dZi Newsletter: Volume 5, Issue 8 - October 27, 2006

October Update

Namaste, Friends & Supporters of dZi!

Annual Fundraising Campaign
You will be receiving this year's one-and-only 2006 mailing from the dZi Foundation in the coming weeks. We are just starting our annual funding appeal. We greatly appreciate your past support and you should be proud of our success. This year over 15,000 individuals (mainly children and women) are directly benefiting from dZi Foundation programs in the Himalaya. Please continue to partner with dZi and help us reach our target goal of serving 30,000 individuals in 2007. In this line of work, you can set the bar low and trip over it or set the bar high and soar over it. WE have always preferred the latter. Thank you for being the backbone of our work.

Ben Ayers, Nepal Project Coordinator, heads to Nepal.
Ben Ayers has just left the states for almost three months in the field, returning on Jan 11th. Occasionally, we will post a field report from Ben on his implementation of our Appreciative Community Development Program. We will focus on four remote Village Development Committees (a VDC oversees an area about the size of a county). This project will work with and serve up to 18,911 people in these two-districts: southeast Solukhumbu and the northwest corner of neighboring Khotang district. This project area is completely without motorable roads, the closest being at least a three-day walk. The overwhelming majority of the citizens of this area are subsistence farmers and part-time trekking or commercial porters. This region has escaped the attention of national and international development projects and the school, health, and living conditions are among the worst in all of Nepal. While we cannot at this stage determine the exact projects to be implemented, our experience has shown that, in the first year of funding, smaller projects are usually undertaken. These projects may include school reconstruction, bridge and trail repair, clean drinking water tap installment, etc, and will provide direct services to nearly every citizen in the VDC. This strategy builds investment in the project as a whole and prepares the community for larger scale projects (with more dramatic impacts) in the second and third years of funding. We anticipate these lager-scale projects may include large drinking water projects, school reconstruction, health post services, etc.

Marmot / dZi Foundation Jackets - $150
Marmot Mountain Ltd has donated their award-winning DriClime Jackets for sale with proceeds going to the dZi Foundation. The DriClime jacket won the Editors' Choice award from Outside Magazine. These jackets are for sale for $150.00, come in women's and men's sizing, and are available for women in Oceana Blue or for men in Black. All jackets are beautifully embroidered with a red dZi Foundation logo. When ordering, please note that your donation is for a dZi Jacket and include your sizing and color choice. The tax deduction that you will receive with this purchase is $50.00 because the Marmot jacket has a retail value of $100.00. At right: Kim Reynolds, co-founder and board member of the dZi Foundation, models a jacket in Oceana blue.

A Lesson from a 13-year-old
by Bill Rohs

Three years ago, my wife was a member of an all women's expedition to climb Ama Dablam, one of the most beautiful peaks in the Everest range (22,000 ft). As part of the expedition, she organized a number of fundraisers at my restaurant in support of The dZi Foundation. We raised quite a lot of money in 3 different fundraisers and began our relationship with dZi. I then went along for a trek and to see dZi projects, including the Friendship House in Kathmandu.

I didn't know what to expect when we went to the house. I had been feeling pretty good about myself and the amount of money we had raised to support dZi. When we arrived, I was amazed at how warm, strong and confident the girls were. I was led inside by one of the girls and shown around. In the main foyer, we stopped and looked at the drawings and pictures hung on the walls. I asked what the pictures were and was told, "Oh, those are pictures of our fundraiser." I was stopped cold. "Your fundraiser?" I asked. She said, "Yes, we raised money to give an educational program for a mountain village" and then quickly added, "We all have something we can give, even if we have no money." I immediately felt about 3 inches high and had to laugh at myself. Standing there, I was taught a great lesson in life by a 13-year-old girl, who has had life a lot harder than I. It's also when I knew I wanted to do more with dZi.

In our "it's all about me" society, we get caught up in things and tend to forget the simplest of lessons. We all have a responsibility to each other and all have to remember to give a little more of ourselves. Bob Dylan once said, "A hero is someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with freedom." I firmly believe in this, that our responsibility to each other and the earth is how we repay for all that we have been blessed. I hope we can remember that we are measured not by what we get but by what we give. I was wondering what I could do to start living up to my responsibilities long before we even went to Nepal, so the experience was a good push.

As it happens, my wife Neena was at the same crossroad. After we were married and were talking through our future, we decided we had a clean slate and could do whatever we wanted with the rest of our lives. So we quit our jobs and went to work for an NGO in Indonesia for 7 months, doing relief work post earthquake and tsunami. I went as a Construction and Livelihood Officer and ended up as a Field Site Coordinator of Nias Island, where I found all my years of managing and owning restaurants had paid off. I have owned and operated many different businesses in my years in the industry and had been burnt out. In Nias, I was now managing a staff of 50 (including Neena, which is a story in itself) and was re-energized. All my bookkeeping, HR, inventory, and budgeting experience became very useful in a new setting. We had three different facets to our program: a primary health care team, distribution teams, and educational community health workers. We were operating partners with CARE, UNICEF, and Save the Children along with other agencies, including the UN.

We returned home from Indonesia and went almost directly to Pakistan where I was the Field Sight Coordinator for a small NGO. Neena was my boss at this point, so she got her revenge. We were stationed at a remote area of Pakistani Kashmir for three months doing earthquake assistance, continuing education for maternal and child health workers, and school hygiene education. We also did a joint project with dZi, providing shelters for people left homeless after the earthquake.

We went to the dZi dental clinic this spring as volunteers and are now going back as dZi personnel. This time, I learned a whole new set of skills while being a dental assistant. I am excited to be the Ladakh Program Coordinator for The dZi Foundation and aim to use my talents, being part of an organization that teaches girls to be heroes. I look forward to all I have to learn from the wonderful people of the Himalaya and hope I can keep giving back to them in return.

"It's just what one should do"...
by Neena Jain, MD

Julle! To all friends and supporters of dZi!

Thank you all for your continued support and interest in dZi. I am absolutely ecstatic to be a part of such an amazing team and dynamic, effective, and inspiring organization.

If you want a true glimpse inside my head (scary! I know!), it is best revealed in this: I honestly wake up every morning asking myself "Am I doing enough?" Not to say that I am some saint or the next "Mother Neena" out there, but just plagued by how much I have been privileged in my life, and how much work there is out in the world to help people.

I first heard about dZi as an attendee in Chicks with Picks, run by Kim Reynolds, so many moons ago. Kim and Jim's incredible commitment to truly giving back has been more than inspiring in my life. Their energy is contagious, their drive motivating, and the integrity in all of their work incredibly moving.

When I was a part of the "Mamas Dablam", a nine-women expedition to climb Ama Dablam in 2003, we raised over $27,000 for dZi - enough to establish and run the girls' home in Sikkim for two years. When in Nepal, I visited the girls' home and NRH in Kathmandu, and went on an amazing field visit with Jim and Dhirij from the NRH. I was sold on the work, power, and impact of dZi!!!

When I was a senior in college studying international health and nutrition, I spent 6 months traveling in India alone, visiting urban and rural health projects: school lunch programs, immunization projects, community empowerment schemes, etc etc. I promised myself then to come back one day to India with skills to help rural communities. Through dZi, I aim to keep that promise - fulfill basic needs and create sustainable, effective opportunities for individuals in rural and remote areas of India and Nepal.

2. Always do right by the patient. True story: my only motivation in going to medical school was through doing my MS in Tropical Public Health first. My mentor at the time, an incredible man by the name of Jonathan Mann, encouraged me to fight for change in the world using the system from the "inside" rather than trying to get over the walls of the behemoth. So, armed with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in hand, I went into medicine to try to change the world. Well, clearly, I have a lot more work to do. And, in the world of financial pressures, political agendas, social disruption, and the whole nine-yards, always remembering the faces of who I am trying to help has always grounded me and brought me back to my focus. Well, Jim and dZi already figured that out a LONG time ago... as you know, they have always kept those individual faces quite clearly in the forefront of projects and fundraising and, quite frankly, everything! dZi does a great job of always doing right by the patient, and I'm more than excited to be adding my sweat to that, too!

3. Work to put yourself out of a job every day. When I realized I wasn't able to do this in Emergency Medicine in America, I was frustrated to be a part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I had to leave it and take a break. So, I did. After two years' training in General Surgery, three years training in Emergency Medicine, and three years of full-time clinical practice, I left that all to teach graduate level International Health and to work in humanitarian relief.

Now, with dZi, I know we are working toward solutions: community-based, school-based programs that allow for individual growth, community empowerment, betterment of living conditions, improvements in health, and overall realization of potential. Talking with Ben Ayers the other day, I realized that, in so many ways, poverty is really about a lack of choice. We have so much choice and freedom in our lives every day. I am really excited to help boys and girls, men and women, in rural and remote areas create their own choice, realize their own futures, and expand beyond their current health, capacities, and dreams.

After coming back from working in both Indonesia and Pakistan recently, I did a lot of soul-searching about how the world works, how the rich and the poor interact globally, how the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Mexico really does affect the wind currents in Palau. I was also a bit downtrodden about the "machines" of humanitarian relief, development, and international relations. But, as Emilio, one of the cooks in Bill's restaurant put it, "Este trabajo es bueno por el corazon." (This work is good for the heart.)

And, so it truly is! Subsequently, people ask me, "Don't you feel overwhelmed by it all?" And, I always go back in my mind to the girl at Friendship House who took me by the hand and told me all about the fundraiser that the girls held for a local orthopedic hospital so that a financially-deprived boy could get leg surgery he needed. It blew me away that these girls who came from such poor conditions themselves had created a fundraiser to help others around them and in the community. She said to me, "It's just what one should do."

Thank you for being a tremendous part of dZi! I am truly thrilled to be a part of it myself, on the ground and in the field!