The month of May is going to be a very special one and I am so excited for it! For thirty days I am going to be styling this dress thirty different ways. Why you ask? I am doing this in order to raise money for the Batonga Foundation, an organization that supports girls in Africa to give them a hope and a future. Not only am I doing this to raise awareness for this awesome organization, but also to raise money to support the education for these girls. My goal is to raise $500 over the course of this month, and I would greatly appreciate your help! On the right side bar there are buttons you can grab for your blog to spread the word, you can like Batonga's facebook page here, or you can donate money by clicking on the donation button at the bottom of this post!
(My family decided to show up in nearly all of these photos. :))
I had the chance to talk with Stephanie, the executive director for the foundation, to do a little interview to help kick off this thirty day fundraising challenge.
1. Can you tell us just a little bit about the history of Batonga? How it got started and what had to happen for it to become successful?
Angelique Kidjo, the founder of Batonga, grew up in Africa, where in poor families the girls were the first to be taken out of school to take care of the home. Angelique's parents made great sacrifices to give her a full education and in 2007 she started Batonga to help other girls who were in her same situation. The organization is still fairly new, but already it is supporting girls in five different countries in Africa, providing them the tools they need to succeed in school and life.
2. About how many girls a year does Batonga support?
Batonga supports just over 1,200 girls spread out over the countries of Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali, and Sierra Leone.
3. How many girls are added to the program each year?
Not too many girls are added each year because of the fact that we are focused on taking the girls through college, so we make sure we have enough money for her to graduate from college. More money means more girls, so every amount of donation is important to bettering the life of a girl.
4. I also understand that Batonga is stationed among several different countries within Africa, are there any specific needs that need to be met with in any certain countries?
Each country is different and even each town is different. General education is a challenge because in poor families, the girls are the first ones to leave school to come home and help support the family. It all depends on what they're going through. But what every girl needs is a mentor for life coaching because there aren't many successful role models surrounding them. They also need school supplies, uniforms, books, scholarships, and sometimes additional money to support their families while they are at school. You can read more about the specific needs in each country here.
5. If someone cannot donate monetarily, are there other ways to help?
Of course! You can always like the facebook page (here) or follow us on twitter (here). Also we have an internship program here at our Washington D.C. office and we are always looking for help at events, which are usually in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington D.C. You can also host fundraisers or just get the word out at your church or school.
6. Are there any future plans for Batonga? If so, what are they?
We are always looking to raise funds because there are so many girls that need it that we just can't support yet. When we can reach more countries we can reach more girls. Education is so important because currently girls are not treated as equals, so they are taken out of school and marry young and have children at very young ages, which is also a health danger as there isn't much medical care available. When they stay in school, not only are they and their future families healthier, their entire life is more successful. It's like a ripple effect. There is a very good video that describes this perfectly and really shows what Batonga is trying to do.
here is the video:
Also we are organizing a trip for people to go to Ethiopia to assist with summer classes and teaching computer skills at the youth center. There are also opportunities to go to the various countries with our Partners (listed here).
You can find out even more information about the Batonga Foundation on their website here.
I encourage you to join me on this journey as I style this dress and raise money for Batonga over the course of this month. Please feel free to donate or raise awareness, and I would also like to thank those bloggers that have already helped me out. You guys are the best. It's going to be an exciting adventure and I cannot wait to be able to present our gift to Batonga at the end of May. Because now it's a team effort. I have faith in us, and I know we can do it!
The other day Matt had to sit me down and I've just now found the words (hopefully) and the will to write it out.
For those of you who don't know, I suffered from depression for a while and I still suffer from the effects of it. Senior year has been especially hard because the girl friends that I was close to stopped hanging out with me and I really felt abandoned. You need to have close girl friends around to support you and I was missing that.
It had gotten so bad and my disdain was so great that it was really having a negative affect on me and those around me. Finally Matt, and I thank God every day for him, sat me down and really got to the heart of the situation. It was really hard for the both of us, but I am so thankful for him and everything he does for me. He made me come face to face with the lies I had been believing and even just a few days later I am feeling so much better about life.
1. You are not weird.
The lie I was believing was that me not having many friends meant I was a loser. But that is absolutely not true. Not only does the amount of friends you have have nothing to do with whether you're a loser or not, but for me, I actually do have a lot of friends. Are they close friends? Not all of them. But the few people that I was focusing on made me blind to all the people that actually cared about me. Don't let a few people who you wish you could be friends with or who just rub you the wrong way keep you from seeing all the people that truly love you for who you are.
2. You are not selfish.
Okay, this one may actually not be true for some people because let's face it, there will always be selfish people in the world. I am the person who believes that there is always room for improvement, but it gets out of hand when I begin to believe that I am a horrible selfish person whose motive for everything is to please myself. While a lot of times that's true (because let's also face that humans in general are self-centered), you can't beat yourself up every single time you do or think a selfish thought. The right thing to do is to fix it, not think you're the worst person on the face of the earth. Though us humans have some bad in us, there is still a lot of good.
3. You are not ugly.
The most beautiful people are the ones with the genuine smiles. I am discovering every day that real beauty is held in the way the sun hits the mountains or the sound of water trickling through the woods or tickling a baby or a nice warm shower. Beauty is not the outward appearance. Beauty is joy. When I am joyful, I feel beautiful. When I'm not joyful, I don't feel beautiful, and when I'm not joyful and don't feel beautiful, I have a bad day. That's the way girls are wired. If we have a bad hair day, we have a bad everything day. But I shouldn't let something as silly as my hair ruin my outlook. What else I'm discovering is that no one else really cares what you look like. I don't notice when other people's hair is greasy or not curled right or whatever, mostly because I'm too focused on myself. Which goes back to the selfish lie. When we focus on others, we should focus on their true beauty, their joy. And if a person doesn't have beauty, it's our job to give them some. Just today in psychology we learned that those people who are kind and compassionate to others have lower health risks and are less stressed. If everyone focuses on putting out true beauty, we in turn become what we give.
4. You are amazing.
When Matt asked me if I liked myself, before I could stop it, I said, "No." This was at the end of the conversation and after realizing I had been lying to myself about all these things and I had allowed it to take over my life, I really couldn't believe what I had done. Negative thought is so self-destructive and it took a lot of tears for me to realize that. I encourage you to ask yourself if you like yourself, and if the answer is no, then ask yourself why. Then when you know why, stop believing the whys! I don't like myself because I'm weird, I'm selfish, I'm ugly, I'm just ordinary ... those are all big fat lies. The truth of the matter is that we all have been blessed with gifts and talents and strengths and weaknesses alike. We should use them to our advantage! And not only to our advantage, but to bless others.
You know the metaphor that we are all like snowflakes--not one of us is alike, and then the rebuttal is that since everyone is unique then no one is unique. While it is true that every single person is unique and special in our own way, the other cool thing is that we're not that much different from each other. At the end of the day, we're all human and we all need and want to give love. We all have fears, hopes, dreams, worries--we are all united.
This conversation I had with Matt really had a profound impact on me and I'm already feeling so much better about life in general. I know there will always be off days, but really I cannot explain enough how much better I've been feeling.
So if you ever feel that you are alone or that what you are feeling is something no one else can relate to, stop believing that lie as well. Don't let a couple negative things blind you from the people that love you and from the beauty of the world. Don't ever let anything steal your joy or make you feel anything less than amazing. Because, let's also be honest with this, you are a beautiful, amazing, talented individual, and no one in the world can tell you otherwise.
What a glorious sunny day it's been! Summer break is a measly sixteen days away and I can practically taste it! I have so many fun things planned for myself and this blog and I'm so excited to share them with you in the upcoming days. :)
It's amazing how fast the snow has been melting these past few days. When these photos were taken, I still had to wear my snow boots to walk to the location because there was still knee high snow in some places (I attempted to avoid those), but in just a few short days I can walk on mostly dry grass. The thing about Alaska is that during break up season when the snow is all melting, everything turns into a muddy messy swamp. But each day it's getting warmer and warmer and soon the snow will be all gone!
D'aaw my nails were all matchy matchy. :)
Hope you all have a wonderful day and be sure to check back tomorrow for a very very special May announcement!!
Today I got to take some engagement photos for my friends/teachers. Matt came down with a bad cold so I was the sole photographer for the outing, but it was all good. We went to the airport and found some fun locations with not too many people staring at us. I did have a fun conversation with a security guard after I tried (and failed) to cross the no-entry line (I asked first, so no worries!). I should have given him my business card, haha. In the upcoming days I'll post more photos from this shoot. I always love looking at engagement/wedding photos even if I don't know the people because not only does it give me good ideas/lessons, it also is just so darn cute! I'm hopeless ... I just love love.
