From the beginning we’ve been using micro-fundraising and peer-to-peer connections to raise funds. We always focused on supporting grassroots projects led by local, community members who wanted to increase access to basic health for their communities. We focused early on engaging young people and utilizing connections within a network in order to make change and replicate it. Many of the strategies that made our organization exciting, innovative, and successful have spread across the non-profit community. Now there isn’t an organization out there that skips a beat talking about peer-to-peer fundraising, network utilization, campus chapters, or the need for local control of international aid projects.

As times have changed and the needs of our members have evolved, we have been flexible and have grown our organization with those needs. This year marks our 10th anniversary of the start of an Eagle Scout project in 2001, led by a 14 year-old, that raised funds to purchase an ambulance for a health center in rural Uganda. Since the successful completion of that project in 2002, we have supported projects in 5 different countries with health issues ranging from access to medical supplies, nutritional needs, and HIV prevention. Check out our 10 year impact!

As our organization has evolved we have been uniquely able to adapt and implement various methodologies and theories of change. One that has been a cornerstone of our member training is a focus on “Allies in Development.” This training was developed from a range of resources to bring understandings of privilege and international development to our members. Being an ally means that our members recognize that there is a degree of detachment that comes from the privilege of activism on a campus to the health realities on the ground.

We are students and young people, but we can’t save lives. We CAN utilize our knowledge and resources to better support the work of projects and organizations that CAN implement community-based solutions.

That is why SCOUT BANANA is restructuring as a member-owned international development cooperative organization. There is no reason that a non-profit should collect your donations, but you have no participation beyond donating. Likewise, there is no reason that members and donors should be disconnected from the people implementing the funds they donate.

Our goal of engaging young people in meaningful international development efforts to improve access to basic health across Africa can best be accomplished with a strong network of invested individuals working within their campuses as Allies in Development and partnering with grassroots projects in need of resources and support. Become a member today and impact our work!

Learn more and Become a Member at: http://scoutbanana.org/activate

The image below shows global Occupy (fill-in-the-blank) protests

SCOUT BANANA’s mission is to educate, motivate, and activate. Now, I’m not playing favorites but I’d have to say that for me, getting active is the final and most important step in any social organization, movement, or attempt to make change. I know that students all over the U.S. and across the world are eager to learn about social issues and are motivated to be a part.  But I also know from my own experience that many young people are unable or unwilling to move outside of their comfort zone to get into the act of promoting social progress, justice and change locally and across the globe.

This is why I found the Occupy Wall Street movement to be so surprising, encouraging and confounding. What conditions made thousands and thousands of young people across the country come out for economic justice? To be clear, the Occupy (fill-in-the-blank-city) is tremendous. But more important, it’s the largest movement fueled by young people in the U.S. in recent history. What I don’t understand is why this particular movement is any more important to young Americans than social justice, immigrant rights, global healthcare and nutrition, and international human rights. The list goes on. What is it about Occupy Wall Street that made these people get off of Facebook and Twitter to storm their communities and seek economic justice?

My original question remains: Where are all of the activists?  Social problems ranging from blatant human rights abuse of immigrants in the United States to horrendous healthcare inequality in much of the Global South remain. Yet there have been virtually no protests, movements, or demands for change from the source of our greatest engine for change: young people and their incredible collective power.

Remember that the act is the start of change. Remember the billion people without access to proper healthcare. Remember the people whose basic human rights have been violated. Occupy Wall Street should be the first of many acts against injustice everywhere. We must do more than share a link on Facebook, Tweet a link, or forward an interesting article to our Listservs. We must act.

Our key stakeholders in the United States are young people and students at universities. More often than not, business leaders, non-profit directors, politicians, and other “experts” don’t think that young people have much to contribute in the way of new ideas of skills to improve or make a difference on global health issues. This video was chosen today because it is an excellent example of how young people are entering into development projects with an open mind, understanding of community control over projects, and the limitations of their work. These students from Harvard present an excellent idea adapted from a Western development project to improve the health and nutrition of people in Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.

The video is very quiet, turn up the volume and listen closely.

People young and old across the US have connected with seven different communities across the African continent to support locally initiated health projects. Using the vibrant color of bananas and the enthusiasm of youth, a new nonprofit has grown to support the coming revolution in African health care.

It all began with one individual, Fr. Joseph Birungi, who had the dream of providing access to basic health care in a remote area where he worked. His dream was transferred on to me through his stories of those who died because they did not have access to basic health care. At the time I was a 14 year-old who knew little of the world beyond Michigan’s borders, but I was inspired to do something. Just entering high school, I was full of naive optimism with a goal to figure out how I could make an impact in the world. Although I was youthful, naive, and optimistic I had an incredible mentor, my mother. She helped me form basic assumptions that laid the foundation for my understanding of "global health as everyone’s responsibility. "

One assumption that grew from my optimism was the belief that everyone had the potential to make a difference in the world. From Fr. Joseph to myself to my mother, the chain of individuals who embodied this grew to include hundreds of families, church congregations, school assemblies, and individuals from across the country working to fund an ambulance. These individuals, linked by a common cause, were able to raise over $67,000 in less than three months for the health center in Uganda.

It is easy for many people to take for granted the small things: clean water from a sink, medicine readily available in your cabinet, adequate food sources, etc. In the summer of 2002, I was able to traveled to Uganda. During my one-month stay I met and lived with the people who would benefit from the ambulance project. The people I met were so friendly and, even in their poverty, they wanted to share what little they had. I have seen that all people of the world share the same needs and wants. Everyone needs food, shelter, clean water, and necessary health care. We all want to know happiness, health and love. Parents everywhere want the best for their children and children want to learn and grow. But not everyone gets the same chance for success. And so keeping in mind the interdependent and similar nature of our world it is not so difficult to see "global health as everyone’s responsibility."

As I graduated from high school with my classmates so did SCOUT BANANA. My friends began expanding our work into Chapters at colleges and universities across the US and Canada. This allowed our outreach to grow along with our ability to support more local projects. We became seriously focused on community-based solutions and empowering young people in the US to take responsible action when "making a difference" in Africa. Just because you have the means to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. With an expanding support base and the desire to empower young people and community leaders we decided to pursue 501c3 status in order to better serve as a resource. Utilizing privilege in the US to connect communities in Africa with inspired students, SCOUT BANANA has been able to raise almost $200,000 to date and engage over 50,000 young people in partnering with African projects to provide access to basic health care.

SCOUT BANANA believes that global health is everyone’s responsibility and that everyone has the potential to make a difference. We look at global health issues systematically and our solutions are focused on revolutionizing structures as well as shifting paradigms of development thinking in regards to education, power, and privilege. We seek to create lasting social change in African health care and believe that solutions come directly from communities in need. SCOUT BANANA is dedicated to empowering community solutions as well as young people who want to responsibly make a difference in Africa. By connecting communities in long-term cooperative partnerships, we will build a movement dedicated to fundamental social change in which global health is everyone’s responsibility and every individual’s human right.

SCOUT BANANA is a nonprofit organization that works to provide access to basic health care in Africa. Focusing on community-based solutions and empowering community leaders as well as young people who want to make a difference in Africa, SCOUT BANANA is supporting the innovation in African health care. The organization connects student Chapters with local health project in Africa.

Learn more about the Chapter network & apply to launch a Chapter at your school HERE!

Cross posted from Change.org’s Global Health Blog: HERE Published September 09, 2009 @ 05:00PM

Want to get published? Got an exciting term paper? Have some eye-opening stories about your work abroad? Looking to have your voice heard?

Articulate: Undergraduate Research Applied to International Development is now accepting submissions for its Fall 2009 issue! The journal will be published in November, and we encourage all undergraduates and young people (under 30) who are interested and experienced in the areas of development, African studies, and/or health care to consider making a contribution. See the Call for Papers below for more information.