Christinaswwworld Unlimited

The first time I ever heard the term social entrepreneur was just a few days before my interviews to become an Ashoka Fellow in August 2001. At that point, I'd been pouring my soul into Life in Africa for nearly 3 years, and everything Ashoka stands for spoke to the very marrow of my being. It was an absolute thrill for me to learn that there were others around the world like me, driven by an inexplicable passion to do whatever they saw they could to develop new system changing ideas. I knew clearly in those days that the possibilities for using the Internet for development I was seeing from my side of the world could change whole global development aid system. I wanted to help shape that new people to people system, and it was exciting to learn from Ashoka that I was not alone in having the audacity to think that big. But by the time I was actually offered the Ashoka Fellowship - 4 months after the interviews - my immediate response was to turn it down. Sept 11 had happened, c...

The iGive 4 LiA Challenge is over - congrats to the winners! BLOGGERS: You can still support Life in Africa by placing an iGive badge on your site. If you do, we'll reciprocate with your badge on the front page of LifeInAfrica.com through mid-February 2009. Here's the badge: Please link it to: http://www.igive.com/html/refer.cfm?memberid=524199&causeid=43292 When you've added the iGive badge, let me know where to find it in a comment to this post, and I'll arrange for your badge to get on the front page of lifeinafrica.com Many, many thanks! -------------------- If you have a blog , this christinaswwworld pArtY chALLEnGe is for you! Yes , there will be prizes. AND it's for a great cause. Read on to see what you need to do to participate, make an impact, and win! The holidays are coming soon, and even if we're all tightening belts this year, chances are there's a few gifts you and your readers are going to need to buy, and you'll probably be buying ...

There are stories I am afraid to tell. I wish I could tell you it's been all sweetness and light, working to try to empower African communities. I wish I could tell you that I achieved all - or at least part of - what I set out to accomplish. I wish I could tell you that I clearly see the lessons in whatever these trials and ordealswere supposed to teach me. Were I able to find nuggets of wisdom in the wreckage, I would want to share them in a way that inspires others to do better, to be smarter, to achieve more. I fear sometimes, that I might never find them. And yet, there is the painful process of sifting through the mess of memories that my mind's eye is compelled to try and do. I lie awake nights imagining where to begin, and how to combine the memories of magical experiences with an acceptance of how things changed... of how my understanding of what I was up against changed... of how I changed. Writing is a tool that can help me with the sorting through. But I fear som...

Zarina was my housekeeper for 8 years here in Uganda. She's a widowed mother of 3 who was very down on her luck when I met her. In the early days of Life in Africa I wrote many stories about Zarina, and the things I was learning about Uganda through the lens of her life. She also became involved with various Life in Africa activities over the years, especially whenever I was in the mood to experiment. She was one of the first borrowers in the two loan programs I developed. In 2005 I made her a "star" in a mini fashion show online. I created Zarina's fashion show as an example of how we can think about combining popular cultural content (like African fashion) with promoting a cause (like donating used football clothes to The Kids League). What eventually became the Life in Africa fashion4football campaign included a community fashion event, an online fashion show that featured many Kids League parents, and the delivery of over 40 bales of used playclothes and soccer ...

... and then there was the time I started a project in an African war zone. My journey into the war-torn heart of Africa's Pearl began with an aim to motivate the members at Life in Africa's WE Center Kampala to join hands behind a cause beyond their own poverty. A community like ours could do something to help the children of Northern Uganda. We held a great fundraising event , we got a contract making bracelets to support awareness of the plight of children in Northern Uganda, and we went to Northern Uganda in small groups to facilitate art therapy workshops with groups of night commuter children and former child-soldiers. After interacting with children at different organizations in Gulu, we'd developed the strongest bonds with one night-commuter center in particular. The volunteers that were keeping the place running were horribly under-resourced. We started thinking about setting up some of our adult community activities there, involving the volunteers and the chil...