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This is a guest post written by Adriana Mistick, a junior at Wheaton College. She also happens to be my sister! This past summer she had the incredible opportunity to go volunteer with Mama Lucy at Sheperds Junior School in Arusha, Tanzania. This is her story.

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Addy and the students from Sheperds Junior School, Summer 2011

I’ve sat down to write about my summer in Tanzania so many times without ever being able to find the words or the descriptions that are just right. I’ve decided now that it was one of those experiences I will never fully be able t explain or attempt to show with photos because what I really want is for everyone to be able to go and experience it for themselves.

It was early this year when I decided I wanted to do something different for the summer. I was about halfway through college at that point and had been lucky enough to take some time off early in college to help me get my head on straight. Now I guess you could say I’m focused. On what, you ask? Water and teaching kids, or teaching anyone I can, about water and our environment. I’m a self-proclaimed “water junkie”. Thinking about my summer and not knowing where to start, my sister Sloane (maybe you guys know her??) was eager to help me find a good match in terms of location and program. The moment I told her what I was thinking she had something perfect in mind but still worked wonders by facebooking, tweeting and emailing a personal ad for her baby sis.

EPIC CHANGE. That’s where Sloane’s mind was from the start and from the moment she first told me about meeting Stacey Monk at a conference and following their progress, that’s where my mind was too.

Epic Change has worked to raise money for a school in Arusha, Tanzania called the Shepherds Junior School. They have done this through various campaigns like TweetsGiving, To Mama With Love and even more recently were able to bring two of the star students, Gideon and Leah, from the first graduating class of 7th graders all the way to America to tell their story across the country.

The school itself, Shepherds Junior School, was started by a woman named Mama Lucy, the most inspiring woman I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Sloane connected me to Stacey, Stacey to Mama Lucy, and then Mama and I had a brief email exchange before deciding that I was coming to live in Arusha for two months to work at the school. Even luckier than just being connected to this incredible woman was that my college thought it was a great idea too and awarded me the Davis International Fellowship, which came with a hefty grant, that made it possible for me to go. My favorite perk of the fellowship has been telling my story at different events and presentations on campus this year.

Each interview goes a little bit differently because there is so much that I want to say. My favorite questions are along the lines of, “What surprised you most about being there?” or “What is the most important thing you left with?”, “Did the experience change your thinking about the future?”

And my responses go like this:

They have some of the best smiles I have ever seen, you know those smiles you can see in their eyes. They truly hung on my every word and would spend break times coming up to me and asking more and more questions about anything. “What is the deepest lake in America?” or “Is there HIV/AIDS in America?” and “What is your favorite food in Tanzania/America and why?” to “How does the rain fall?” and “How does water become a cloud?” – without me even prompting them. I’ll be honest, the questions about the deepest lake in America or how many national parks we have I actually had to look up and come back with the answers another day. The have an undying thirst for knowledge, unlike I’ve ever seen it before.

In terms of changing my thinking about my future and the world’s future it comes down to one word, HOPE. It can be easy to feel defeated by many news stories and through studying climate change and listening to seemingly endless debates in politics that leave us with no real answers or solutions but seeing and working with the people at the school and the children there inspired me and gave me hope. It reminded me that people are stronger than we think and often times deserve more credit. The teachers at that school give up almost all of their time, even weekends, to teach and help those kids. Many of them go home in the afternoon when school gets out and will go to visit children in their village that don’t get to go to school and will tutor them, for free, from home. Knowing that there are people that committed to the future help me to believe that the future is going to be a good place. Those children at Shepherds Junior School, dreaming of becoming astronauts, doctors or teachers, I believe that they can do it. I know that if those children succeed, they will honestly make our world a far better place than we ever could have expected.

For my future, I now feel that I, myself, can make a difference. One person alone can be powerful, and change making. One person can start a school from nothing. One person can inspire hundreds or thousands of more people.

I am now one of the many inspired by Mama Lucy, Stacey Monk and Sloane Berrent. And that’s why this year I am thankful for the places I have been, the things that I have seen and most importantly the PEOPLE that I have met.

Asante sana,
Addy

I have long been passionate about women and women’s issues (including my new web project Help A Woman Out) and couldn’t be more excited to take my skills and experience to join the Lippe Taylor family. It’s an amazing agency with a great client base and I’m thrilled to be jumping right in, managing a team, and leading digital initiatives.

I have a lot more to share about Lippe Taylor and this new chapter in my life and I can’t wait to write more about it here. In the meantime, the full press release is below. Check it out. My mom said she learned things she didn’t know about me from reading it! And as always, thank you for coming along on this journey with me.

*****
Cause and Social Marketing Expert Sloane Berrent Joins Lippe Taylor Brand Communications as Director of Digital Marketing

NEW YORK – March 7, 2011 – Lippe Taylor Brand Communications announced a new addition to its digital marketing team with the addition of social entrepreneur and digital strategist Sloane Berrent as the agency’s new Director of Digital Marketing.

Sloane is a former Kiva Fellow and has been recognized for her leadership in women’s issues and cause marketing by CNN, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Chronicle of Philanthropy, TechCrunch, Read/Write Web and Mashable and included in power lists She Takes on The World’s Women of the Year 2009 and Forbes’ 20 Inspiring Women To Follow On Twitter. Most recently Sloane ran her own digital strategy consultancy, Answer With Action.

Sloane will join the digital marketing team led by David Binkowski, who joined Lippe Taylor as EVP, Digital Marketing in June 2010 from MS&LGroup. “I am excited to welcome Sloane to the Lippe Taylor digital team where she’ll bring her deep knowledge and insights of social and cause marketing to our clients. Sloane’s career history of focusing on women’s issues and rights significantly bolsters our core strength of marketing to women,” said Binkowski.

“As we have seen tremendous growth in our social marketing business, we are filling our teams with the best talent in the industry. Sloane is just that! Her expertise in marketing to women makes her a perfect fit,” says Jim Joseph, President of Lippe Taylor.

Sloane will continue to write about cause-filled living through her blog, The Causemopolitan. In addition, she will provide strategic oversight to the Lippe Taylor digital team, explore new business opportunities and expand her work as a thought leader on cause and social marketing at industry events. Sloane’s ability to connect women and causes has been highlighted through her attendance at the World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative and her speaking engagements at The California Endowment, South by Southwest (SXSW), Columbia University and the California Institute of Technology.

About Lippe Taylor Brand Communications:

Founded by Maureen Lippe, former editor at Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue Magazines, Lippe Taylor creates award winning marketing and public relations campaigns for an impressive roster of clients in health, beauty, fashion and lifestyle. With a particular expertise in “Marketing to Women,” Lippe Taylor specializes in brand communications that engage women with exciting programs that cross traditional, digital, and social media. Since 1988, the independent agency has launched innovative programs for some of the world’s most significant and successful brands such as Proctor & Gamble, Kao Corporation, L’Oreal, Clairol, The Limited, Nestlé, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, David’s Bridal and IKEA.

I talk a lot about cause-filled living and what it means to incorporate cause into your life everyday. Often when asked why I am the way I am, or why I care so much, I answer that it started small and has grown to be a big part of who I am and that I would be this way no matter where I lived or what I did because it’s who I am on the inside.

Kevin Spacey gives an amazing answer to a question in the video above to “What is the ultimate prize?” While it is from Inside The Actor’s Studio, it rings true for any profession and any ambitions that we have inside of us.

There is no prize out there for how it feels to make others feel good, or to be a good neighbor or a good friend or a global citizen. There might be prizes and accolades. There might be the power of influence. But what it really comes down to is what type of person are you?

Do you help those in need? Do you help yourself and love yourself when you are in need? When you look at your ambitions and what legacy you want to leave, are your motives pure? Are your parents proud of the person you’ve become? Are you proud of the person you’ve become?

It’s never too late to be the person you want to be.

It’s never too late to realize that the true prize of looking around and supporting your peers to be the best they can be. Believe that you have something to give to this world and cultivate that and believe in it.

As a reminder, here is an exercise. Write down on a post-it note a strong and powerful statement about yourself. Next, put that note on a mirror in your house. Every time you look in the mirror you’ll see your reminder to yourself and take a moment to not just see your writing, but to feel it and to become it.

There is no prize out there. There is only the prize within.

I’m incredibly excited to share with you a brand new version of The Causemopolitan. The Causemopolitan will still provide you with information about philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and cause-filled living opportunities for you to find ways to give back and continue to build cause into your life. Only now, it’s brighter, bigger and better than ever! There are more ways to find the content you want, stronger category and tagging infrastructure, interviews, and more targeted content to match the reader base. The layout and design have been given a facelift. New logo, new design, new colors. I hope you enjoy the new look and feel as much as I do, and would love to hear what you think in the comments!

Another great addition! The Causemopolitan has gone social! You can ‘like” posts, share on Twitter and add to StumbleUpon all at the top of every post. I’ve created a page on Facebook for The Causemopolitan and that is going to be the main portal for sharing cause-based videos, events and information and I’d love you to join the conversation.

If you’re not signed up to receive FREE updates from The Causemopolitan what are you waiting for? Sign up takes less than one minute and you can do it here! Of course, You can still add The Causemopolitan to your RSS feeder as well.

When I first started The Causemopolitan in February of 2009, I was looking for a little place on the web to call my own. I launched the site with encouragement and assistance from good friends Jonathan Dingman (designed the first wordpress site), Erica O’Grady, (the big push) Mike Prasad and Jeff Henderson (hosting and support). Since then so much has happened. From New Orleans to the Philippines and back, I have shared over 300 posts and connected with countless people who have left comments or reached out to me because of The Causemopolitan.

My blogging history didn’t start with The Causemopolitan. I had been blogging as the Lifestyle Editor for the leading Los Angeles blog LAist (part of the Gothamist network) since 2005, and had kept up with my Tumblr blog in addition to being active on social networks including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, but I wanted more. I was on a journey after all spending 2009 giving back in volunteer projects around the world.

Here’s the funny thing about blogging. I know mine is just one of millions of post-it notes on a wall, but it’s my post-it note, and it’s come to mean the world to me.

I haven’t gotten everything right all of the time, haven’t blogged every day, haven’t shared everything I wanted to, but I have tried my best to grow the community around The Causemopolitan. As my yoga teacher says, “You might lose your balance, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t try your best.”

Some truly incredible things have happened over the last year and a half including:

• Expanding my experiential marketing and online communications consulting practice, Answer With Action.
• Accepting a Kiva Fellowship in the Philippines for the summer of 2009 with Ahon sa Hirap, Inc., the oldest microfinance institution in the Philippines.
• The EPIC Cause It’s My Birthday series last October where Doug Campbell and I raised $19,500 for Netting Nations to provide malaria nets to families in Ghana.
• Attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2010 as the MySpace and Wall St. Journal Citizen Journalist.
• Launching NOLAlicious, a weekly enewsletter in New Orleans with friends Carl Nelson and Taylor Davidson. NOLAlicious has since been named the “best newsletter in New Orleans” in the annual Web Awards by The Gambit.
• Co-created and produced two series of benefits, raising over $60,000, for fishermen and their families in the wake of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill through the platform, Gulf Coast Benefit. All donations went to support the Gulf Restoration Network and Catholic Charities of New Orleans.
• Created a public speaking practice around cause-filled living, and how to build online communities around cause. I’ve loved this and engagements have including Fundraising Day NYC, TribeCon, SXSW, The Combine and SocialDevCamp Chicago and lecturing at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and CalTech.
• Create relationships and blogged for publications including PopTech, WhatGives!?, GOOD Magazine, and Socialbrite.

Another great resource to follow along is my blogroll. Updated every month, I add links and resources as a benefit to those in the public and private sector to help identify ways to give back. It also has lists for other publications I write for, nonprofits I support and inspiring cause-based writers.

I welcome your feedback and looking forward to this next chapter for me, you, and The Causemopolitan.

Yours in cause,
Sloane

P.S. Last, you can always follow the latest in cause news that I share on my Twitter (@sloane) and on now also through The Causemopolitan on Facebook.

Photo Credit Kris Krug / Static Photography. Photo on Flickr. View more photos from TEDxOil Spill Expedition on Flickr.

Here in the Gulf Coast, the effect from the oil spill is overwhelming. An entire way of life is gone forever. It’s not an overly dramatic statement. The entire fishing industry will never recovery and people who have worked on the water their whole life (or whose professions rely on water-based industries) are now without a viable way to make money. What’s worse is that many of the areas hardest hit are actually the same areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. What that means is that many of those communities are still repaying loans from Katrina and are unable to take on a second loan from the SBA, even with deferred payment.

A phrase heard from natives about natural and unnatural disasters that have attacked this region is, “When CNN goes away, the lawyers come out to play.” How tragic and deplorable to think that if the national media veers their attention that BP won’t hold itself accountable for decimating the livelihood of thousands of families, recreation activities for the entire region and destroying the wildlife and wetlands that the entire country depend on to keep our fragile eco-sysytem in place.

I therefore implore you to do what you can to keep this topic top of mind. That can mean using your own social networks to tell stories, re-share photos taken, signing petitions to lawmakers, making donations to nonprofits doing direct relief work, create ways for your industry or business to give back and keep pushing forward. The “disaster fatigue” is upon us that sets in during enormous devastation and I applaud so many of you out there reading this for your hard work and precious time in helping those who need it. You inspire me.

Yours in better times,
Sloane

*****
Edited from an original post published on June 20, 2010 as a NOLAlicious special edition called “Gulf Oil Spill Special Edition.” For more information on NOLAlicious or to sign up for the weekly e-newsletter, visit our website NOLAlicious.com.
*****

News Updates

From The New York Times Interactive Map to the Oil Reporter Mobile Application, there are many resources gathering information and sharing photos, videos, blog and news updates from the entire Gulf Region. One site to bookmark is WWOZ’s BP Oil Disaster Resource and Update page. You can find more information like what is listed here that can help build your own resource guide of information surrounding the disaster.

Donate

There are many small community groups making an immediate impact in the Gulf Coast region where your donations will be put to use immediately. To help you, follow this Twitter list of organizations to support. Another great opportunity to give is during Monday night’s 2-hour CNN telethon special. You can direct your donations to one of three national nonprofits, National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy or the United Way. If you remember, the CNN Haiti telethon raised over $5 million, and these national endeavors are critical fundraising channels for giving back on a national scale.

Gatherings for Good

Follow @TEDxOilSpill, or attend the event June 28th in Washington DC where leaders around the country and across industries including government agencies, NGOs, and environmental groups are coming together to tackle the tough questions raised by the recent and ongoing environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Topics will include mitigation of the spill and the impending cleanup efforts; energy alternatives; policy and economics; as well as new technology that can help us build a self-reliant culture. There are 72 Meetups happening around the country that day (including this one in New Orleans) so you can participate where ever you are.

Volunteer

LA Gulf Response is collecting names for possible upcoming volunteer opportunities around the Gulf Region. Its important to note that the health affects of the oil spill and it’s air-borne particles are not known, and most relief agencies are looking for skilled volunteers or to hire those from the local community who need income to help. Much of the area around the oil spill is highly-restricted, follow the agencies supporting this response effort for more information.

Purchase Power

Most products supporting Gulf Coast nonprofits have sold out in a heartbeat (including this one from Threadless) but one to jump on is the collaboration between Fleurty Girl and the Audubon Institute’s Louisiana Marine Mammal & Sea Turtle Rescue Program (LMMSTRP). 100% of the net proceeds from the sales of this T-shirt, called “Rescue Me”, go towards the Audubon program. Another is from We Add Up, with your custom number on the shirt totaling people making a difference.

Lagniappe

@BPGlobalPR is NOT actually the BP PR team on Twitter. It’s an account started by humorist Leroy Stick. His satire is sharp while raising awareness to the actions of BP and those responding to the spill. The account has over 160,000 followers (versus 12,000 for the real BP Twitter account). It’s not a laughing matter, but these tweets will bring a smirk to your face and we all need something light hearted. His “BP CARES” T-shirts can be purchased here and 100% of the proceeds go to the Gulf Restoration Network

• Three Exciting Announcements: This is the post where I announced NOLAlicious (now at it’s 15th edition and growing rapidly), my contract work with FSC Interactive on the Ochsner Health System social media strategy team and my segment on LPTV for social entrepreneurship. In 3 months, these 3 projects are among my favorite.
• Dear Future Me: Of all the future me’s I write, this one by far is my favorite. It was also a big step to share it, and I felt really brave for putting this foot forward and challenging myself to be more open and honest.
• Crisis Camp New Orleans: After the earthquake in Haiti, I knew I had to get involved. I looked around and asked friends and after about 72 hours heard about Crisis Camp. Since I was (and still am) new to New Orleans, I knew I needed to enlist someone to help make a local event like this a success and finding a great partner to do that was wonderful. Putting on Camps are a lot of work with a lot of reward and it was truly amazing the spirit of the people who came out that day to help create technology tools to help emergency response teams in Haiti.
• I’m the new MySpace Wall Street Journal Citizen Journalist for Davos! What is there even to say? I truly was overwhelmed and amazed by the response I go from friends all over the place who voted for me, supported me, sent me notes of encouragement. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t even being to describe the way that attending Davos changed my life and my perspective on the world. My biggest wish is to attend again, it was remarkable and huge thank you again to everyone for your support in helping make this dream come true.
  

• World Economic Forum Highlight Reel: Words and photos and videos can’t really describe the experience. Twitter and Facebook and MySpace and WSJ updates can’t give you the whole play-by-play. But I certainly tried best I could and it was tremendous to be a representative of those online communities, and a representative of New Orleans, and a true student of economics, political science and there soaking up the information at every turn.
• Forbes Woman: 20 Inspiring Women To Follow On Twitter. What an honor to be included on this list of power women! I also started getting into Twitter lists here to bring together groups of people and experiences. I’ve created relationships with a few of the other women on this list because we were connected here and that’s been a tremendous addition to my 2010.
• The Causemopolitan’s First Birthday! Need I say more? What a year it’s been. Here’s to many many more.
• My First Mardi Gras: Not only was it my first Mardi Gras (I had NO idea what I was getting into) but I also got to participate in My Mardi Gras Experience by Tom Martin and the Zehnder Communications team. It was amazing to ride in my first krewe (MUSES!), see the parades and experience Mardi Gras as a local. I’m really glad my experiences were captured for posterity and to look back on year from now.
• Living In Los Angeles: Such a bittersweet return to Los Angeles, a place I called home for 5 years and miss terribly. Yes I have this exciting and wonderful life in New Orleans and the two experiences juxtaposed against each other during a week-long trip to LA just floored me. I wrote a little something about that here…
• Tech Tools for Social Good: I spoke at CalTech and it was amazing, I love talking to students! A similar talk was given a week later at SXSW as a panel, but I did this one solo and it really meant a lot to me to be asked and I’m hoping to do a lot more talks as the year goes on. This was a great boost to get that ball rolling (plus it got me to LA!
• GNO 2.0 The Economic Revolution: I do as much as I can for New Orleans every day because of how much I care, and to be asked to be in this video was awesome. I can get overwhelmed with New Orleans, but this post and video remind me how much I sincerely love it here, and that’s always a good reminder in the day-to-day hustle of life.

Lagniappe: I did 8 “Cause It’s My Birthday” Interviews in January and they’re listed on the Cause It’s My Birthday section. I hope to do more. It was amazing to see people who took this idea and ran with it on their own!

Brief details are below, for more specifics email me at sloane@fscinteractive.com and I’ll reply back to candidates that would be a good potential fit.

Project 1 is for a growing ethical retail company with a product being sold in multiple states to redesign a site with e-commerce including a log-in system for wholesalers. Web site turnaround time is under 1-2 months with a decent budget.

Project 2 is for a fast-growing technology solutions company to redesign a 5-7 page website to be built in wordpress or drupal. The budget is reasonable and the project deadline is 4-6 weeks from now.

Both companies are looking to make fast decisions, so if you have bandwidth, contact me ASAP for more details. Proposals are due MONDAY and decision will be made by Wednesday next week.

Lagniappe –> Looking for an intern for summer 2010 for FSC Interactive. Position and responsibilities could range from college student to MBA depending on candidates. Please email me for the job description.

UPDATE 3/1/10: Thank you to EVERYONE for your interest. The inquiries were fast and quick and from really talented firms across the country. Both contracts were successfully awarded in large part due to this post and incredible network of talented designers that read this site and are in my network, so let me say in advance THANK YOU!

FeelGoodz awarded the website to Good Work Marketing and Schedulist awarded their website to Vector 9.

Stay tuned for more opportunities from upcoming clients and projects I have on my radar.

Related Posts:
Teaching of the Buddhas
Cause It’s My Birthday Is Live
TGIF Video: The Wounded Warrior Project

Continuing the thread about what an amazing opportunity it is to attend the World Economic Forum, see the highlight reel above from WEF’s YouTube channel featuring some of the biggest names in global leadership and governance in the world today.

The biggest names are heavily guarded with security and usually being whisked away to one room or another, but approachable if you can get their attention for just a moment. Walking down a hallway I’ve passed rooms where French President Sarkozy is meeting with the CEO of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab. I walked into a room yesterday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in a briefing with BBC Correspondent Nik Gowing about his ambitions for his G20 leadership and his vision for South Korea’s future. I stumbled upon a seating area where I was looking to rest for 10 minutes in one open chair and instead entered into a conversation about nuclear proliferation and how to work with governments in developing countries to stop making nuclear weapons with the Founder of Space Adventures, Eric Anderson, the Founder of Operation Hope, John Bryant and the Crown Prince of Norway, Prince Haakon. I grabbed tea with the CEO of News Corp and then we, together, scoped out and finagled ourselves into the second row of a session where Former President Bill Clinton was speaking on the state of Haiti.

And that list only goes to about 4pm!

Each day is like that here. A glorious amount of over-information that I imagine will continue to permeate and sink in for months to come. Tomorrow is the final “official” day of panels. It’s hard to believe it will soon be over and I’ll be back in New Orleans, telling everyone about all the good New Orleans gospel I’ve been spreading to anyone who will listen about all New Orleans has to offer. But not yet. No sir, no yet. For now, I edit and upload videos, I edit and upload photos, I write and hyperlink blog posts to share with all of you. I sleep (barely) and eat (sometimes) and buck up to soak in all the Davos has to offer working through the exhaustion and the wall and the feeling that as much as I’m absorbing is as much as I’m missing.

I’m already plotting my return for 2011.

Don’t forget to watch my video interviews of some of the best and brightest leaders of today and tomorrow on the MySpace blog.

Related posts:
Six Months and Counting, Part 1…
Starting Every Day with a Cold Shower: Philippines Bathroom Situation
On Recycling

Which leads me to my next point – the people here care very much. There are a lot of conversations about just about everything you could imagine. Water conservation and sustainable of global fisheries, the future of the middle east, what the World Cup in South Africa this summer can raise awareness of current hot topic issues in Africa, the crisis in Haiti. There are a million things happening in the world right now and chances are someone here is an expert in that field.

There is a dark side here too. Or rather a pessimism. Last year, 9 of the global CEOs of banks were no-shows. They couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t have shown their faces in the wake of such a catastrophic global financial meltdown and so weren’t here. Last year, the infamous and exclusive parties featuring vertical wine tastings or grand-cru french wines were canceled. It was deemed inappropriate to be lavish and thought to shed a negative light on the conference. CEOs of global companies meet here in Davos, this tucked away Swiss ski town and who knows what happens behind closed doors.

But let me say this. There is a line from a TED Talk that I love that goes, “It’s too late to be pessimistic. It’s too late to think we can do nothing. We must look forward to the future. We must look to building something greater than what we have today.”

That is the essence of Davos. Optimism that the work everyone is doing here is inspiring something greater for not just the next generation but 7 generations out. Among these leaders within their communities, I feel as if anything is possible for myself. I feel a freedom to be bold, to keep pushing forward, to have faith in what I believe is my own personal mission in life – helping people discover cause and ways to give back. Here, anything is possible and if I take away one lesson from Davos, it’s an almost “Santa Claus like spirit” where we believe what we want to believe. And so I choose to believe in hope. I choose to believe in the future. I choose to believe in you.

Related posts:
Simple Ways To Make A Difference Today
On Friendship
5 Challenges for the Road

Today, CrisisCommons is hosting “CrisisCamps” around the country and in London, England and Bogota, Colombia, to provide support for Haiti. Here in New Orleans, we had to get involved. After all, who knows better about devastating natural disasters than this city?

I’m proudly co-hosting today’s event with Robert Fogarty and Barrett Conrad with Launch Pad New Orleans hosting the event space. New Orleans Tech and LPTV (the weekly webshow here in New Orleans around entrepreneurship) both supported the event by spreading the word and Evacuteer sponsored breakfast and Naked Pizza is bringing lunch.

What is CrisisCamp?

An open, collaborative event held in “barcamp” style with CrisisCommons to provide local and international responders, Haitian community leaders and non-governmental organizations an opportunity to engage with operations on the ground in Haiti. Tools and resources created by CrisisCamp volunteers can enhance responders’ decision-making capability, transparency and collaboration.

This weekend and next, CrisisCamps will be happening in 12 Cities across the U.S., Canada, England and Columbia. CrisisCommons.org also has resources to facilitate setting up camps in other areas.

If you want to participate or just learn more about the camps check out:

• Crisis Commons Haiti blog
• Crisis Commons Wiki
• Twitter: @CrisisCampNOLA and @CrisisCamp
• Facebook: CrisisCampNOLA Fan Group
• Eventbrite from today’s event: CrisisCampNOLA

Related Posts:
Cause It’s My Birthday Is Live
Say Hello To Your New Kiva Fellow
5 of My Favorite Photos From Burma