Today; Save the Future Generation

"Save the future generation" appears quite often on my daily to-do list. It might seem like a mouthful on an evening where I also have to revise math and finish my economics essay, but it is really a lot of fun!

SaFuGe (Save the Future Generation) was one of the first groups I got involved in here at RCN. It is a student initiated fund raising organization that does projects for underprivileged schools all over the world. Throughout the year we work to make money, and towards the end of the summer-term students vote for which projects to sponsor. All projects are carried out by students in their local communities. The money comes from cafés and from Norwegians hiring us for a variety of jobs, but lately we have also started to receive donations. The donations are usually gift certificates, and they mean that most of the money we make from cafes are pure profit.

SaFuGe is great because students take on every role of an NGO. In SaFuGe we have to be idea makers, net workers, project managers, bakers and everything else that is needed to fund and carry out a humanitarian project. It gives us real life experience with the kind of work that many UWC students want to do in their future. This kind of experience is one of the biggest advantages of being a student here. Our work also allows us to connect with the local Norwegian community. SaFuGe labor can be hired for any kind of task, and we have done everything from cafés and catering jobs to wood work and tarring down cabins for a local farmer. The group makes a lot of money over the year and members have currently organized projects in Peru, Nepal, Madagascar, Sierra Leone and Morocco.

Networking is important for SaFuGe, and I have tried to do some work on the online networking aspect. In our Facebook Group, I have been working with my Namibian second year Nikhita on uploading pictures, posting news and expanding the group. I have also made a website. SaFuGe-Nordic.org. It is made so anyone in the group can edit it without much knowledge of computers. I used to make money creating this kind of websites for small businesses back in Denmark, so the process is not new to me. In fact, I have used the same program that I developed a few years ago to allow for easy editing. I think the group will benefit from having this formal presentation of out work. Most of the jobs and donations we get are the result of a good image with the local community, and the website can definitely help with that.

HERE is an article about SaFuGe (in Norwegian)