WHO WE ARE
Be The Change is a collective of positive, conscious artists all sharing a basic belief in the good of humanity. Our Mission is two fold: One is simply to fund raise in support of humanitarian, international relief, social justice, and environmental projects. The other is to connect the artists and our combined networks to broadcast crucial information about the issues effecting the planet and shine light on the needs of activists in the field. By combining all of our social networks reach we have a powerful voice.
In the past 15 years, through your generous support and the Project Earth Festival, Be the Change has raised over $600,000 for the various organizations we sponsor.
Thank you!
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
WHO WE SPONSOR
The American Refugee Committee – World Wide
Today, ARC works in 10 countries around the world helping victims of war and civil conflict rebuild their lives. ARC programs in Africa, the Balkans, and Asia provide health care, clean water, shelter repair, legal aid, trauma counseling, microcredit, community development services, and repatriation assistance to more than one million people, annually. ARC bases its relationship with uprooted peoples on mutual respect and a compassionate exchange of knowledge and values.
Bumi Sehat Foundation — Bali, Indonesia
Bumi Sehat Foundation International, founded in 1995, is a non-profit, village-based organization of dedicated families, midwives, doctors, nurses, teachers and volunteers from Indonesia and other countries around the world. Bumi Sehat runs two by-donation community health centers in Bali and Aceh, Indonesia that provide over 17,000 health consultation for both children and adults per year. Midwifery services to ensure gentle births is at the heart of Bumi Sehat and our clinics welcome approximately 600 new babies into the world each year. We have also established capacity building and community outreach programs, including a Youth Center and village recycling program. Om Shanti!
SOS Children’s Villages
SOS’s mission is to provide children who have lost their parents or who are no longer able to live with them a loving home and a stable environment in which they can thrive. On average an SOS Children’s Village has between ten and fifteen family houses. The village provides the background for an extended family community. This supplies the children with cultural roots and gives them a feeling of belonging.
Rabondo Community Project — Rabondo, Kenya
Timon Bondo, an elderly blind man, is an unlikely superhero. He left his home in Kenya in the 1960s searching for the education that he could not get in his home country. After many years he ended up the United States and received a degree from the University of Minnesota. In 1996, he visited his home village of Rabondo and was overwhelmed. The people were impoverished, starving, uneducated and many were sick and dying of AIDS. “I knew I had to do something to help. I felt a responsibility that I could not run away from,” Bondo explains. But what could he, an aging man with failing eyesight who lives nearly 8,000 miles away, do for this village? Bondo went home and founded the Rabondo Community Project USA, a nonprofit which provides education and community projects for the Rabondo village. More than ten years later, Bondo is almost completely blind but continues to fundraise tirelessly. Through his efforts, The Rabondo Project has produced a primary and secondary school with enrollment of more than 1,200 children, most of them orphans. Clean water, job creation and a school feeding program have all enriched lives in Rabondo.
Peace Rehabilitation Center — Kathmandu, Nepal
In rural Nepal, where jobs are scarce and poverty is entrenched, many girls unwittingly fall into human trafficking. Girls who want to escape forced labor or the sex trade often have no way out. Peace Rehabilitation Center cares for trafficked girls and works to prevent trafficking. Formerly trafficked girls who live at its three homes become family to each other, healing from the mistrust they developed while trafficked. Girls who had contracted HIV and other infections in the sex industry learn about hygiene to live safely with their conditions. PRC also operates border patrol stations to rescue girls who are taken across the border and educates villagers about traffickers’ tactics in order to prevent trafficking.
Vangviang Organic Farm – Laos
The profits from this farm are used to fund several community projects that support and educate the people who live in Phoudindaeng village. First, we help to teach the local farmers about the advantages of organic farming. In addition, we have led in the building of a local community center and we obtained a school bus to take the children to school each day. Our community projects have succeeded because they combine the talents and energies of foreign volunteers with the efforts of the villagers themselves.
Cambodia Land Mine Museum Relief Fund
The mission is to decrease land mine casualties and contribute to land mine survivor rehabilitation in Cambodia. The Land Mine Museum was founded by Aki Ra, a Cambodian ex-child soldier who has helped to clear some six thousand mines and unexploded ordinance. The Center will employ land mine educational consultants and technicians contracted to travel to mined communities in an effort to teach farmers and school children land mine safety. In addition, the new facility will provide a small dormitory and a school for child survivors of land mine causalities.
Kiva – Micro Lending Self Empowerment
Micro Loans are a new idea that has been rapidly empowering people with limited resources all over the globe to lift themselves out of poverty. Kiva — which means “unity” in Swahili — allows individuals to make loans as small as $25 to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Since Kiva.org was launched more than two years ago, it has brokered more than $6.5 million in collateral-free loans to more than 9,000 businesses.
Casa do Zezinho – In the Favela of Sao Paolo, Brazil
From assisting one child with a broken finger in the Favela, Tia Dag eventually opened a school for 80 children to provide music, art, food, sports, health and dental services, career skills , and employment. Over 30 years, the school has grown to provide services for over 2000 of Sao Paulo’s most needy children and their families. It runs entirely on donations and love.
Survival International
The movement for tribal peoples. Survival is the only organization working for tribal peoples’ rights worldwide. We work with hundreds of tribal communities and organizations. We are funded almost entirely by concerned members of the public and some foundations. We will not take national government money, because governments are the main violators of tribal peoples’ rights, nor will we take money from companies which might be abusing tribal peoples. About 250,000 supporters from nearly 100 countries have helped us financially; millions now routinely seek our information, published in seven languages. We never restrict our information or materials only to those who can pay. We want everyone to know about tribal peoples.
Global Water
Global Water is an international, non-profit, humanitarian organization founded in 1982. We’re focused on creating safe water supplies, sanitation facilities and hygiene-related facilities for rural villagers in developing countries. We believe the lack of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are the root causes of hunger, disease and poverty throughout the developing world. Our water projects have an immediate life-changing impact, particularly for women and children, who have the responsibility to gather water for their families every day of their lives in the developing world. Successful Global Water projects utilize water and sanitation as a tool to create sustainable socioeconomic development in these poor rural communities.
Yoga Vedanta Kutir
Yoga Vedanta Kutir is a small ashram located in Allahabad, India on the banks of the Holy Sangam. The ashram is run by Swami Omananda Saraswati. For many years, he has brought in young boys who are mostly orphans or street children and has taught them yoga, clothed them, fed them, and sent them to school. Because Swami Ji is a monk, his only income is from donations. The money donated by the Wookie Foot family has not only helped him maintain the ashrams needs, but has also been used to purchase another property across the river for a girls school. One of his female disciples, Guru Mata, is now following in Swamiji’s footsteps by bringing in young girls who are without food and shelter.
Earthology Institute
Using advocacy, science and the arts, the Earthology Institute provides resources and an action network that disseminates critical, forward thinking and practical tools for the advancement of human health, sustainability and the environment. Earthology Institute advocates positive environmental change with a focus on sustainability, environmental toxins, human health, ecological integrity, proactive and positive living in the 21st century, advocacy through the arts, and tools for green living.
Miguel Angel Asturias Academy — Quetzaltenango, Guatemala Guatemala’s education system leaves out many children. Girls, indigenous Mayans, and children from poor families are particularly unlikely to attend school. Their situation is critical because these are the children who stand to benefit most from education. The Miguel Angel Asturias Academy in Quetzaltenango makes it a priority to reach them. Scholarships are given to students whose families cannot afford the tuition of $18 a month. As a private school, the Academy does not receive government funding, and is sustained by donations and tuition. Taking an innovative approach to teaching, the Academy infuses social engagement and vocational training into the curriculum. Students discuss social issues such as women’s rights and racism that indigenous students face.
Power to the Peaceful – Brazil (with Michael Franti & Spearhead) This year we partnered with Michael Franti’s non-profit organization which just began a chapter in Brazil. The favelas (or slums) of Sao Paolo and Rio are some of the most impoverished and violent in the world, with over 12 million inhabitants. This foundation raises money and funds several leading NGO’s that are helping restore hope to these forgotten people by supporting education, medicine, and opportunity.
The Nurani Insani School for street children — Jakarta, Indonesia
The streets of Jakarta, Indonesia are home to tens of thousands of children. Without education or families who can take care of them, these children beg for money from commuters in the city’s crowded streets. Some who live in slums with their families must earn enough money begging to help feed their parents and siblings. Achmad Dedi Rosadi, a university student, decided to do something for street children. The small school started by one man now has a full teaching staff and over 200 students. The school provides primary and secondary education, food and medical care.
The Elephant Nature Fundation
Founded in 2006, the Elephant Nature Foundation is a non-profit organization that advocates and acts on behalf of the rights of Asian elephants in Thailand. Our mission is to increase public awareness about the plight of the endangered Asian elephant, educate locals on the humane treatment of their elephants, and provide sanctuary for several rescued elephants at our nature park. Through education, public awareness, and preserving the elephants’ habitat it is our mission to save the Asian elephant from extinction and give domesticated elephants a life worth living, free from abuse and torture.
Hoste Hainse Schools- Nepal
Promoting “Education for All”, Hoste Hainse believes that education is the required foundation for the task of building the nation. Since its inception, Hoste Hainse has focused on supporting deprived and underprivileged children in their struggle for education