A Cow & Some Water
There are so many examples in life that illustrate the notion of teaching someone to fish rather than just giving them a meal. Take business, for example. Some of the most precious things we learn as entrepreneurs aren't things we were told to do, but things we were shown how to do. It's absolutely priceless when someone takes the time to treat something extremely important to you with the same amount of respect, and helps you acquire a skill, shares some invaluable piece of knowledge, or imparts a wisdom that you simply can't measure. When we come across things like this, we love to share. That's a big part of what this blog and our company are about. What's that got to do with a cow? Or water? Bear with us, we're getting there...
Same thing with beading and jewelry making. The first time someone shows you the difference in flexibility of wire, it makes an impression. You may have read about the tensile strength of wire stranding and maybe even got your mind around how, the lower the number, the more flexible the wire (and vice versa), but seeing it in action is something else altogether. Things like that - those tangibles that illustrate things that are important to what we do, and those that are central to who we are, these are things we share. People are a communal bunch. We love to pass things on, to share. Little snippets, recipies, email jokes, discounts and bargains... Big ideas, life-changing things, too, the resources we acquire that help us truly succeed. Some people call this 'giving back'. But that's not how we see it. Giving back is like feeding someone that proverbial fish. Paying it forward is like providing a set of resources to encourage and enable sustainable success. And that's what we're about here at Tracose: Paying it forward...
...We plan to do this in a number of ways, big and small. We're going to share things about beading, craft knowledge, stone lore, all sorts of useful and relevant content, some we create, some we find, some you provide and want to share.
It's in this spirit that we share with you now a little about the charities we support. These are not charities providing relief supplies. That's a very worthy thing, but we decided that we'd like to pay it forward by helping folks in need learn how to build culturally relevant, sustainable things that continue to postively impact their lives long after aid workers and programs have gone away.
The Cow
In the developing world, a cow is food, and it's milk. It's also a business. Heifer.org provides folks with cows, and resources supporting the development of a micro-business around that cow. A woman can feed her family better, and she can also help improve their economic standing as well. The programs around this are real, and they're successful. We love their work and the positive outcomes they've achieved.
Some Water
Charity:Water doesn't airlift in great big containers of water. It funds and develops programs to actually sink wells and to sanitize existing sources. The fact of having readily accessible sources of drinkable, usable water is one that some of us may take for granted. But think of the impact to you, your family, your community if the only viable source of water was 30 miles away. Sure, you could hop on the highway and be there and back in an hour or so. A nice little chunk taken out of your day, but probably very manageable. Now make it 15 miles away, but lose the SUV. No car, and it takes half a day just to get there. Imagine the impact on keeping a family healthy and thriving, a community successful. Impossible. So that's one big reason we support Charity:water. Another big reason is that 100% of money donated goes to the field in direct support of the work, not to administrative overhead.
So what about you? Have any 'pay it forward' moments to share? Any charities that you think we all should take a look at and maybe even support? Please share with us, we love hearing from you!
- T
