Child Slavery in Asia

**Image Links to video

This short video is just a taste of the situation that can be found in south-east Asia. It was mentioned in the video that there are several groups endeavoring to work with the Thai government to start rescue centers for those caught in this industry. iPursuit is involved with several of these organizations both in supplying funding as well as strategizing and creating programs that stop the flow of trafficked persons at the village level.

These relationships that iPursuit is a part of create opportunities for the average person who simply wants to make a difference. If you have a heart for projects such as these, get in touch with us and let’s look to see how we can work together.

Spreading Awareness

This fall part iPursuit will be going to Thailand with a filming crew as well as our business team. The filming crew will be there to capture the essence of trafficking and to bring a voice to those being trafficked. This footage will serve to raise awareness both in Thailand as well as internationally and will be a powerful educational tool in the centers that are being developed in Northeast Thailand.

In addition to this, our business development team will be holding training sessions in order to equip trafficked people and those enslaved in the sex industry with a way out without having to resort to begging or heading back into prostitution. By providing this training, as well as raising awareness of the horrid conditions of those being trafficked, we hope to provide an education which will hopefully prevent parents from selling their kids into prostitution or forced labor, and which will show them that there are other options available for these families struggling to make ends meet.

Are you interested in the issues of human trafficking? Are you a photographer or artist who is interested in raising awareness and putting an end to human trafficking? Click on our Engage page and get in contact with us. Let’s start the conversation…

The Untapped Creativity

When it comes to any cause that we see around the world, creativity is our greatest resource. This video editorial highlights one such victory in the field of malnutrition. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders has been putting into use a natural medicine to help combat against malnutrition in children.

While this particular breakthrough shows a solution for a particular cause in a particular area, what it also shows is that we must look to alternate sources to see the result we so desperately need. If we continue to approach the problems we face as we always have, we will get the results we always have.

This creativity is not limited to those in powerful positions or with government titles, but it is an opportunity available to everybody, and available to you. There is enormous potential lying dormant within the very people you interact with everyday; even within yourself.

We’ve been asking over the past several months, what are you passionate about? Now we ask, what is the next step? What can you bring? Research, ask questions, bring people along on the journey with you, together we will see change come forth.

**Image links to CBS website
Article on MSF website.

Comments below.

Why We Must Be Informed

This talk surrounds the issue of the western world working together to bring what Paul Collier calls “the bottom billion” up into the relative prosperity and standard of living that the first world now enjoys.

You’ll notice during the talk, that he seems to go into some detail about foreign relations, trade agreements and other policies that really don’t seem to have much to do with the common citizen. However, bear with him because near the end, he brings it home, stating that “until we have a critical mass of informed citizens in our own societies, politicians will get away with gestures. Unless we have an informed society, what politicians [give], especially in relation to Africa, is gestures; things that look good, but don’t work.”

This realization is so vitally important for us all to understand because it is the lifeblood for how you and I, in the current realities in which we find ourselves, can be a force to move the world forward into a better reality.

Be a part of this movement, click on comments below and give your thoughts.

Escaping Poverty

Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder of a nonprofit organization that takes a businesslike approach to solving the problem of poverty around the world. Novogratz has become a leading proponent for financing entrepreneurs and enterprises that can bring affordable clean water, housing and healthcare to people in poverty.

In this talk she shares a story about a women from the sums of Nairobi who was born into the cycle of poverty, who finds her way out through to a new life with the help of microfinance.

iPursuit is involved with several efforts in the field of microfinancing, particularly in south-east Asia, where stories like these take place everyday. If you would like to be involved in this life giving work, click on engage on the right sidebar or you can simply click on donate and be a part of what is going on.

Handicapped Centers

In many parts of the world, to have a child born with a physical disability is seen as something to be ashamed about. Often these disabled children are ostracized by the community, and in the most extreme cases, may spend most of their lives in a single room with little to no interaction with the outside world. Many of these children are malnourished, uneducated and without any hope of change or relief. Not only do these children suffer, but their families do as well, they have to deal with the cultural shame and guilt that often accompanies having a disabled child; and they have no understanding of their child’s condition or any idea that many of these physical disabilities can be treated with basic therapy and exercise.

It is into this world that a new work has been established, stretching from North Africa to Central Asia, that endeavors to help children suffering specifically from cerebral palsy. Centers have been setup in order to come alongside these families and provide the help and care that they desperately need. These centers endeavour to teach the parents of these children some basic stretching and coordination exercises that they can learn and replicate out of their own homes. While simple, these exercises have the capability to drastically change the quality of life for these children in amazing ways. The end goal is that these parents will learn enough during their time at the center that eventually all of the therapy can be done out of the home. In addition to the therapy the staff at the centers teach the parents about proper nutrition, pre-natal care and hygiene all in a tangibly loving and supportive atmosphere.

It is amazing to watch these children who have often been neglected for so long receive the love and care they so desire. Often these children come in 2-3 times a week and it is not uncommon to hear that these children look forward to their time at the center as the highlight of the week. Imagine an environment where these children can play with one another, something they do not get to do often, while the mothers talk about their shared hardships and trials. Imagine children who could not walk are now moving on their own two legs. Imagine families witnessing unconditional love and support for their children which many in their society see as a less than a real person. This is happening right now in these centres based in various countries around the world.

Out of these center entire communities have the opportunity to be transformed as the stories about these children and the love they receive spread around villages, towns and entire countries. Doors that otherwise would have remained closed are opening everyday as new opportunities present themselves to not only impact these children and their families but entire neighbourhoods and even governments.

The iPursuit team has been involved with these centres for over 5 years now and we have seen incredible breakthrough in these families and communities. There are several ways in which you can be involved: through educating those around you as to the cause of families with disabled children around the world, if you are a medical or administrative professional, there is a huge need in this sector, or if you would just like to give, all donations are happily accepted.

A Breakdown of Our Process

Part of iPursuit’s process is this idea of connecting innovative solutions and untapped resources to global causes. But, in practice, what does this actually look like?

The idea of using innovative solutions in order to solve the problems that we are endeavoring to address around the world may seem like an ethereal way of looking at our mission, however this part of our strategy does have very tangible quality to it.

What we mean by innovative solutions is that there are very real and important technologies and ideas, that have not had the opportunity to be used around the world in any great capacity. Whether this has come to pass due to a lack of resources, a lack of connections, or simply because of an over-saturation of red tape, there are great ideas out there that simply need a hand up. iPursuit is committed to being that hand up.

The idea surrounding untapped resources is that in any given community, especially in the west, there are individuals with resource.This resource includes money, networks of relationships, access to technologies, etc. However, this also does not necessarily mean that wealthy individuals with an extreme amount of money are the only ones that can help, but also includes the average person, with their networks and relationships, with what they can give on a regular basis. By combining these two elements, it allows us a large opportunity to fund the aforementioned innovative solutions so that we can see an exponentially growing breakthrough in the causes we are addressing around the world.

Where do you see yourself? Are you an untapped resource? Do you have ideas/inventions/technologies that could aid in solving issues surrounding our four causes? Take a look at your life and where you want to be heading and ask yourself: how can I be a part of this? Can you spread the knowledge of the desperate need going on around the world? Can you give to project working to alleviate this need? Email us at info@ipursuit.org or go to our engage page and tell us what you think.

There is room in iPursuit for everyone with a passion to make a difference. Get connected and let us together start something huge.

The Domains of Society

One of the ways in which iPursuit strategizes around the various causes and projects it’s involved with is through the idea of Domains. The concept of there being several Domains of Society was an idea articulated in a book by Bob Roberts[1]. In his book, Roberts splits society into eight domains: Economics, Agriculture, Education, Medicine/Science/Technology, Communication/Media, Arts, Government & Justice, and Family.

These groups allow us to effectively coordinate people according to their skills, passions and disciplines. Here is an example of how this idea of Domains can effectively aid a project that iPursuit is involved with. Let us take for example, the issue of widows in India. Through leveraging the combined knowledge, wisdom and skills of these different groups of people, we can be holistic by addressing the problem from several different angles. A person from each domain may be effective through:

• Economics: Micro-finance, budgeting, and teaching
• Agriculture: Assessing problems and teaching
• Education: Teaching
• Medicine/Science/Technology: Health care and teaching
• Communication/Media: Bringing awareness
• Arts: Teaching and bringing awareness
• Government & Justice: Bringing awareness, lobbying local governments
• Family: Bringing awareness

There are many ways in which each of us can be involved and applying the concept of Domains allows us to be strategic in how we do this. We know that not all of us can go on-location and teach our skills, however being passionate does not mean necessarily selling all you have and moving to Calcutta. It means learning about what is going on, hearing the stories and passing them on. Encouraging those around you to also get involved, to get it in them, to get to a place where we are absolutely broken for the people around the world that are hurting.

It is that kind of passion that drives iPursuit. As we’ve said, if you want to be part of a movement with a heart for the broken, email us, get involved. Learn more about the issues around the world and decide that you can do something about it. A whole new world is waiting for you.

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[1] http://www.amazon.com/Multiplying-Church-Math-Starting-Churches/dp/0310277167

Our Worldview Changes Everything

People tend to share a common tribal way of thinking within whatever
culture (or subculture) they may be a part of, whether by choice or by birth.

However, the question is: where is the line between your culture, and your
worldview? How are they alike, and how are they different?  How does my
worldview affect  my daily life?

The way that we look at the world, both our immediate surroundings as well
as the wider world across the oceans, paints everything we do, think, say or
feel. It’s the reason that some will look at a person of a certain ethnicity and
assume the worst. It is one’s worldviews that perpetuate a stereotype that is
blatantly wrong.

“The term culture is the label anthropologists give to the structured customs and underlying worldview assumptions on which people form their lives. Culture (including worldview), is peoples’ way of life, their design for living, their way of coping with their biological, physical and social environment. It consists of learned, patterned assumptions, concepts and behavior, plus the resulting artifacts.

Worldview, the deep level of culture, is the culturally structured set of assumptions (including values and commitments/allegiances) underlying how a people perceive and respond to reality. Worldview is not separate from culture. It is included in culture as the deepest level presuppositions upon which people base their lives.

Worldview:

1. A worldview consists of the assumptions underlying all cultural values, allegiances and behaviors.
2. Worldview assumptions and images underlie our perception of reality and responses to it.
3. Worldview assumptions or premises are learned from our elders, not reasoned out but assumed to be true without prior proof. It seldom occurs to us that there may be people of other groups who do not share our assumptions.
4. We organize our lives and experience according to our worldview and seldom question it unless our experience challenges one of its assumptions.
5. In cross-cultural [projects], the problems that arise from difference in worldview are the most difficult to deal with.”[1]

So where do we go from here? If we think the way we do based on assumptions that are almost built-in by the culture we are a part of, must we continue to conform to that communal reality?

When we speak to someone different than ourselves, it is the responsibility of each one of us to find out what is on the other side of their eyes. If we simply accept our “reality” based on our own limited experience of the world and the people in it, we miss the whole point. There is always a better way of doing things, and that way is found through humbly trying to understand the person standing in front of you, who you may not even agree with in the slightest.

What do you think? Are we simply a product of the environment we are born into, or choose to be in? What does this mean to our lives as we come in contact with a wider world where people do not think like us? Is it possible to change destructive ways of thinking that exist simply because it’s the way its always been done?

This change, this new hope is what iPursuit is about. If you want to be a part of a group of people wanting to see a brighter horizon, email us, phone us, get into the conversation and see how your life can expand to make the world better.

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[1] Charles H. Kraft. Culture, Worldview and Contextualization. Perspectives on the world Christian Movement. Third Ed., William Cary Library, 1999.

The Importance of Clean Water

Poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean water are some of the greatest causes in the outbreak of epidemics today. In fact, according to the World Bank¹, 88% of all diseases are cause by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene.²

This video is reporting on the outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe that has been present for the past several months. Cholera, like many diseases, spreads mainly due to poor sanitation. Furthermore, because of the recent political unrest in Zimbabwe over the last few years in particular, there is very little infastructure to allow to there to be adequate sanitation. Médecins Sans Frontières is one of many organizations working to restore stability within this outbreak, as well as to educate people on the importance of purifying their water sources.

Because of the massive importance that having access to clean water has on the general heath of a population, iPursuit has placed it as one of its top priorities in projects around the globe. iPursuit is looking for inventors with experience in the field of water purification and water pumps as well as anyone with a heart for this particular need around the world.
If you would like to get involved in any capacity, email us or go to the iPursuit website and click on Engage.

For more information on the impact of clean water and sanitation, see:

• UNICEF – Water, Sanitation & Hygene
• UNICEF – How UNICEF supports clean water initiatives
• WHO – Report on cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe
• PeopleAndPlanet.net – Report on the global availability of fresh water

1http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/17/eco.about.water/

2http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/676064.stm