Update 3/30/09

The walkathon, now officially scheduled for April 18th, is just under three weeks away and there have been some exciting updates and developments concerning the service project.

We tabled on the quad today between 2-5pm thanks to assistance from The Movement for Global Justice, a CASJ affiliated group. We handed out pamphlets on the Maasai people and MAGSA-OUTREACH and displayed traditional Maasai fabric. We also got 26 people to sign up for our listserv and aware of our walkathon.

We are also preparing to send our shirt design to the printing shop, pending final design approval by members of the group. We hope to have shirts available for purchase soon as we have been experiencing some difficulties in obtaining Maasai crafted beads.

Finally, we have contacted a member of APO, the campus community service fraternity, who will advertise our cause to members of the organization who are concerned with assisting communities abroad. Stay posted and we will make sure to keep you all up to date on the status of shirts, beads, possible musical acts at the walkathon and more.

Raising Awareness and Efforts at Outreach

Our efforts these last few weeks have been focused on raising awareness and reaching out to other organizations on campus. The email I received from Joseph ole Tipanko had pamphlets from MAGSA-OUTREACH attached. We have begun printing them and handing them out. The pamphlet's contain interesting and important information about the organization, its goals and how donations help the Maasai community and should help to raise publicity for our project.

I have also been working with a member of CASJ, which has cosponsored our project, and has offered assistance in getting tables and putting fliers up. He will also try to get the word out to CASJ members. This includes a meeting I had with Student Advocates for Native Communities. I met with about ten of the organizations members, explained the goals of the service project and handed out literature and a sign up sheet. I am optimistic that this meeting and meetings with other groups like DCY will build upon our one hundred members facebook group.

Update

In the past few weeks, I have been attempting to get in contact with various groups for co-sponsorship of our events. I sent emails to all the groups listed in the first post but have yet to hear back from any via email. However, a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon who did a service project with the Maasai last semester contacted me about possible co-sponsorship via the Facebook group I created regarding our project. In addition, Keith met with a member of The Community And Social Justice Coalition (CASJ) about possible co-sponsorship. We were also able to get in contact with a student who did the service project years ago who still has some beads that we can use to raise money for MAGSA-OUTREACH.

Another possibility I have been considering is asking my French teacher, Madame Breant, if she would be willing to perform at our event. She is from Cote D'Ivoire and sings about social injustice in Africa so hopefully she will be willing to help in some way.

Basing our plan on the checklist we got from the Community Service Center, the coming weeks will invovle:

• Develop a budget for the coming weeks
• Come up with a reasonable goal for fundraising
  
• Finalizing the date of the walk-a-thon (pending confirmation from Joseph, we are hoping for April 18th)
• Gather the materials we need to print out flyers and begin handing them out and posting them
• Secure co-sponsorship
  
• Secure a table so we can hand out information and attempt to raise money
• Finalize t-shirt order

Community Service Center Trip

We went to the Community Service Center today where we got useful tips that should make our ideas become action. We explained our objective for this service project and our first event that we want to pursue in the next month.

The workers thought it was a great idea and gave us a guideline sheet with a checklist that had the fundamental steps for tackling a fundraising event like this one. The checklist included steps such as finding a budget, ways to publicize the event, group gatherings with members, etc. The guideline sheet is a great source for this project because it will help us to structure and organize this event, something which we were lacking.

The staff also gave us the contact information for other student coalitions that could give us advice as well as support for this event such as the student coalitions of Community Action and Social Justice and the Ethnic and Cultural Coalition. Our next step is to find where we are going to get the bracelets and T-shirts we are planning to sell. This will be done by next week and we will make some important decisions. Hopefully we can get the cheapest price possible!

-Agustina Del Carril

Contact with Jospeh Ole Tipanko

I have exchanged a series of emails with Joseph Ole Tipanko, the outreach director of the Maasai Good Salvage Outreach Organization. In my first email I introduced myself and the goals of our group. I also briefly described some of our ideas including the walk-a-thon and selling Maasai crafted beads. Joseph was very thankful for our offer of assistance and supportive of the ideas we had formulated.

Joseph sent us some literature on the Maasai in a follow up email. This detailed the plight of the Maasai, how contributions help their community and the projects and goals the MAGSA-Outreach Org. is currently working on. We plan on printing out a bunch of these pampheletes and distrubuting them in an effort to raise awareness.

I have also discussed obtaining some Maasai beadwork from Joseph's community but our plans on this are still pending, hopefully we will know more soon.