Deep gratitude to our growing donor group! someone just wrote, exasperated, with a question, and the feedback is a good opening.

Q: What incentive should anyone have to send money and aid to Africa? Lets fix ourselves first.    A: I agree the US has been irresponsible in not keeping safeguards in place to prevent the economic crisis in the US and the world. There’s a demeaning residue of colonialist, imported solutions in Africa, and this project has nothing to do with Aid. 

American youth I met at MIT have been and continue to be my inspiration — the ones who collaborate with African youth in summers or even move there to make sustainable business. This YWI project aims to inspire both US and African students to develop sustainable businesses, through partnerships.

Many new hi and low tech business solutions are more imaginative than what Silicon Valley has funded in the U.S., according to one innovator I interviewed; I will post his interview for some donors (>$25) to see, along with the advice of a PhD in Tanzania who gave Jodie Wu sage advice in how to be successful with Global Cycle Solutions! Dr. Maeda has five businesses and sells 100 Kickstart (irrigation) pumps each month through his distribution network. He’s awesome!

Another enterprising graduate from Brown U. is launching Makeshift in September and wants to profile some of our stories worldwide and show them at an international conference. We think stories inspire youth to be enterprising, and sharing stories could create a trend (or so we hope), maybe even inspire policymakers! Your $8K is going to Just a Band to compose our music and to editors to help craft the stories of real innovators with the 30+ hours of footage I have already shot. We’ve gotten this far with the help of talented young Africans and Americans. Another of them just posted an article on Huffington Post, and his Kenyan editor wants him to write about our stories in two separate publications!

We need 40 people to give $100 or 160 to give $25 in 8 days. It’s easy to increase your pledge!  Or if you want to meet Just a Band (they are modest and you wouldn’t believe how talented — comics, photography, video and music) give us $1000 to meet them in NYC just after our deadline! Will you send our link to ten friends and a blogger?  Bless you for contributing to a small miracle.