Thank you for visiting my fundraising page for the Acumen Fund!
About a year or so ago, I decided that I needed to counter the massive amount of McDonalds (for those of you that don't know me, I have to eat there like once a week) and alcohol soda that I consume on a weekly basis and so began my random venture into triathlons.
I will be competing in the Ironman 70.3 (aka Tinman) in Providence on July 12. As there is no official fundraising for this event, I wanted to put my efforts toward something a little more useful than fighting chicken mcnuggets. For the past year, I have been educating myself on some of the dire situations of developing countries despite the benefits of globalization. As a result, I decided to begin fundraising efforts through my existing hobbies. After some research, I came across the Acumen Fund, a highly organized New York non-profit that provides infrastructure needs such as water, health services, and housing in India and Eastern and Southern Africa. Simple infrastructure developments such as waste management and clean water are preventing an entire generation of children from accessing education and a healthy lifestyle (see articles below). I came across the Acumen Fund while researching non-profit grantees and find the fund to be a very worthwhile and well managed organization. They are also strongly supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aErNiP_V4RLc&refer=news
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/world/asia/29water.html?_r=1
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/poop-is-funny-but-its-fatal/
http://www.acumenfund.org/
www.ironmanrhodeisland.com/
I am not doing this to meet fundraising goals/requirements of any sort - I simply wanted to put a meaningful spin to my hobbies. Any support, whether it be large, small, or even moral support, is greatly appreciated.
If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: “This can’t be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.”
So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: “How could the world let these children die?”
The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.
-Bill Gates, Commencement Speech 6/07