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To empower individuals to lead fulfilling, self-determined lives by providing the needed supports to make informed choices, build relationships, experience respect, and make contributions as fully participating citizens. The HIVE uses a different model and different way of thinking than most of us are used to, and we like it that way! We are a learning and community-connecting club for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities and autism spectrum. Unlike an adult daycare, you can use Community Living Support hours at the HIVE to work on individual goals in a safe, fun, interactive environment that is conducive to learning and values your unique gifts and abilities.

People’s Justice League is a grassroots community organization working to support safe streets, campuses, establishments, and gathering places in Southeast Ohio through community education and activism. We know that for many people, navigating public space is fraught with harassment and violence simply because of who they are. Our programming works to address this with a variety of platforms designed to eradicate bias, harassment, discrimination, and abuse targeting any part of a person’s perceived identity. This includes but is not limited to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. We work to create long-term networks of support that will empower our spirits to continue to thrive, despite the oppressions we face.

Charity Centre for Children and Youth Development exists to supporting HIV/AIDS education, Persons living with disabilities, orphans and vulnerable children, youth and women in Solwezi district of Zambia by providing them with, educational support (provision of school requisites and literacy materials), health and life skills and vocational Training. These enables disadvantaged members of our society live life of independence and contribute to the national economy. We envision a society that will work towards eradication of vulnerability and illiteracy among Orphans and vulnerable children, youths and women. The Organization's mission is to promote and enhance the capabilities of children, youth and women in Solwezi district and beyond to effect positive social change that would necessitate the development of their lives, communities and the nation at large.

Established with the mission of serving children of all abilities, the Joseph Maley Foundation inspires individuals to accept and serve others. JMF encompasses seven programs that serve the whole child and those who directly affect the child, including parents, siblings, friends, educators, health professionals, and community leaders. Our programs impart: Disability awareness to schools and organizations; Mental, physical, and emotional health understanding to children; IEP and special education advocacy to connect families and educators; Sibling workshops which provide an environment to discuss shared experiences; Adaptive and inclusive athletics to all children; Service-learning opportunities for individuals within their community; Acceptance of all through puppets in a relaxed environment for conversation; Comfort to parents navigating infant loss.

Our primary goal is to help underwrite life-saving medical treatment and research throughout the United States for catastrophically and terminally ill children (and adults) battling, but not solely limited to, cancer and aids. Further, to underwrite aid to women battling breast cancer, as well as purchasing respite homes throughout the United States for families supporting loved ones undergoing treatment at various speciality treatment centers. Likewise, to advocate against health insurance companies and any other organization and/or firm that would deny any claim filed by an individual who is disabled and requires benefits, help and/or assistance. The success of our organization over the last thirty-five (35) years is due substantially to the generous help and support of retired judges, attorneys at law, congressmen and senators and a host of other individuals throughout the United States. Altruistic by nature, these individuals have provided invaluable assistance –– often at no cost –– to help us safeguard the rights of catastrophically and terminally ill children (and adults) to life-saving medical care throughout the United States.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology for the Environment (CREATE!) was established in 2008 to help rural populations in the developing world prepare for water, food, and fuel shortages resulting from the impact of climate change on their communities. CREATE! operates on the principle that all people have a right to water, food, shelter, energy, and the means to earn a living. We work with village populations to meet these needs through a culturally respectful, participatory process grounded in our belief that people must have a stake in their development and contribute towards solving their own problems. The cooperative groups in our beneficiary villages have already demonstrated the validity of this approach. CREATE! currently operates in Senegal. Senegal is representative of many Sub-Saharan African countries that are hardest hit by the increasingly disastrous effects of global climate change. CREATE! responds to the inter-connected crises generated by climate change with strategies that decrease dependence on fossil fuels, conserve natural resources, and increase the use of appropriate technologies. Our programs produce sustainable, human needs-based development at the village level while forging resilient and vibrant communities across rural Senegal. CREATE! seeks to face these challenges and assist rural Senegalese residents with small-scale, accessible, and "appropriate" technologies - technologies that are adapted to, and fit, their local conditions - and with human needs-based strategies that can both better their lives and build their capacity to meet these inter-connected challenges. CREATE! works in six villages in two regions of Senegal. One region is in the rural north of Senegal, centered around Linguere in the Louga Region, where CREATE! implements programs in the village of Ouarkhokh. The other region is in the central-west of Senegal, centered around Gossas in the Fatick Region. CREATE! implements program activities in five villages in this region. The total beneficiary population of the six villages is approximately 12,000 people, comprised of both agricultural and pastoral peoples. The average per capita annual income of the population in these villages is approximately $350 a year. In each of these villages, CREATE! staff work closely with local and traditional authorities, including village chiefs and imams, in addition to other community leaders, families, and public schools. CREATE! values the expertise and input of community members and strives to incorporate their knowledge and participation into each stage of our programs. As a registered NGO in Senegal, CREATE! works with government officials from the regional office of the Department of Water and Forestry. CREATE! also respects the Senegalese government's strategic development goals for rural communities. Although CREATE!'s administrative office is located in the United States, CREATE! relies on local Senegalese staff and volunteers to plan and implement successful development interventions. Barry Wheeler, CREATE! Founder and Executive Director, has spent the past 27 years working to alleviate suffering and to provide basic human needs for rural villagers, displaced persons, and refugees in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. After serving in the Peace Corps for six years as an Improved Cook Stove and Appropriate Technology volunteer, trainer, and technical advisor in Togo, Barry earned a Master's degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University. Barry has served as Country Director for the American Refugee Committee's programs in Uganda, Sudan, and Rwanda; as a consultant for UNICEF and UNHCR; and as a team leader and training coordinator in local capacity building, renewable and appropriate technology, and sustainable rural development. CREATE! Chief Operations Officer Louise Ruhr has more than 30 years of private sector and nonprofit management experience and has spent the past eight years working with international NGOs, including the American Refugee Committee, to support women's cooperative groups in Rwanda and Senegal. CREATE! Country Director Omar Ndiaye Seck oversees program activities and conducts site visits in CREATE! communities. He also manages CREATE!'s finances and staff in Senegal. Omar closely collaborates with local and traditional authorities, community volunteers, and CREATE! staff to achieve both organizational and village goals.

Vaga Lume Association is a Brazilian non-profit organization founded in 2001 grounded in the belief that investing in people is the best way to transform a reality. Its mission is to create opportunities for cultural exchange by reading, writing and orality, valuing the empowerment of people and rural communities of the Brazilian Legal Amazon region. Vaga Lume works in 160 rural communities (indigenous, riverside, roadside, rural settlement people or quilombolas - Brazilian with African descent) of 23 municipalities in the Brazilian Legal Amazon region, which encompasses nine federal states (Acre, Amapa, Amazonas, Maranhao, Mato Grosso, Para, Rondonia, Roraima and Tocantins), occupies 59% of the Brazilian territory and has 20 million people (12% of the Brazilian population). Despite the fact that education and culture are basic social rights, protected by the Brazilian Constitution and under human rights international treaties ratified by Brazil, its access and implementation in the Amazon region are very limited. It is one of the poverty zones in Brazil - with a GDP per capita 30% lower than the national value - where 42% of the population survives with less than US$ 5.00 a day. Due to the outstanding impact of Vaga Lume's work in the region, the organization is recognized by many international and national awards such as the Juscelino Kubitschek Award of Merit for Regional Development in Latin America and the Caribbean given by the Inter-American Development Bank (2009); the Millennium Development Goals Award, conferred by the United Nations and the Brazilian government (2005); the Vivaleitura Award, from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education (2008); and the Chico Mendes Environment Award, given by the Ministry of Environment (2006 and 2008). In 2011, Vaga Lume received its most important recognition: the 4th place at the Intercultural Innovation Award, conferred by United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the BMW Group. As an awardee, in 2012, Vaga Lume was welcomed to the World Intercultural Facility for Innovation (WIFI), a network formed by the UNAOC, the BMW Group and the ten 2011 winners. Through this network, the UNAOC and the BMW Group challenged all winners to replicate and scale up their actions to promote intercultural dialogue and offered training, consultancy and institutional support to assist organizations to accomplish such results.

Established in 2004, Garden State Equality (GSE) is the largest LGBT education and advocacy organization in New Jersey and one of the most successful statewide civil rights organization for the LGBT community in the nation. Our services include advocacy, policy work, and trainings. Our signature programs are: Map & Expand, Pledge & Protect, and Teach & Affirm. In collaboration with community partners, Garden State Equality led efforts to ensure nondiscrimination for transgender people and gender nonconforming people in New Jersey, we passed the most comprehensive anti-bullying law in the country, ended sexual orientation and gender identity/expression change efforts in New Jersey (sometimes called conversion therapy), and brought marriage equality to the Garden State! All our current work is informed by racial, economic, and disability justice concerns. We are working to address safe environments for youth, improvement of health services that meet LGBT community needs, and respectful treatment of seniors. Beyond that, Garden State Equality supports New Jersey's activist community by bringing an LGBT lens to the shared struggle for justice. Garden State Equality Education Fun, Inc. is a member of the Equality Federation, a non-profit under the IRS Code Section 501(c)(3), and has achieved a platinum seal of transparency from Guidestar (See https://www.guidestar.org/profile/20-2588166).

Established in 1979, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants. At NILC, we believe that all people who live in the U.S.—regardless of their race, gender, immigration and/or economic status—should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Over the years, we’ve been at the forefront of many of the country’s greatest challenges when it comes to immigration issues, and we play a major leadership role in addressing the real-life impact of polices that affect the ability of low-income immigrants to prosper and thrive. We use a core set of integrated strategies to advance our mission: Impact Litigation NILC engages in lawsuits that defend the fundamental and constitutional rights of all Americans, including low-income immigrants and their families, usually in coordination with other local and national civil rights organizations. Our legal victories have secured vital due process rights for detained Salvadorans, challenged government regulations that would have resulted in millions of workers losing their jobs, and stopped unconstitutional state attempts to regulate immigration law that would have led to racial profiling. Policy Analysis & Advocacy As experts in the complex interplay between immigration law and public and private economic support programs, access to education, workers’ rights, and other issues affecting low-income immigrant communities, NILC educates decision-makers on the impact their policy goals may have on this overlooked population. NILC fact sheets and briefing papers have long been used by policymakers interested in ensuring the future prosperity of their constituents. And our analyses have also helped inform innovative policy solutions to address immigrants’ access to health care, workers’ rights, immigration enforcement reforms, and legal status for immigrant youth. Strategic Communications NILC plays an increasingly important role in shaping effective messaging and communications strategies on immigration issues. We have led groundbreaking research on messages to promote bold advocacy goals and give advocates, policymakers, and other key spokespeople the tools they need to speak persuasively about the important and positive role that low-income immigrants play in our society. Our communications efforts are deliberately integrated with our efforts to advance legal and policy victories, while also focused on shaping the public narrative on immigration issues for longer-lasting social change. Other Strategies We also conduct trainings, publish educational materials, and provide legal counsel and strategic advice to support and strengthen other groups’ advocacy work.

Gruppo Aleimar is a non-profit voluntary organization that deals with children and families in need both in Italy and abroad, through the Distance Support, projects of development and awareness-raising and human development activities on the Italian territory. The main areas of our development projects are: 1. Education: taking charge of children in family (natural or adoptive), in foster homes and shelters, schooling and vocational training. 2. Health and hygiene awareness: support to clinics and / or hospitals, funding of surgical operations, seminars for young mothers. 3. Women promotion: start-up of agriculture and livestock, creation of production cooperatives, micro-credit financing. 4. Rural villages' development: water well, kindergarten, solar energy for light and water pumps. 5. Women' refuge and social housing for families in temporary need. The Aleimar Group is active today in 12 countries (Benin, Brazil, Colombia, D.R. Congo, Eritrea, India, Italy, Malawi, Palestine, Kenya, Lebanon, Zambia) with more than 50 projects and takes care directly of 600 children (what we call distance support) and, indirectly, of other 2,500 children that we follow within our projects. The Group comprises Aleimar for overseas project; Tuendelee for Italian projects and Prema, a cooperative for mentally disabled youth. The Group hires five people and relays on the voluntary service of 140 people. Its annual turnover is abt.1,2 million euro and overhead cost is less than 10%. Its balance sheet is checked and approved by internal auditors. We have been granted a seal of quality "Donare con fiducia" by the Istituto Italiano Donazione. Its web sites are: www.aleimar.it and www.tuendelee.net. In 30 years of activity the Group has helped more than 10.000 children/families, has built more than 100 foster homes, orphanages, schools and water wells.

Village Health Partnership (VHP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works for safer motherhood in rural Ethiopia. VHP's mission is to prevent maternal and neonatal death in childbirth, and to treat and prevent gynecologic complications of childbirth. To achieve this mission, programs are focused on healthcare, capacity building, and education and training. To demonstrate how VHP works to accomplish its mission, our three-prong approach to maternal health needs in Ethiopia is discussed below. Healthcare: Encouraging women to seek treatment is vital to overcoming barriers to safer motherhood. In rural Ethiopia 78% of women do not seek medical care during pregnancy or for delivery because of local customs, fear of the outside world, and challenges faced when traveling to reach medical facilities. Unfortunately, when women in Ethiopia do not receive proper medical care during pregnancy and childbirth, they have a 50% chance of developing a debilitating and sometimes deadly complication. The Screen, Transport and Treat (STT) Program aims to reduce or remove all three barriers to maternal health that involve the decision to seek medical care, the ability to reach medical facilities, and the ability to receive adequate treatment.Through the STT Program, our partners travel to rural communities where they identify women suffering from these complications and arrange for transportation to the nearest health facility where they undergo surgical treatment. Capacity Building: As VHP's treatment efforts grow, further expansion of the Screen, Transport, and Treat Program is challenged by the marginal capacity to treat in the health facilities in which we work. In general, medical facilities in rural communities have limited infrastructure, resources, and ability to provide basic maternal health care. VHP works with rural health facilities and district hospitals to increase capacity with the following: - Access to reliable, consistent sources of water - Concrete pit latrines - Hand washing stations and soap - Fenced biohazard areas with placenta pit and incinerator - Maternity waiting areas that include: - Kitchen - Pit latrine/shower - Tap - Light in labor and delivery - Implementation of the Clean and Safe Healthcare Initiative (CASH) Education and Training As the demand for maternal healthcare rises, so too does the need for trained professionals. In Ethiopia, there is only one physician trained in obstetrics and gynecology for every 1.8 million people. In remote health centers and hospitals, nurses, nurse-midwives, and health officers deliver babies. These medical providers are also in short supply and often inadequately trained. In 2016 VHP beta tested a model for educating all health center providers in neonatal resuscitation and obstetric care. With permission from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), VHP is the first and only organization to translate the Helping Babies Breathe curriculum into Amharic, the Ethiopian national language. We then trained 78 rural healthcare providers in this program. VHP has since expanded the education and training programs to include: 1. Skill building for rural health care providers 2. Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care training for nurse-midwives practicing in the field 3. Scholarship program for village women who wish to become nurse-midwives VHP training programs aim to build a strong and confident rural work force that is fully equipped to provide skilled assistance at the time of delivery. Further, VHP focuses on training students to become trainers themselves to make this effort more sustainable.

Kenya Keys unlocks the potential of students in impoverished Kenyan communities, raising awareness and bridging cultures to provide education, mentorship, leadership development and girl empowerment opportunities. In the rural Kinango District of Kenya there are many obstacles to education, but there is one organization working hard to remove those barriers for as many young Kenyans as possible. That group is Kenya Keys and its purpose is to unlock the enormous potential of young people in Kenya. Kenya Keys is a vibrant demonstration that one person really can make a big difference. In June 2005, Rinda Hayes and her daughter traveled to the remote village of Bahakwenu in the impoverished Kinango District in Kenya. Rinda was stunned by the extreme poverty she found in Bahakwenu. She was also inspired by the tenacity of the children in the village, who longed to get an education. She had never observed such a single-minded desire to learn. Perhaps no Kenyan impressed Rinda more than Joseph Mwengea, the Headmaster of Bahakwenu Primary School. Joseph is an intelligent and driven man and a determined advocate for his students. As he and Rinda met together during her first visit to his village, he pleaded with her to help him help the students of Bahakwenu. He watched bright and capable students leave primary school with little or no hope of attending secondary school due to their inability to pay the required fees. After her visit, Rinda was determined to share her stories of this community and the people who had so impressed her with her friends in the United States. She believed she could find caring American individuals and families that would be able to provide financial support for top Kenyan students, enabling these students to complete a secondary education. The Kenya Keys sponsorship program began with 14 students. Five years later it became the nonprofit organization of Kenya Keys. Kenya Keys has supported hundreds of students - to secondary school and now into college and university. And that's not all. Kenya Keys' work has expanded to include multiple worthwhile related programs. Kenya Keys works with local communities to improve educational infrastructure and resources, such as libraries, dormitories, classrooms, desks, and more. The Kenya Keys Boards of Directors (one in the U.S. and one in Kenya) also provide financial and other support to grassroots organizations run by local Kenyan community leaders and councils. Each of these components of Kenya Keys' efforts in rural Kenya is described more fully in the following section. Everything Kenya Keys does is guided by its founding principles: First, education is the primary key to unlocking potential, both for the individual and for the community. Second, cultural awareness and exchange is vital and enriching for all participants. We live in an increasingly connected world, and exposure to new cultures and ideas is key to creating understanding and appreciation for one's own culture and for the cultures of others. Third, opportunities, not handouts, are what make a lasting difference. There should be no giving of things that run out or wear out. Giving such things only increases dependency, invites discontent, and isolates the givers from the receivers. Instead, giving should empower the receiver and provide an enduring benefit. Fourth: volunteerism is fundamental to the success of an organization. Nonprofit groups run by volunteers remain strong and dynamic. Volunteerism also connects global citizens in a meaningful way. Fifth, education provides the best defense against the ranges of poverty and hopelessness, and is the greatest catalyst for change and growth. Sixth, all critical decisions should be made by local leaders and councils. Local leaders and community members know their own needs and circumstances far better than any outsider, however well-intentioned. Allowing local people to make key decisions gives them vital ownership and accountability. It also provides the opportunity for these individuals to develop crucial leadership skills. Kenyans will always find the best solutions to the deep-seated challenges in their communities. Finally, education and the development of leadership skills in today's youth is critical to building the future leaders of Kenya.