Sunday, February 20, 2011

MckMama's in Ethiopia now...

MckMama is no longer in Kenya and has flown with the GHNI crew to Ethiopia. She will be asking her readers to commit to "adopt" another village and will be looking for another 99/100/101 readers to participate in this campaign. Readers will be asked to contribute $12 per month for the next 3-5 years while the village learns to self-sustain.

In the meantime, many questions about how GHNI teaches the villagers to self-sustain have not been answered. The most common questions that still remain are: What does GHNI provide to the villagers? How much of the monthly contributions directly impacts those villagers? How does that money impact the villagers? Do the villagers receive food, supplies, etc. from GHNI or just guidance and support? In the week that MckMama was in Ola Nagele, did anything get done besides the installation of the pipe? Does social media really play any role in all of this other than helping to spread awareness and solicit donations for the cause? Why is MckMama there? Couldn't someone from GHNI, etc. have provided MckMama with photos and videos to post on her blog? Couldn't she have done that from home? Why was it necessary for her to be there? Is any work (other than blogging, taking pictures, recording videos, tweeting, posting on Facebook, etc.) actually being done by all of those individuals who are on this trip? Are they just there to document and report back?

As she is now in her second week of this trip, I would have hoped that her readers would have the answers to most of these questions above.

Again, I would always encourage everyone to do their own research before donating to any cause or charity. I think this is even more important when the donations are ongoing. Charity Navigator evaluates over 5,500 charities and is a great resource when you are conducting research about organizations you are considering.