Summer Work 2: idealist.org

If you have not used this site before, we highly recommend idealist.org (@idealist). They are in the business of connecting people who want to help with organizations and groups who are tying to help. It is free to use once you sign up. Their site provides listings for organizations, people and events, as well as, opportunities for volunteering locally, nationally and internationally. For career advice, they offer a non-profit career center and a graduate school resource center (@gradresources). To compliment these resources they host "Graduate Degree Fairs" in various cities. Last but not least, you can also look into working for Idealist itself.

Idealist's Mission and Vision

Our Vision
We would like to live in a world where:

• All people can lead free and dignified lives.
• Every person who wants to help another has the ability to do so.
• No opportunities for action or collaboration are missed or wasted.

Our Mission
Idealist connects people, organizations, and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives.

Idealist is independent of any government, political ideology, or religious creed. Our work is guided by the common desire of our members and supporters to find practical solutions to social and environmental problems, in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect.

Looking for Summer Work Helping Others?

Working professionally with non-profit and charitable organizations is a rewarding and life-changing endeavor. As the needs around the world grow and organizations rise up to help meet them, the need to hire and train qualified staff increases in tandem. Who knows? You could change your career goals simply by spending a summer as an intern. Here at TAT, we will seek to provide you with the opportunity to find out. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting job opportunities with socially aware/conscious organizations, non-profits, and other charitable entities.

Our first look today is at charity: water. Clean water is a luxury for billions of people in developing nations. These people struggle daily for a bucket of dirty water. This they use to wash, cook and drink. charity: water is committed to bringing clean and safe water to these souls.

charity: water is offering internships in four different areas of their organization.

1. Digital Community Intern: "As the Digital Community Intern, you'll help us manage our ever-expanding community of fundraisers on mycharity: water. You'll also get to research, analyze and help us recognize successful campaign ideas. As a main point of contact for our fundraisers', your suggestions and feedback will be valued and use by our Community Manager and Director of Digital."

Please send a cover letter and resume to merry.mccarron@charitywater.org. 

2.  Design Intern: As a Design Intern, you'll jump on with our small but fast-moving Creative Team to help us keep our brand bold and consistent. You'll channel all the artistic energy you can muster into brainstorming, designing and assembling print materials. You’ll own a lot of immediate, day-to-day design projects, working right alongside our designers"

Please send a cover letter, resume and link to your gorgeous portfolio to greg.yagoda@charitywater.org.

3. Water Programs Intern: As one of our Water Programs interns, you'll help us manage water projects data, report to donors and publish the GPS and photos of our completed projects online. You'll work closely with our Water Programs team to help us connect our donors to their water projects."

If this describes you, send your resume and cover letter to interns@charitywater.org by Friday, April 15.

4. Communications Intern: As a Communications Intern, you'll help keep our brand bold and consistent through answering all incoming media requests and also pitching our story to interested outlets. You’ll maintain our media reporting process and also have the chance to help us run our fundraising events in New York City."

Please send a cover letter and resume to sarah.cohen@charitywater.org by Monday, May 2.

Remembering The Day

Today, nine years after 9/11, the shock and disbelief still overwhelms me. The pain and ache of all those lives and the tragedy which took them from us still bores a hollow into my soul. Even now the struggle to find meaning and understanding comes up empty. As a world population, our future is alight with the potential cruelty of man upon his neighbor. Given our human capacity for evil, this should not surprise us. Still that day caught us off guard. Everything happening since has been a scramble to regain what we lost—our sense of stability. We are unsure of what will happen or who will leap out at us next. Fear creeps into our lives a little more easily than it did on 9/10.

Recently, I spoke with a concerned individual regarding all the events happening in these times. He was troubled by what was occurring and his inability to exact change. While our perspectives differed on various issues, we both agreed that the best one can do to change the world is to help our local communities. Taking care of and looking after our neighbor with genuine love and compassion is the best cure for hatred and poverty. To heal the world around us, we must first heal each other. Our community may be our neighborhood, our work or our school. It may be our family, our synagogue, our temple, our mosque, or our church. Also, it could be an orphanage in Russia or flood victims in Pakistan. It may even be the women and children of Afghanistan.

Loving our neighbor as our self is a tough pill to swallow. Loving our enemy is an even tougher pill. Yet, understanding the true need at the heart of a tragedy, albeit difficult, is our duty as humans. We transcend the very nature of darkness by finding the light. We are often put off by the affliction such events inflict on our fellow man, but we must step back and see ourselves as God sees us. We are all hurting, afraid and in need of love. For those of us who feel useless in the efforts to help, look only to the person beside you. Start there. Show as much love as you can. Feed, cloth and lend a hand when possible. We become most like God when we face evil and act out of love.

To all the families and friends who lost loved ones on 9/11, and to all families and friends who have lost loved ones to terrorism, our hearts beat with yours. We hold you close and offer you our love and support. May their memories live on in our hearts. May you gain new strength each day. May God bless you deeply.

Grace, Peace and Love,

The Acacia Tree

Know Your Neighbor

The beauty of community is it can be any where. Often, though, we look beyond our local one to the more elusive and exotic ones. We sojourners often travel six thousand miles to help people of alien culture, language and modes of thinking. When we return, we are proud and feel accomplished. We find it quite compelling to give to children in Africa or to adopt children from China. But what of next door? We look at our homeless friend and feel sorry for him, but do we help? "No," is the usual honest response. We find thousands of impediments as to why we cannot or will not. How is it we can find compassion abroad but not at home? If this is a fair question, you might reply with, "compassion abroad is impersonal." To help the persons I see everyday or know live in my city is grossly personal. This manner of helping requires love. The depth of suffering we endure emotionally, in our society, has hardened our altruism toward the others of us. Worse still is a rising hatred or demarcation between what one believes and what another believes. Right "wing" vs Left "wing". Muslim "terrorist" vs Christian "fundamentalist". Buddhist vs Communist. Gay vs Straight. We forget each human being is us and we are them. By reading articles on Obamahate and passive Elderlyabuse, we have examples of how easy we find it to arouse animosity toward another person or kind.

What then is the criteria for love? Perhaps the better question is what obstructs our path to love? Selfishness perhaps. That, of course, cannot be all. Is it some force which interferes with our connectivity? How often do we want to do thing "A", but in fact do thing "B". What makes us do thing "B"? Is it the mere move toward modernity. Jacques Ellul suggests technology will rise to tyranny over humankind (if it hasn't already). You might see from this an argument toward a new tension within ourselves. We struggle—but with what? The improbable conquering of our technology returning it to a subset of human living. Is it too big? Are we instead struggling to be apart of it? You could say by addressing ourselves in the light of new communication standards, we are creating pockets of protection. We speak with many, but love none. I can satisfy my need for human contact while, simultaneously, blocking their ability to harm me. I need only turn to my new socially mediated "friend". "I will hurt no more," we say.

Our lives have become unbalanced. We have no room for love because we have no room. We choose that which is safe for us. The psychology of our imbalance overwhelms our sense of the other. This statement precludes our ability to love—or not—ourselves first. We are personally overwhelmed, so we invent new satisfaction separate from what is true. Truth here is love. Love of my fellowbeing. A respect for life and the betterment of you. If I watch out for you as much or more than myself, then I open a window into what is transcendental about life. How real is that statement? Let us accept we cannot be God. Let us suppose we can, however, reach an individual divinity. What use is it  if we arrive there alone? Only when we are at peace can we truly began to love ourselves and others. It is at such a time when we can build new communities (even if idealist in nature), new relationships, new love.

Namaste.

Jack Johnson: All At Once

All At Once, a social action network where you can discuss issues and events, explore non-profit groups, and take action to make positive change in your local and world community.