Author Archives: Friends Beyond Borders

Students Partner with NGOs to build Successful Social Enterprises in Developing World

Cambridge students

LONDON, U.K., Nov. 17, 2015 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- A cooperative effort between NGOs and students from Cambridge and elsewhere is revolutionizing how Fair Trade social enterprises in the Global South can succeed by efficiently reaching foreign markets. According to Directors Savithri Machiraju and Amy Chang, the Agenda for Sustainable Development, in cooperation with Friends Beyond Borders and the Adelina Foundation, partners with students and local companies in poorer nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to modernize their businesses with social media and other tools so that knowledge of their products can reach foreign consumers, and the products themselves can be purchased and shipped in a timely manner.

"Before now, the idea that these small firms could compete with established companies in the industrialized world was ludicrous," said Chang. "They simply did not have the resources to provide reliable pay platforms, dependable rapid shipping, and quality control." But the formulae ASD has devised combine the power of modern online retail platforms like Amazon and Alibaba with social media and modern marketing to allow these companies to compete on the global stage.

Partner Friends Beyond Borders even guarantees satisfaction with each purchase from qualified vendors, to eliminate any anxiety that the customer will lose money. "The idea is that consumers in the West can feel as secure purchasing things from these family-owned enterprises in the third world as they would if they bought them from Amazon, Aliexpress, or eBay," Machiraju says.

The formulae Cambridge students employ are designed so that one student can efficiently modernize a given social enterprise in about three hours. "Students are quite facile with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Amazon, Alibaba, and Pinterest. Using our formula, they quickly build a web and social media presence for each company that allows it to dramatically increase its presence in the online retail world," Chang says.

Why three hours? "Just as we want to help build a successful future for each enterprise, we want students to feel empowered," says CTO Director Nigel Applewhite. "Since students are incredibly busy, we want them to know that in a few short hours, employing skills they use every day in the classroom, they can make a major impact on a small family business in a historically impoverished place that will last a long time, and can serve as a template for other companies in the same country. So we designed a formula that is like a recipe or a protocol that combines best practices in a step-by-step fashion. Create a social media page, embed a PayPal button, issue a press release, etc."

As long as a student is working on a particular project, he or she is the chairperson for that country. When the project is finished, the student hands off the title to a fellow student, or, if he or she is extraordinarily ambitious, begins a similar project in the same country. That way the largest possible number of small enterprises in each country are transformed.

Enterprises selected for the program must make products or provide services which align with the UN's recently announced 2030 Sustainability Goals. Goods produced cannot contain toxic substances, pollute the environment, contribute to Global Warming, derive from illegitimate sources, or be made with child or slave labor.

For more information contact friendsbeyondborders@gmail.com or agenda4sustainabledevelopment@gmail.com

Website: http://agendaforsustainabledevelopment.net/.

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NEWS SOURCE Friends Beyond Borders :: This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (who is solely responsible for its accuracy) by and Copr. © 2015 Send2Press® Newswire, a service of Neotrope®.

Online Service Provides Free Counseling for Europe’s Refugees

psychological support

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 25, 2015 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- An Internet group therapy service has initiated a program to provide psychological support for the thousands of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa who are currently trekking across Europe seeking new homes. In cooperation with the Adelina Foundation and Friends Beyond Borders, Growthnet, a U.S. company that offers various kinds of group counseling via web conferencing, is offering no-cost online sessions to any refugee who applies, according to its CEO, John Toomey.

"These people are entering Europe with all kinds of needs," Toomey says. "The governments in Europe are overcome with just handling practical things like food and shelter, so psychological and emotional traumas associated with the journey often go untreated. Some of these people have crossed the Mediterranean in leaky boats, been beaten by traffickers, and lost loved ones along the way. As long as we are able, we will help them adjust."

Key to the program's success is translation software newly developed by http://translateyourworld.com/.

The refugees typically speak languages like Arabic, Kurdish, Berber, and Hausa, and cannot understand therapists who speak only European languages. The new software allows the counselor to speak German, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, or Russian, but the client can read the therapist's words in real time on their Smart phone or computer screen in Arabic, Turkish, Azeri, Swahili, or several other languages.

"Most people from the Middle East come from countries where psychotherapy is not common," says Soani Gunawan, language director for the project. "So being able to communicate with them in their own tongue can be critical not only to make them comfortable, but to allow them to see why counseling can be immensely beneficial to them during the kinds of ordeals they are facing."

An additional benefit to using the immediate translation software is that clients become more at ease with the native language of the country they are entering. A typical interaction, for example, is a German speaking therapist counseling an Arabic-speaking client. Since Germany is interested in assimilating refugees who qualify to remain as permanent residents, such an interaction is useful in helping the migrant learn a new tongue, since they are hearing the host language (German) at the same time as they read the target language (Arabic).

Plans are in the works to extend the program to other refugee crises, such as those facing the Rohingya in Southeast Asia, and Hutu and Tutsi peoples in Rwanda and Congo.

For more information contact friendsbeyondborders@gmail.com, or go to http://Therapion.com/ or http://translateyourworld.com/.

To view the original version on Send2Press Newswire, visit: https://www.send2press.com/newswire/online-service-provides-free-counseling-for-europe-refugees-2015-0925-03.shtml.

NEWS SOURCE Friends Beyond Borders :: This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (who is solely responsible for its accuracy) by and Copr. © 2015 Send2Press® Newswire, a service of Neotrope®.

Philippines Employs ‘Lumpia Strategy’ to Counter Chinese Expansion

Adelina Award

AYUNGIN ISLAND, Philippines, Nov. 1, 2013 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- An under-the-radar struggle for disputed island reefs is evolving in the South China Sea, between China and the Philippines, and the tactics employed by each side are named after foods, according to Reina Prince, global strategist for the NGO Friends Beyond Borders.

The area called Reed Bank contains hundreds of relatively unimpressive deserted islands and shoals, but what is really valuable to both nations is under the surface. Some estimates are that the seabed beneath the area holds 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as well as 5.4 billion barrels of crude oil.

China has aggressively asserted its claims to the area, sending more and more navy ships, research vessels, and fishing boats over the last few years. For its part, the Philippines has grounded an abandoned WWII era ship, the Sierra Madre, on a lonely reef in the disputed area, and manned it with eight Marines.

General Zhang Zhaozhong, of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, has described China's long term plan as "the Cabbage Strategy" which means the effort to flood a disputed area of island-dotted ocean with so many boats that "the island is thus wrapped layer by layer like a cabbage."

Referring to recent efforts to take land from the Philippines, Zhang said "We should do more such things in the future. For those small islands, only a few troopers are able to station on each of them, but there is no food or even drinking water there. If we carry out the cabbage strategy, you will not be able to send food and drinking water onto the islands. Without the supply for one or two weeks, the troopers stationed there will leave the islands on their own. Once they have left, they will never be able to come back."

The Philippine government has responded with what Prince calls the "Lumpia Strategy," named after the famous Filipino egg roll stuffed with vegetables (including cabbage) and sometimes meat. It aims to preserve Filipino sovereignty over the islands by maintaining possession and fishing rights. Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon, whose territory includes Ayungin Island, tries to help the military re-supply the troops on the distant outpost, for which he and the marines have been honored with the Adelina Award, but Chinese interference is making such efforts more and more difficult. Only sustained support from the people and government can keep the garrison intact.

More information: http://batangasvarsitarian.net .

To view the original version on Send2Press Newswire, visit: https://www.send2press.com/newswire/Philippines-Employs-Lumpia-Strategy-to-Counter-Chinese-Expansion_2013-11-1101-002.shtml.

NEWS SOURCE Friends Beyond Borders :: This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (who is solely responsible for its accuracy) by and Copr. © 2013 Send2Press® Newswire, a service of Neotrope®.