The Ripple Effect of Keeping a Universal Promise: Education and Equity in South Africa

Martha
It was very hard for me to reconcile why the people with whom I was interacting, the people I was meeting over there so kind and joyful and appreciative, highly intelligent and skilled, multilingual and just just this incredible array of talents, and I could not reconcile that with the absolute lead tragic circumstances surrounding their educational opportunities. It just the disconnect was so extraordinary to me. I just, I just couldn't match the two, you know, and it was crystal clear to me, as someone who has been a huge proponent of education, that I think the only way out of these circumstances is to get a proper education so that one can take control of one's own future and not rely on anyone else for that.

Brooke
Welcome to MDF, instruments, Crafting Wellness Podcast.

Martha
My name is Martha. I was born and raised in South, Massachusetts, though now I live in Rhode Island. I've been involved with education my entire life. I was in schools for years, and then a private tutor, and now I'm involved with the nonprofit organization called Universal Promise, which focuses exclusively on education and wellness in rural regions of South Africa.

Brooke
Oh, that's amazing. So how long have you been doing that work?

Martha
I started in 2008 with a trip that I made to South Africa to celebrate my 50th birthday, I had no intention of founding a nonprofit. I was there on holiday, but did make a trip into one of the local townships to see the school systems, because, as I mentioned, I've been a career educator, and once I saw the conditions of the schools, everything really changed, not immediately in terms of founding universal promise, but definitely in terms of my mindset about the importance of quality education as the means to really interrupt and end the brutal cycles of poverty. So that's how I got involved. It was just a birthday trip that turned into something quite extraordinary. You know, in the subsequent years.

Brooke
A Birthday Trip kind of inspired this by seeing what you saw there, you really wanted to help improve it. So that's how universal promise was born. Can you talk a little bit about getting the legs for universal promise, like how you actually got this going and got the help there, and just kind of the process of all of that, right?

Martha
It's very interesting, because people will say to me, how did you know how to found a nonprofit? Well, of course, I didn't know, because I had never done it before, but that's a beautiful example of the power of education. You know, I had an education that gave me the confidence to feel that I could really do anything. And I don't mean that in an arrogant way. It's just that's what education should do. It's unbelievable the number of details that one has to attend to, things like, you know, writing a mission statement and a purpose and a vision statement, getting a bank account, getting a web address, getting a web doing a website, 1000s and 1000s of details, literally. And then it always starts by garnering the support of people, you know, I knew, so it was usually at the beginning, just family, and then it was friends of family, and then it was friends and, you know, things like that that just grew, helped us grow and grow and grow. And, you know, the first few years, it's we're in a vulnerable position, because we have to prove that what we're doing is meaningful. But as people learned more about our focus and our mission and our achievements, it attracted more people to the fold, including a number of you know, strangers who who got there by virtue of their own research, and not by a connection to a family or a friend them.

Brooke
So okay, so the trip started in 2008 and then, when did you officially launch universal promise?

Martha
So it was in 2011that I officially launched it. What actually happened, Brooke, is that I returned in 2010just to see if anything had changed since my 2008 vision visit. You know, had things improved? And also, did I feel the same way? Did I feel that I could make a difference? And this was after two years of researching, are there any other people working in the area? Are there other nonprofits I could support, etc? And it was a conversation I had with several young people where I was staying, there were six young staff members there that night. It was a collection of 22 to 24 year olds,and I asked them what they wanted to be when they got older. And one of them said, I wanted to be a teacher. Another one I wanted to be an. So I wanted to be an EMT, etc, etc. And at the end, I said, do you all realize that you you did something similar to each other? And they said, What was that, Mama? And I said, You all spoke in the past tense. I wanted to do this. I wanted to do that. And one of them, his name is Leon, that put his hand on mine, and he said, Oh, mama, those dreams are over for us now. And that was a pivotal conversation Brooke, because I thought, Oh, my goodness, you're 22 years old. 23,24 all the students with whom I worked in the United States would never have said that it was the opposite. They had huge dreams ahead of them, and we're taking the steps to reach them. So that was the final straw, so to speak. So I came back in November of 2010 and by February of 2011 I had founded universal promise.

Brooke
That's an incredible story. That's really inspiring. Yeah, I can't even imagine. You know, at 22 it's like you're just here in the US. You're just beginning. You're you maybe don't even know who you are yet or what you want. You're still kind of trying to discover it. But I can imagine, in other parts, like in South Africa, where things are more difficult and harder, you have to you have other priorities that come before your dreams and desires. Can you talk a little bit about what it was that you wanted to improve, what it was that you saw that you that really gave you this inspiration? You talk a little bit about, you know, it not being up to par, but can you talk a little bit about what you saw that you wanted to improve, specifically,

Martha
Sure? And I think the foundation of your question, it's a great one, and the way I always answer this is it was very hard for me to reconcile why the people with whom I was interacting, the people I was meeting over there so kind and joyful and appreciative, very giving and welcoming, highly intelligent and and skilled, multilingual just just this incredible array of talents, and I could not reconcile that with the absolute lead tragic circumstances surrounding their educational opportunities. It just the disconnect was so extraordinary to me. I just, I just couldn't match the two, you know. So what I saw was the first time I visited, we went to a little nursery school, and on the way to the nursery school, we passed a huge garbage dump that was filled with rats and goats, and there were children sitting on the garbage dump sorting through food. And, you know, we got past that and made our way to the creche they call nursery schools. And but that left a lasting impression on me, that thank goodness that that nursery school existed and still exists to this day, but the fact that that was our entree into that area, it's something that no human being should have to should have to cope with in order to survive. From there, we went to the main Township, and we visited. We passed by a series of buildings that I actually thought were abandoned structures. And I asked Moses, who's the waiter I met at our game Lodge, who who took me through the township because he lived there, and his children attended school there. And I asked him what the buildings were, and he said, That's the school, Mama, that's the primary school. I said, No, no, not, not that building, because there was another building nearby. I said, those buildings? And he said, No, that's that's the school, and it was a collection of rundown,temporary, quote, unquote structures that were supposed to be temporary in the post apartheid era, but they had been there for decades, and they just were not be fitting of a proper school environment. And they didn't, certainly did not spark any kind of hope, or, you know, sense of dignity, I would say, in the in the children, in the faculty members who work there. So I mean, more specifically, there was no electricity. The classrooms were all torn up. The ceilings were falling down. The walls had huge holes in them. There weren't a sufficient number of deaths. No computer lab, no playground, no no sports courts, no resources to speak of. It was, it was just tragic, and it was crystal clear to me, as someone who has been a huge proponent of education, that I think the only way out of these circumstances is to get a proper education so that one can take control of one's own future and not rely on anyone else for that. Absolutely,

Brooke
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. It just makes me think about how we take things for granted here, and how, you know, it must be so disheartening. Imagine, after going and experiencing that and seeing things that you've seen coming back to the US, and seeing kind of the extra everything that we have, and the fast pace of when we want it and how we want it, and and just kind of the under appreciation, I guess, is the word for for taking for granted what we have so easily accessible here, and the fact that even in, you know, worse areas in the United States, you're not just going to find that it's just, it's got to be kind ofdisconnecting, I would say, just to come back in and having seen children having to live this way in other parts of the world, and then coming back to so much abundance here

Martha
you I've been interviewed many times, and you're The first person who's actually made that observation about the transition back here the first time I came back it it was very, very unsettling. In three weeks after my return, I was just in a horrible funk, and my sister was really actually quite concerned about me, because it was that juxtaposition between the haves and the have nots that was so extreme. And your observation about, you know, sometimes Brooke, we get a little pushback about, you know, why are we do some doing something so far away when there are needs in our own country? And one of the things you alluded to is we know that there are dire circumstances in the United States, absolutely, and we need to definitely address those inequities in the United States. There's no question whatsoever that said, I have never seen poverty the way I saw it in South Africa and in other places I travel to, by the way, and I the thing I also say to people is that, you know, we have systems in place. They're not perfect systems, but we have systems in place to address a lot of the needs. If people can avail themselves of those opportunities, they don't really have extensive systems in place over there. And the other thing I always say is it doesn't really matter where we do something, we just all need to be doing something.

Brooke
I think about these things. I've always thought about these things like, I'm that weird person that's like, in the shower thinking, this is incredible. I have hot water right now and it's clean and I can, I can shower like, I just, I I'm in. I'm just, like, constantly grateful for things, because these are things I just, I've always thought about, even since I was a kid, like, oh, chocolate. I can have chocolate anytime I want. I can go down the street get chocolate and eat it and have it. And there's people in the world who's never even tried chocolate, you know, and I have this readily. I'm it's accessible to me at any point in time. And so I think about these things that that are seem so small to us, but, you know, are so fundamental to our life, not chocolate, but hot water, clean water, you know, these things that without it, you know, there's a lot of sickness, and then people will die. So it's a I can just when they hear about where, what you've seen, that's kind of the first thing that comes to my mind, is just coming back and kind of how, like, the disconnection that would feel like, because it's not that we don't have problems here, but, you know, it's kind of what they say on the airplane, like, put your mask on before helping others. It's like those more dire places in the world that don't even have electricity, where you have children sitting, you know, in trash and sitting through food with rats and dead goats. It's, that's, that's the priority. Obviously, that's the priority. I mean, no no human should ever have to experience that, and no child should ever have to experience that especially and so I think you know the work that you're doing is amazing, and I commend you for it, and really find it incredibly inspiring to talk about the good work you know that you're you, You're you're cultivating, and the change that you're creating in just even one life, that one life can go and change other lives. And so it's kind of a ripple effect, right?

Martha
It's 100% right? I'm so intrigued that you brought up the shower, because that kind of thing is part of every single day. Every single thing. I'm not perfect about it. Sometimes I lose focus, but for the most part, being able to turn a dial and get more hot water or or being able to drink clean water, or getting in a car and going somewhere, or even things like, you know, I live in an area that's really quite beautiful, and there are a lot of tourists who come and sometimes, if I'm driving and I run into traffic because tourists are visiting, I don't get all worked up. I think to myself, How lucky am I to live in a place where people want to come and visit, you know, as opposed to going off the dial because it's a little bit of traffic. So it does change your perspective. I'm intrigued by people who have that perspective, even those it's one thing to have that perspective after you've seen it firsthand. It's also intriguing to me to meet people who have that genuine sense of compassion and empathy when they maybe never even seen the poverty for themselves. And those people really, there's so much good in the world, and we have to shift our focus to celebrating that good, instead of dwelling so much on the negative, which is what what you're doing here today, and so we're grateful for that.

Brooke
Yeah, absolutely. I wonder, is there a discrepancy in South Africa with girls and education? Because I have heard stories of when they start their menstruation and things like that, schooling can be harder. Is that also a challenge there in South Africa?

Martha
Yes, so there is a discrepancy the we work mostly with what's called the Casa culture. It's spelled x, h, O, S, A, and it's pronounced pasa, pasa like that. And it is a very male centered culture. So that's just, that's just a reality. So for instance, when the women get married, they not only change their last name, but they also are given a new first name. So there's a really complete transformation to to the husband's family. And there are numerous other things throughout the culture that that sort of underscore that that male focus in terms of what we do, that is, you know, obviously not a part of what we do. So everything that we instill is to lift up both boys and girls, both men and women. So one of the things that I like to share Brooke is that the way we sort of refine our focus and define our agenda is through this, what we call our top 10 wish list, and we find the most dysfunctional schools, and we consider partnering with them, and in doing so, we survey everyone. This feeds back to your girls and boys question. We survey everyone, from the little kindergartners through the you know, the 12th graders, the teachers, the administrators, the parents, and we ask them what their top 10 wishes are to transform their school. And there's an interesting story later, if we have time for how this this top 10 Wish List developed. But what ends up happening is we form a partnership so with any any item on this top 10 wish list, the school needs, needs to do something, and then we do something. So it's we avoid this chronic handout mentality, which I think is actually more crippling and disrespectful over the long term. So these top 10 wishes, number one is always a security system and security measures at the school, because we want to make sure everyone feels protected and that our donors investments are protected for the long, long, long term. Number Two you'll be interested to know is always clean water, because all six schools with which we've partnered have never had clean water prior to our arrival. They might have had water, but it was tainted, or often they had no water at all. That's always number two, and then three through 10 are a combination of infrastructure improvements and also psychosocial intervention, like workshops, parent training, student training with respect to how to apply to college and university, or how to avoid boy drugs and alcohol or peer pressure, or how to deal with any gender based violence, things like that. So in the process of that, securing that top 10 wish list, we value all people's opinions, you know, from the like I said, the little four year old in kindergarten all the way up. And in that light, girls and boys are equally responsible for generating our agenda, and therefore what we end up funding is definitely gender balanced with respect to menstruation. Yes, that is an issue in South Africa, not as big a deal as it is in other parts of the continent of Africa, but also the region we serve does take steps to provide the girls with the items they need to deal with their menstruation so that they can still attend school. It's not a perfect system, but but those.On the ground are doing something to try to address that so that the girls education is uninterrupted.

Brooke
Oh, that's That's wonderful to hear. I also am curious, how are you received in South Africa? How is universal promise received? I know sometimes there can be a maybe a little bit of a push back of like people coming in trying to save us, or whatever that might be. Or are you, are you very well received? Or have you had any conflict or secure, security or safety issues yourself?

Martha
I love this question, so thank you for it. I appreciate it.I think it's interesting that I would say when we first arrived, there was some skepticism, I would say, because the people we serve over there have been promised a lot over the decades a lot, and I don't think it's to go too far out on a limb to say that the vast majority of those promises have not been honored. So when, when I first came in, and, you know, I'm not from there, you know, I'm not familiar with the culture, and started talking about, you know, doing this and doing that. I'll never forget this. It was at my first school, and one of the teachers named O Rama said to me, after we presented this top 10 wish list and we got their top 10 wishes, I'm at the front and I'm saying, is everybody excited? Are you excited? And there was no reaction from the faculty, none. It was just absolutely flat. And he raised his hand and he said, We will be happy once the first shovel goes in the ground. And I thought, that's totally fair. I totally understand it. So there was some skepticism. But also Brooke, it's one of the reasons why I put the word promise in the name of the organization universal promise has multiple meanings, but I wanted that word in there, because I wanted to show them how much it meant to us, but I also wanted them to be able to come back to us and say, Hey, you promised this, you know, and and to hold us accountable in that way. So yes, early on, there was some skepticism, but they have been watching us now, you know, really, for 16 years, but since our real founding for 13 years now, and they've seen what we've done, and we've done a lot in the community. And you know, if I just the security at the school, upgraded classrooms, clean water, study guides, textbooks, computer labs, playgrounds, sports fields, we've done a ton of workshops, like yoga workshops and meditation, gardening, coding, entrepreneurship, engineering, the list goes on and on, and they've seen their schools be physically and sort of in terms of morale transformed. So there's no skepticism anymore. We're now very well received. You know, sometimes we have to say no to some requests, so I'm sure there are some people who aren't thrilled when we have to make those tough decisions. But it's actually quite easy because it's, it's direct and clear. We fund education and wellness. That's, that's it, so as long as it falls into those two categories, which is now crystal clear to everyone. People under understand in terms of the safety. It's a very common question, because, you know, we hear a lot on the news media about the the danger concerns in South Africa. And I would say that just as I do here, I take precautions when I'm there. I don't wander around the township at night. You know, if I'm in Cape Town or something, or Johannesburg, getting ready for a flight home, I'm cautious about when I go outside, but I do that here also, Brooke, do you know I just I don't take any risks. I try to do the best I can in terms of being in the township, not once ever have I felt any degree of threat or uncertainty or or fear. I'll tell you one story that was a beautiful story, because it reflects how much they protect us there too. Now, I was at a wedding, and it's an all day affair, so I was invited to a wedding. It was so much fun. At around four o'clock in the afternoon, it was starting to get dark and just very, very early stages, and I looked up and I saw Moses, the gentleman I referred to from my very first visit, who brought us into the township, and he was standing across the street, and he wasn't invited to the wedding, so I did not know why he was there. And so I went like this to him, and he he put up his hand and he pointed to his watch. And so I went over to him, and he said, It's time to go now, Mama. And I said, Okay. And he said, it's getting a little dark. The wedding is.Going to get a little bit more, right, you know, in terms of the drinking and things. And he said, I think that you should leave now. So I did. So I feel very, very safe, but I also I take a lot of care to safeguard not only myself, but also all the people we bring who volunteer with us and my family members who have traveled with us.

Brooke
Okay, so that brings me to a couple of questions. One is, Mama, is that a normal thing that they call or is that for you? I want to hear about that. And then secondly, have, has there been time yet for this to come full circle? Has there been people that you have helped in South Africa that are now coming back to continue to help and to keep keep this mission growing.

Martha
Yes, so what I love? I mean, maybe you've heard of this, but there's this sub Saharan sort of way of looking at life called Ubuntu. It's U, b, u n, t, u, and basically it means I am because we are, or I am because of you, or just, more simplistically, humanity. I was given the name nobuntu by a faculty member at the first school, which is the female derivative of Ubuntu. It means the world to me. So a lot of people there call me nobuntu. A lot of people call me Mana nobuntu. CC is another one which is just like sister. So the way it works is, and this is all in the spirit of Ubuntu. They, they, they come up with a name that indicates your closeness to them. You know, almost in terms of a family relationship. Ubuntu is really a sense that we're all family. So I would treat you as if you were my daughter. So that's the way it works there. So it all depends on age, you know. So if I'm older as I am now, they might, they'll call me Mama, mama or Mama. No Boon do something like that. 15 years ago, they were calling me more sissy, you know, let sister I was the same age.So, yeah, it depends on the on the relationship. And yes, we've been there long enough now that students who started with us in in kindergarten are now, you know, through have passed them a trick and are on their way to university. So that has been unbelievable to watch that unfold. I think it's there's something to be said for staying in one region and developing these incredibly solid relationships and watching all your hopes come to fruition. So I think the best example of a full circle is a young man named Sia. When we met him after he had passed his high school exams, which are called the matric and he was enrolled at Nelson Mandela University. He has since gone on. We partnered with him. We helped him with his university housing and some textbooks and he needed some glasses at some point, we delivered a laptop for him, which was pivotal for his success at university. He went on to get a degree in social work, and then an honors degree in social work, and now he is the captain of a forensic division of the police unit in Cape Town. And so he using his social work skills and researching various crimes and incidences and crate in Cape Town. So and the the kicker is that we have also he's been serving on our board of directors because we also invited him to be on our board of directors a few years ago. And so He not only has made it through the academic system, but he's now gainfully employed, and he's serving on our board where he can definitely affect the, you know, our willingness to keep improving, which will only happen even more readily when we have board members who are from South Africa, which he clearly is amazing.

Brooke
It's really amazing. Like, what are your biggest challenges, either currently or getting this going, just, can I talk a little bit about what your biggest challenges were, how you overcame that?

Martha
Well, the thing that it's there are so many challenges, in a way, you know, like I said to you earlier, reconciling their spirit with the systemic subordination. That's more of an emotional challenge. The biggest challenge, I would say, is this constant battle. And I'm I know this is in the minds of all executive directors of nonprofits. We are really grateful for the work we're doing and the literally 1000s of people we're affecting, and we know we're making a difference. And as you said earlier, you never know what one life is going to do to not just one other life, but perhaps 1000s and 1000s of other lives. So we just never know, and that's why it has to be accessible to all. The biggest challenge is knowing that you.We could drive 30 miles down the road in another direction and find other communities in dire need, you know, or go to another area in the same province, you know, there are millions and millions of people worldwide who need the kind of intervention that we and many other nonprofits are providing. So I think one of the challenges is to not go down that black hole of thinking, you know,what is the impact of what we're doing? Yes, we're helping 1000s of people, but when there are millions in need, and we just have to keep pulling back to that notion that, yes, but we're doing something, do you know? And that's what I was saying earlier. If we all, all of us, did something, the world would be elevated in a heartbeat. So that is sort of an emotional challenge that we battle all the time. But we we can easily get returned to a good spot, because we see how the people in our area are changing and growing and becoming more and more hopeful, and above all, establishing a sense of trust that when, when people make promises, some people will keep those promises. So that's been, that's been a beautiful outcome. I would say the biggest challenge in running a nonprofit is that we always are in need of more resources. And you know, it's always, it always comes down to more money if we we have a model now Brooke that we think really, really works, and the metrics that we've collected over the years suggest that it is working.And you know, we would like to be able to expand that model to many other, many other locations. I'd say, once a week we get a plea from someone. Sometimes it's just it's in neighboring regions of South Africa, but we've probably been approached by 10 other countries on the continent of Africa asking us to come help there. Our focus will remain in South Africa, because we do believe, for us, a less is more. Statement is true. There's so much work to do there. So yeah, it always just comes down to resources.

Brooke
You just said a lot of profound things. I understand the way that you're working because I like, I'm not the cleanest, most organized person, but it's something that if I don't have it, I don't, I'm not at my best, I can't think as clearly. I'm not, you know, I'm just not my my mental health is not as good, and so it's something I'm constantly battling within myself, right? And so I have this kind of mantra for myself. I say, Well,if I just do a little bit,then eventually everything is in order, and it might not happen in a day, but eventually doing 20 minutes, whatever time, time I have that day, it's easier to keep your room clean if you clean a little every day, instead of just letting it completely just fall apart. So I think it's really important what you're the work that you're doing, because you know, when you think about it in a small space of like, Oh,my metaphor. You know, I only spent 20 minutes today. Well, an accumulation of those 20 minutes has now created this thing. And I think with what the work you're doing in South Africa, in that particular region, it's easy to get lost in the mess of the world and in the mess of like all of the need of all of the people who you can't reach and you can't help at the moment, but by helping those people in that specific spot, and putting all of your resources and energy into making that the best that you can and helping it the most, that I think is just going to spread outward, because every every life you every life you touch, and every person you help, it's it's not only inspiring them, but it is giving them hope. It's going to change. It's changing their lives forever, their their perspective, their their experience, how they view people, how just everything, it's infecting light into them and love and hope and all of these beautiful things that I think only make our our world better. And so I just think that that it's important to remember that even if it's not as broad as you want it to be, that I think it's it's the seed that grows and grows and grow and help make the world a better place. And I don't want to talk too much, but a lot on this podcast, when I ask people why they're doing some of the great things they're that they're doing eight times out of 10, it doesn't just come it doesn't just come to them one day. It came to them because someone showed them care and love in a time or showed someone that they loved, care and love in a time when they needed it most. And that is so moving that it changes you at your core, and then you want to help other people feel that way and help them in that way. So it's just really beautiful.

Martha
I love what you just said because, I mean, two things popped up when you just said what you said. One is, we have this little mantra that we say, make a difference every day. So even with your organizational metaphor there, it's even a little bit every day. It makes a difference cumulatively. Do you know the South Africans have this great expression? I don't think it's just South Africa, but, you know, alone you go fast, but together, we go far, and the together we go far, sometimes takes more time, but it's worth it, because it it means that it's more inclusive and accountable and sustainable, you know, and more in that spirit of of Ubuntu, you know.

Brooke
Okay, great, let's, let's segue into MDF and how this relationship came to be. Because I, I'm actually not quite sure, so I'd love to hear about how, how this has come to be.

Martha
And so it happened just one of our universal promise interns found out about the crafting wellness initiative online and reached out, and we got our first shipment now, many, many years ago, and I just we were so struck that that this division actually just existed, that there was an organization out there that so willingly was eager to donate these items, really for true donation. And I think that the best way for people to understand the magnitude of the gift, the impact of the gift, is what we made a delivery, I think, two years ago, of items to several local clinics in the region we serve. And when we walked in, we had 10 among other things, we were delivering 10 stethoscopes and five blood pressure monitors to each of these clinics. And when I walked in with them, the head nurse had a stethoscope around her neck, and she held it up, and she said, this stethoscope, the one that they had on hand before, doesn't work well, and it's the only one we have in the clinic. And we serve at least 10,000 people. So now I walked in the door with your stethoscopes and every single staff member last time I walked in there had a stethoscope around his or her neck. Now the ripple effect of that, can you imagine, first of all, the validation of the healthcare workers that here are some tools that will allow you to do what you are actually trained to do. You know you don't. Now have to face this patient and say, Well, I'd like to be able to listen to your heart, you know? I'd like to be able to know if you have high blood pressure or not. Now they can do it. And the impact on the patients themselves, getting the kind of care that they deserve with some basic tools, again, something that we take for granted. Do you know? Can you imagine walking into an office in the United States and and they don't have those essential tools? It's the first two things they pull out when you when you get a yearly physical, right? So yeah, and it's just it that led to your donation, led to our renovation of an entire clinic, where we doubled the size of the pharmaceutical area. We double the size of the waiting area. We double the size of the office space. We also put an area outside where people could sit, sit down in the shade and be out of the unbelievable hot sun. Imagine going to a clinic because you're not feeling well, and then have to wait outside in the piercing hot sun. So it's, it's not just the equipment which is big enough. It's, it's the ripple effect, you know, going forward, from the donation of that equipment. So we just received another shipment, and cannot wait to get it into the into the hands of the of the people who do all the hard work over there.

Brooke
Oh, we're so excited to hear that. It's incredible. I mean, it is. It's a big reason for a lot of what we do. I think the owner of the company, Darren, he's a huge proponent of crafting wellness, and he has instilled that into the company of just that no human being should be without basic health care. And a lot of issues that happen happen because it wasn't seen, because it could have been prevented. It's it's really beautiful, because that's exactly what crafting wellness is about. It's about, you know, we, we, donate a lot with medical missions, and they go, and they'll a lot of the staff, the nurses and the doctors will go and they'll use the medical equipment, and a lot of times they'll leave it behind. That's kind of the point. They'll leave the medical equipment behind after the work that they've done, so that the people there have what they need, so that they can continue serving people and, you know, creating health and wellness in the world. We believe that health, you know, health and wellness, is a human right, and so it's, it's, it's great to see that, like us doing our part, and then you doing your part, has now created this beautiful system where so many more people can be helped and seen and feel safe.

Martha
We have come to really respect and understand that without any wellness initiatives, there is no education, you know, so that we can have the most beautiful schools and the 21st century state of the art equipment and all of that. But if people are not well, if people are drinking poisoned water on sanitary water, or not getting the medical intervention they deserve, you know that tuberculosis is still taking the lives of people in the region we serve. You know those again, we take it for granted here, if, if the basic health issues are not being addressed and it those are those two things are foundational someone who genuinely cares proper access to health care. Those two are necessary to move on to the next level of succeeding educationally. So that's why wellness is one of our core guiding lights with respect to education, because by education, we just don't mean math, science, English. We also mean healthcare education, medical education, wellness education, and that's why we're, you know, eager to fund it and eager to get the MDF support.

Brooke
It's really our pleasure and honor to help serve all the great work that you are all are doing. How many people would you say work with your nonprofit? When you go on these missions, when you go to South Africa, and you're making these changes, and you're, you're, I imagine you're doing construction, and you're building things, and you're, how, how does this kind of are you bringing people in? Are you hiring people there? How are you kind of getting this work done?

Martha
So we have two kinds of volunteerism. One is that has been school based. And when we do school based ones, then we bring a maximum of 20 people, including school chaperones. When we do it outside of a school with with older people, older volunteers, meaning just beyond high school. Then we do it in smaller groups, usually not exceeding 10 people. And what we try to do is merge the school's needs and things that we think in collaboration with them and discussions with them they would benefit from learning about with our volunteers talents. So I'll give you an example. They don't in the communities we serve. They have not traditionally practiced yoga and meditation and breathing exercises there. I happen to think that it would be wildly helpful for them to get exposed to those, those three practices. So we have, we have brought over yoga teachers to instruct people in yoga and meditation. Now, we were told at the beginning, you know, it's not going to be well received. They don't really know this. This is something they've never done. And I said, then, how do we know they won't like it if they've never actually been exposed to it. Let's, let's expose them to it and see what happens. Wildly Successful Brooke, I mean, wildly they liked it more than they like when we've done soccer programs over there. So it's a perfect example of we can't assume what people will like or not like. We just have to give them the opportunity and see what develops from there. So we try to merge our volunteers interest with the school's needs, or the exposure to things that we think they might benefit from. So that's one thing. We limit it to 10 because we like on those separate trips, because we like it to be intimate, and the volunteerism is really mostly about 99% about working with the locals, getting to know the locals, appreciating their culture, broadening our minds, stopping seeing ourselves as the center of the universe, and realizing that there are things we can take from Every culture with which we interact and that we can share with them. It sounds cliche, but it is unbelievably true that, yes, they learn from us, but we learn way more from them about how to live life and appreciate and appreciate life. So yes, we do some construction work. When we went in February, one of the guys with whom we traveled helped renovate 11 classrooms, but a lot of it is more educationally oriented. So English, history, writing, math, art, science, but also, as I said, yoga, meditation, entrepreneurial skills, engineering, dance, we did some. Been really fun dancing with them last time. So it's a real mix. It's an incredibly joyful eye opening and simultaneously gut wrenching experience, because it's hard to see with your own two eyes that people in 2024 still live without water, without electricity. You know, in self described shacks with dirt floors and people sleeping on the floors, so is this constant battle between the unbelievable love that exudes from the people with whom we were and then when we see the conditions in which they live. It's, a very hard thing to reconcile the two.

Brooke
You mentioned, that we can't assume what people like. And I love that because that, you know, being such a proponent for education. I when I went to college, there were so many things I had never experienced. And for me, that's what college was. I didn't know what philosophy was. I never in, you know, in high school and stuff, we never really taught. I mean, I knew what it was broadly, but I didn't, I didn't know about Aristotle and St Augustine and and, you know, that was, it was like, Whoa. You know, that's amazing. Like, what is this? And then that's how you discover the things that you like. And, you know, silly things like, I had never had hummus before, and I had been a vegetarian for many years, and so hot like, or Indian food, I had never had Indian food. And when I had it for the first time, it was just like, whoa. What is to be a kid again and experience something brand new for the first time in and and so I think I really relate to what you're saying when you brought yoga over and like, people are like, Oh, I don't know. Is that going to really, you know, work well over there, and you can't assume, because people don't know what they don't know. They don't know what like if they haven't been exposed to it. And so I think it's really fun and cool what you guys are doing how you're exposing to them to so many different facets of of life, of from yoga to, you know, probably cooking to health, to English, to all of these things that, you know, mathematics, it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing to just see that. I'm sure you kind of see people take on different they start gravitating towards something, without yoga, yoga is is so great for the mind, body and spirit all around, just such an amazing practice to have I think.

Martha
And the teachers have told me that, you know, we wanted them to consider bringing just a breathing exercise to the beginning of every day and the end of every day, you know that 478, breathing mechanism, or just the box breathing. And when the faculty members don't do it, the kids will now say, Oh, we have to, don't forget, we have to breathe, you know? So they, they, it helps, it, it. It really does help. So the other thing I wanted to mention Brooke, because we also have a slew of people on the ground who carry out our work when we're not there. So you know, construction workers, security people, IT staff, water system installers, local sometimes local people. We try to employ local people as often as we can, but when the skills sort of demand something that's not readily available in the township, then we have to go to a local city in order to do that. But one of the exciting developments we have coming up is that in this top 10 wish list I told you, one was security, two was water. In the subsequent three through 10, we do are introducing this now, sort of psychosocial intervention that is trying to engage in some more workshops to, you know, intellectual workshops, emotional workshops, to help people who are interested and who people who express the need for various things like parenting, parenting infants, parenting toddlers, parenting. You know, kids, as they grow older, creating a safe space at home period, creating a safe space at home for studying, understanding the value of education, that kind of psychosocial intervention with the parents and the kids at a very young age. All of that work will be carried out by local NGOs, whom we will empower because they are better equipped. Obviously, this should go without saying, they know more about the local needs and how to address them than we ever will. So we're very excited about this development because it's it's going to be empowering the local NGOs to do the work that they're meant to do, and having a real sort of daily impact on transforming certain informal settlements and townships.

Brooke
I love it. I absolutely love it. I love the work you're doing. It sounds like it just keeps growing and. Growing, and I'm really excited to keep watching it to grow. And that brings me to my question of, how can people help? How can people get involved? I know, obviously donations are a thing. Can you also verbally say where the website where people can go to just for people who are auditory and they're listening to this podcast instead of watching it. I will put it in the summary and the link and everything below, but I just want to make sure that people know how and where they can provide help.

Martha
So yes, the website is www.universalpromise.org so universalpromise.org, we get a lot of positive feedback about the website, the clarity of it and how to navigate it, but all of the major important things, as you would expect, are at the top on the header. So you can learn about donating. We can don't there's all sorts of giving levels that are available. For instance, you can donate a solar lantern for $25 to bring electricity into somebody's home. You can donate a classroom chair, you can donate a school uniform. You can make general donations to our major Top 10 Wish List projects. So you know there's a volunteer. Information about our our big gala that's coming up in November, how to be a sponsor, how to join our education sponsorship program. There's a drop down that's called What's up now, or what's happening now, so you can see what we're doing month by month over the course of the year. And you know, it's pretty easy to navigate the help we would love. You know, we love bringing people over there. So we're always looking for volunteers. One huge way to help is to become an education sponsor. It costs $1.15 a day to do that at the entry level, and those are volunteer education sponsors. Are at the root of all change, financial change, because it's a income that we can count on month after month after month. So yeah, and it's, it's not just money that people can donate. They can also donate their time. But when we look at, you know, MDF donates medical instruments, but we have another organization, KPMG, that donates laptops. So when we've built several computer labs over there, and, you know, and obviously the laptops are a huge percentage of those financial the outlay of finances there. So the laptops are donated by them. Colleges have stepped up. Bryn Mawr College and Gettysburg College have donated scores of athletic uniforms and warm ups and just tons of things with that. There's this great company called All sales are vinyl, and they take old records, melt them and paint them and embellish them and send sell them as recycled flowers. They're really stunning. And all of that money, that a huge portion of the money they get from Flower sales funds clean water. They funded three clean water systems so far. So there are tons of ways to give, and that organization started because they knew they couldn't make a giant donation, but they knew they could devote time, and they've transformed the lives of 1000s of children because of their access to clean water now. So tons of ways to help, and not all of it is about about money.

Brooke
It's so great. Yeah, a very young doctor. She was, she became a doctor like 25 and here in the US, and she started a non profit with her friend, just by recycling bottle caps, the tops of the bottles. And then they donate, they collect them, and they have this whole system going, and they collect the bottle bottle caps, and then all the money goes to cancer for children, but they donate it all, and they don't touch any of the money. They have this whole system going. And it's just incredible what you can do with bottle caps, you know, like something that people just throw away, that people think is just trash, right? You know? And they're literally turning it into money and then turning that into helping children. So it's

Martha
this is what's great though about this is where Ubuntu comes in, because I never knew that a bottle cap had any worth whatsoever. Now you've, you've, this is Ubuntu, because you've changed my perspective about a bottle caps, like every exchange, changes the way we see the world in terms of the impact of a donation. Near the end of last year, we got an outreach from the mother of kids. We we supported in school with school uniforms. She was on the last leg of of a year of schooling, and she had a debt, a college debt, that if she didn't pay it off, they she was not going to be allowed to sit to write her final exams, which would have precluded her from becoming a teacher. So she reached out to us, because she you know, they know about us and and they also knew, she knew it was about education, so it would have been a good match. And when she. Said, you know, I'm looking for someone who, who will clear my college debt. Now, if someone said that in the United States, I mean, what's the first number that comes to mind? That could be $50,000 it could be $200,000 it could it. It would definitely be 1000s of dollars. One would assume I knew it wasn't going to be that, because I've been there long enough. But I said to her, so what could you just tell me with a total? And it ended up being $176 that was her debt. So, you know, obviously I had to get her transcripts. I had to see that she was passing, that she was attending and all of that. But in the phone call, I said to her, if you're able to get me that, I can promise you right now in this conversation, that we will pay off your debt. Because, I mean, I knew we could do, you know, for the next and this is not an exaggeration. Three minutes, there was just non stop sobbing and joy on her end, and $176 I mean, how many times it's possible to go out to eat, you know, at a fancy restaurant, or even not that eating fancy, and spend that much money? She sat with her exams. She aced her exams, you know, and now is in the teaching profession because of $176 donation.

Brooke
Yeah, that's incredible. And I mean, that actually brings me to, I wonder. I'm curious about $1 here. Can't get you anything. So what is the kind of currency there in South Africa?How much does $1 stretch there?

Martha
I mean, so let's, I'll give you an example of we just got a quotation to we started a we funded a piggery. They call it over there, which is a pig farm. And it's really empowering a female entrepreneur, and then she's going to donate a significant portion of the proceeds, when it becomes income generating, to the local school for them to feed the kids breakfast. So we just got a quotation on an extension of the piggery, because it's going really, really well, and we need more stalls, so the addition of four stalls in this would be, you know, everything that you can imagine that's required for the stalls, the cement that everything, including labor, and the total bill was $750 so over here it probably would have been, I'd say it at minimum $25,000 so in terms of what is $1 by that's it. I I'm not sure what I could could say to answer that question. But for you to see the proportion of the the difference between what what we can do with $1 over there is, is extraordinary. So it's just money that's, you know, we built an academic center over there. This is our huge signature piece that we built over there, a huge Academic Center. It houses a school library, a science lab, a beautiful open air meeting space and art studio and a dance studio, dance and wellness studio, we call it. It cost $400,000 over here, the estimate would have been roughly $8 million so yeah, and I think that

Brooke
That was kind of my point too, is that every dollar counts, and you know what? It's kind of the equivalent of us taking for granted hot water or chocolate here. Like, we take it for granted. We take $1 for granted. But over there, $1 can mean a lot more. $1.15 a day educating and continuing education. So it kind of puts in perspective that, like, you don't have to donate a ton of money. Like every little bit helps. And if everybody can just do a little bit kind of what we're talking about, then a big change can happen. Thank you so much for joining our crafting wellness podcast. It's been such a pleasure having you on and talking about universal promise. Everyone can go to Universal promise.org and check out all the amazing work they're doing. Catch up with it. You can donate there. You can also volunteer and subscribe to their email list. They're also on Instagram, at Universal promise and on Facebook as well.

Martha
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Brooke, it was a fabulous time spending time with you. Your questions were excellent, made me think, and we're just grateful for the chance to share with people what we do and and how we're helped by by organizations like MDF and a host of other supporters around the world. So thank you for helping us spread the word. Appreciate it.