Documenting our discoveries

My top ten, counting down

#10

By posting pictures of my grandchildren I have elicited a sharing of good feelings between O.net members and learnt to value more the gifts that family members bring us.

#9

By taking part in the Seeing Beyond Sight blind photography project (and by reading Tony Deifell’s inspiring book) I have discovered new ways of overcoming stereotypical thinking and new ways of understanding the reality of one’s own experience.

#8

Without Onet, I would not have taken part in World Service’s Outlook programme in a feature about Eric Wanjamah that I’m told was much enjoyed by many people. The programme enabled me to speak directly to Eric for the first time. We had been having an email exchange that began when Eric PM’d me to ask my advice about getting professional training as a probation officer - a job he’d been doing for six months without any real training. This enabled me to discover how I might use past probation service contacts to help Eric. As a result I was able to print off a detailed, but unpublished, training manual and send it to him to supplement our professional discussions. He then used it to organise some training sessions for his colleagues in Limuru, Kenya .

#7

Our ability to make good things happen often depends on what we have been able to learn and my two years at O.net have been quite an education. Prior to coming here I had no knowledge of Ravi’s ideas about Oneness (and thanks, Ravi, for your post here!); of sufficiency economics (thanks, Linda); of the ideas of Henry George (thanks, Jere); of RicHARD’s unique brand of muscular peacemaking; of the day by day impact of major flooding (courtesy of Rose’s heartfelt, sustained and inspired journal); of the potency of party hats (thanks to John Powers) and - I’m almost too embarrassed to admit - of the terms “social entrepreneur”, “the tipping point”, “the starfish story”, “Pierre Omidyar”, “Spiral Dynamics”, “Dropcash box”, “Paypal” and “uplift“ (let alone, “Uplift Academy”), to mention but a few.

#6

As part of Onet’s Q4 funding project, I was fortunate to be part of the WDI (Water-borne Diarrheal Illnesses) team that put together a detailed proposal to support five WDI charities, each of which focused on a different approach to reducing the impact of water-borne disease, the world’s second most frequent killer illness and one that disproportionately affects young children. Together we did much to raise awareness of this unfashionable cause and eventually we succeeded in raising over $32,700 in donations and matched funding by Omidyar Network. The experience of being part of such a hardworking and dedicated small group was very inspiring and helped me discover ways I might work for good causes in the future.

#5

Soon after arriving at O.net, I discovered via a PM from Ray Brosseuk in British Columbia that there was a way we might collaborate in a project to benefit Breadline Africa, one of my favourite small charities, based in Cape Town, that specialises in the conversion of shipping containers into community facilities like clinics, soup kitchens or pre-school centres. Our “Kids in Cans” project planned to provide a stream of containers for the use of Breadline Africa, while at the same time also sending them each shipment 20 tons of goods and equipment from Ray and Jackie’s Partners for Others making use of spare capacity in containers for which shipping costs had already been paid. It was a very elegant project design and one that was given a $4500 Community Favorites award in December 2005. Even though subsequent events meant that the full plan was never put into effect, I discovered that I could fund raise on a scale I had never previously achieved and eventually we were able to send Breadline Africa over $9,000. They used this money to help launch a new programme called Cans 4 Skills (our project even influenced their choice of title) that has seen a succession of containers converted into specialist vocational training units for young people. The impact that these training units can have was brought home to me when I received news that the first person to qualify (from a plumbing course housed in a container) was a impressive young woman, with few previous chances in life, now determined to break gender stereotypes and take control of her life.

#4

My online friendship with Richard Kananga developed from the respect I felt for his opinions, and the openness and facility of his self-expression and his wide range of skills. Despite this - and his good academic qualifications - like many Africans he has been unable to find permanent employment. Our friendship has enabled me to discover ways to supply him with a computer of his own to further his employment prospects and to try to set up a ongoing fund for people from developing countries to enable them to volunteer their skills for the service of others. As a result, I have been able to get others to join me in contributing to this HDC2 International Volunteers Fund (Helping developing countries help developing countries fund) so that the costs of Richard’s first three months’ volunteering at Life in Africa in Gulu will be met. I’ve also committed to finding follow-on volunteering opportunities for Richard, who was inspired by his experiences at the Gulu gathering organised via O.net in February 2007 to return to Uganda shortly afterwards and to devote a year of his life to volunteering in other African countries.

. #3

As a total non-expert, I have nevertheless discovered my power to make other good things happen in Northern Uganda where talks are due to take place this week about a comprehensive land survey at Opok Farms. As a result of that, all kinds of powerfully good things may happen for the local children, wildlife, farmers, tourists and all kinds of associated others. My role has simply been to be a diligent catalyst, talking to people, researching online, emailing all kinds of important people I didn’t think would deign to reply and finally effecting a link up in Gulu. And this then holds out the promise that if there is to be some kind of wildlife conservation project in he area, I may then be able to develop a mutually beneficial link with my local nature reserve in the UK, where I already work as a volunteer and where I have already had preliminary talks about possibly staging an annual Africa Week at my local reserve to raise funds and aid awareness of global issues that affect us all.

#2

Very importantly, O.net has given me a platform to expound and develop my ideas of a World Connectory, with the potential for linking more than half the world’s people together by randomly generated partnerships founded on the idea of mutual respect, shared learning and the appreciation of both our distinctivenesses and our similarities. During the time I’ve been on O.net, I have apportioned more than 100 countries containing over 1.5 billion people. I have stayed on track for launching the project in 2008/9. Half a dozen Onetters have been of particular support to me in making progress with this together with more general support from a total of 60+ members of the Apportionment and the Worldwide Connectory group here. The constant flow of questions, ideas and encouragement have epitomised for me the essence of the specialness that has been the Omidyar.net community.

#1

At Omidyar, I have found role models quite unlike any I have ever experienced elsewhere. These were people who you could be speaking with online one day and marvelling at the next as they showed up in critical spots across the world doing the kinds of things you would want to do yourself if only you had the guts. And yet, merely by rubbing virtual shoulders with them, you feel inspired to witness in your own way to the values and issues that are important to you. And as you talk about these things with your real life friends, you find that they too become inspired. It’s the “viral effect” - yet another term that I’d not come to terms with in my pre-Onet life. And who are these role models? Gabriel Stauring, Christina Jordan, Linda Nowakowski, Meron Moroz, and - above all - the whole Brosseuk family, though especially Ray, whose Stories from the Bright Side I have found the single most inspiring set of jewels in the whole wonderful Aladdin’s cave full of treasures, that is Omidyar.net - but sadly, will soon be no more.

PS - I nearly cheated by sneaking in an 11th item, but even then there would still be so much I’d left out ($50K funding round, Eric’s airfare, donations to South Asia Earthquake where Omidyar provided matched funding, my honours lists, the inspiration of the Okanagan Gleaners etc, etc)

edit for typo and to change "million" to "billion"