and as a new favorite quote of the group  would say: "with great power comes great responsibility"