I will use www.lightwellstudio.com for broad updates and mailchimp (an email client) for donor specific emails.

Thank you for your consideration.

Additionally, the Free Primary Education Policy (FPE) which was introduced in Swaziland in 2010 has significantly increased the demand for learning facilities, and it has led to an increased demand for classroom space, which the country currently does not have. As a result, most Swazi schools, especially those in the rural areas, where many students before could not afford to pay their way to school, have been faced with the problem of a lack of classroom space. This has made the learning environment non-conducive, and as a result the lower grades (1 – 4) have experienced record fail rates.

Our lap desks will not only replace the old, cumbersome desks from the mid-80s, but it will also qualify as a community-based project. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Swazi innovators close to the schools to take charge of their communities. We will be delivering a type of lap desks that is not only Swazi-themed, but is also designed, created, and distributed by Swazis. By doing this project, all of us will be promoting authentic Swazi culture. This way, when the school children are using our product, they will remember their responsibility towards their community which, like most of these students, might be less fortunate and living in circumstances where receiving a good education is the only way to stop cyclical poverty in their families. This will motivate these students to do better at school, as well as create a sense of agency for the community members all around to support young people’s education.

This summer, Platforms for Hope  would like to provide 400 portable desks to rural schools in Swaziland. The MiddSTART funding will help fund the production, delivery and assessment of this portable desks project. Specifically, we are hoping to distribute over a 100 portable desks via this initial campaign.

We will keep our donors updated as the project progresses.

Our team members will either be mentors who will be in charge of the classes or staff who will be responsible for logistics and other administrative support. The students, staff and mentors will all stay at the university.

After the course, the participants will assess the feedback from the program, and will build connections with the participants and their middle-schools to set up similar initiatives in other parts of Shanghai.

The program will consist of seminars, lectures, and group activities new to the usual Chinese education system. Each mentor will receive training and then will go on to develop their own class syllabus. Each student will receive a textbook copy.

The students will register for classes and/or seminars from our list of offerings when they apply. The incoming class size for this summer’s program will be around 50 students. Our targeted student group is secondary school students, who tend to have more interest in and incentives to engage in our project. We expect that they will have a more meaningful experience studying using American education styles.

Reform of the Chinese educational system is moving at a painfully slow rate when compared with the economic, scientific, and industrial developments taking place in this fast-changing country. The goal now is to enhance the education system little by little, which is the core of generating peace and eradicating false impressions of the world. Rigidly imposed standards of “correct ways of thinking” will cause a gap of values between Chinese people and the western world wider than the Pacific Ocean. After participating in this program, we hope that our students will be able to form their own opinions about studying abroad, the differences between education systems, and the essence of a liberal-arts education, and that as such they will be confident to make their own choice regarding their higher education.

Fortunately, Middlebury College is home to many undergraduates interested in medicine, public health, social work, and public policy. Offering untapped potential, they represent an intelligent, hard-working cohort of people who could sustain such an initiative for years to come. Midd.Health aims to complement the medical care that patients receive at Porter Medical Center with non-medical community care, working with local organizations to fill gaps in distinct areas.

Gaps currently exist in seven areas, including childcare, food preparation and assistance, case management, tutoring, home and pet care, companionship, and transportation to receive medical care, clothing, and medication.

Working alongside the College and existing resources in the community, Midd.Health will implement the wide capacities of Middlebury students in addressing these needs overtime. Our initiative aims to “diagnose” patients based on their reported needs, which can subsequently be treated with social remedies. This will include connecting patients with existing resources and filling the aforementioned gaps in social care– all through using driven Middlebury students.

This summer will be spent establishing the program, focusing on a few of the gaps to start and working with community members to maximize the allocation of our college-affiliated resources. We also plan on becoming fluent in all services to which we can refer patients. We plan to grow this program during the next academic year with the help of four or five other Middlebury students, who would be dedicated to expanding the initiative. Our goal is to create a project that will supplement patient care at Porter, sustained by energetic and thoughtful students who are ready to help innovate. We have already been in touch with professors and administrators at the College along with top Porter officials. They realize the existing need and have provided us with tips and a running start.

The inspiration for our project occurred while we were in Guatemala working with As Green As It Gets. We had the amazing opportunity to meet the coffee farmers and their families, as well as work in the fields with them. We hiked the steep slopes of the volcano where they grow their beans and also had the opportunity to see them roast and package the beans. The reason that we are passionate about our business idea is because we have seen what happens to these farmers and their families when they have the opportunity to rise out of subsistence farming. Because all of our profits go directly back to the farmers, these farmers are able to better their living conditions by buying materials for a cinder block house, more land, or simply enough food for their families. Not only will our company help lift these farmers out of poverty, but it will give the farmers the means to send their children to school. Greater than 50% of Guatemalan children do not attend school past sixth grade. With the increased income made possible through AGAIG, many of the farmers are now able to allow their children to receive a full education.

The traditional method of studying the structures of punishment in the United States is based on abstract theory and quantitative data which, while essential to understanding the topic, fails to provide a human narrative. We hope to solve this problem through the power of story. Storytelling transcends typical structures of power by directly connecting people from communities that are geographically, socially, and politically isolated. By supplementing existing quantitative data with qualitative narratives we can begin to understand people not as statistics but as people telling their own stories of passion, problems, opportunities, struggles, and relationships.

We expect the project to cost $6,375. This money will be used primarily for gas and food on the road between Middlebury, Chicago, and New Orleans. Other costs include getting our website up and running and getting the necessary audio editing software. All other technical equipment will be borrowed from Middlebury College without cost. Even without full funding, we will be able to follow through with this project on a smaller scale (one or two locations as opposed to three), so any contributions are immensely helpful.

We are going to host a summer camp in which we will cover topics related to our project, among them: Tolerance and communal living; Power of diversity and history; Power of Communication; Education as a uniting factor; Gender-based violence; Environmental Awareness; Creation of Long-Term Peace Pillars. Besides the peace building activities, part of the Twese for Peace camp will seek to instill entrepreneurial skills in the youth through challenging ideas and proposals, such as micro-financing, need-finding, prototyping and record-keeping.  The topics will seek to evoke dialogue and deep discussions among the participants, relating them to the daily lives of the people in Bujumbura. These will be geared towards posing a challenge to the youth on how to be self-independent, effective, entrepreneurs and explorers in the world of careers using the readily available resources.

This project is intended to create a generation of young spirited and fair-minded leaders, enthusiastic innovators and team-oriented for a brighter and better Burundi. In addition to a $3000 grant we got from Middlebury Center for Social Entrepreneurship, MiddSTART funding will enable us to carry out our project. Furthermore, we would like to attract potential partners who would like to join us on this journey of inspiration and transformation.

Our goal is to create new, artistically challenging theatre while promoting the Middlebury community that we have grown to know and love.  In order to reach our goal, we have set ourselves a budget of $4000, which will allow us to focus heavily on the artistry without having to worry about monetary shortfalls.  The funds we raise through MiddSTART would go towards application and participation fees, rehearsal space, advertising & marketing, costumes, properties, and stipends for our student and alumni collaborators who cannot afford to work without compensation.

We are very pleased to announce that we have accepted a slot in the prestigious DreamUp Festival, run out the Theatre for a New City.  We have received overwhelming excitement from both current students and recent alumni, many of whom have already agreed to help us mount our vision.  Amongst recent graduates, we have recruited Michaela Lieberman ’10.5; Ryan Bates ’11 who is currently an Scenic Design MFA student at Boston University; Heather Pynne ’11 who is pursuing a career in Lighting Design at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; Annie Ulrich ’13; and Denise Hofmann ’11, who is currently studying Music Composition at Mannes College: The New School and writing an original score for the production. The show will also feature costume design of current student, Krista Duke ’17.

The competition in the New York Theatre scene is steep for recent Middlebury graduates, as they are competing against students who graduated from conservatories with much more name recognition.  The opportunity to learn practical lessons is invaluable, and the first credit is widely regarded in the theatre community as the hardest to acquire.

For many, however, these first projects are prohibitively expensive. This is where MiddSTART can help us continue our education.  With MiddSTART’s support, our show will be performed at DreamUp, a widely renowned festival, and will give us and many others exactly that unique opportunity graduates in the theatre need to succeed.

Any donations that you are able to give are mightily appreciated.  This is a large undertaking, particularly for such recent college graduates, and any help that we can get is going to be integral to our final product.  With your help we will put up a fantastic production, we will provide a practical, collaborative and creative experience for Middlebury students and alums, and we will promote our Middlebury community far from the green mountains of Vermont.

By building a market-based, transaction-oriented, and self-sustaining hunger-relief program we will address the wide-spread societal issues that stem from hunger and malnutrition, driven by inadequate access to healthy food options. We will purchase high-quality meats and vegetables, bundling them together in food boxes, to sell on a bimonthly basis at local delivery sites including churches and community organizations. Each box provides a week’s worth of affordable and highly-nutritious food at approximately $1.50 per meal. Through Middlebury Foods, Vermonters will be able to purchase supermarket-quality food at fast-food prices.

We have modeled Middlebury Foods on the Top Box Foods program in Chicago, IL. Their novel approach to food distribution dramatically reduces the cost of healthy food for people of high need. We hope to bring this success to Vermont.

We will have a weekly newsletter and a biweekly video blog detailing our progress throughout the summer. We will also use a variety social media outlets before and during the project.