Soliciting Funds from You

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Sorry folks, this is not the awaited blog update about the 2nd trip into Waorani territory - that update will be posted at some point this week. What I am posting on this blog is a solicitud for funding for a project of mine. Please read my letter below and help if you can.

Greetings family and friends:

Well, it has been 17 months since Susan and I embarked on this Peace Corps journey. We have 10 months left and are at that point where we are trying to start wrapping up projects and putting the finishing and hopefully, lasting touches on our PC service. After reading this letter, I hope that you will be so moved to help me complete one of my projects.

My counterpart organization is focused on sustainable development and conservation. One of my jobs with them is to do Env. Education with the local schools (of which there are 40). The teachers here took a look at some of the EE guides I brought with me and they are astounded at the wealth of information available in these guides. Unfortunately nearly all the materials are in English. This, however, spawned an idea to develop an Ecuador specific EE guide for teachers here. So, I have begun a long and at times, seemingly impossible journey to create an EE guide that would make the folks at PLT and Project WET proud. Luckily, two other volunteers wanted to join the effort as well.

We are making a guide that will be free of charge to the teachers and we will be hosting workshops as well for any and all interested teachers. So far, I have 250 teachers from 32 schools that want to participate. The main issue we have is finding funding to print the EE guides and other materials we plan on making.

I am sending this letter to all of you as a request for funds. Peace Corps has a program called Peace Corps Partnership Funding where volunteers can post projects and people back in the states can donate money for the projects. Thanks to some matching funds I found locally, every $10 that gets donated to the project will provide one teacher with an EE guidebook and participation in an EE training workshop. Please note that zero $ goes to Peace Corps or administrative costs. 100% of your donation goes right to the people who need it. I know that you all deal with your own funding issues back home (price of food and gas), but if you, your friends, or even your employer can help - it would go a long way to improving EE here in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Think of this as an easy way to invest in the conservation and protection of one of the world’s most biodiverse areas.

Here is the link to my project:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=518-319

Now, here is the interesting part, once the funding goal has been reached, you can’t donate any more. This is unfortunate, because with more funds I can print more guides and reach more teachers - so if you go to donate and see that I have reached my goal, you can still send money to the project, just send it to my parents or directly to me.

Thanks ahead of time for any support you can send my way.

Jeremy King
[e-mail]
Casilla 16-01-710
Puyo, Pastaza
Ecuador

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