October 29, 2007 at 10:00 am (giving, hunger, images, links, malnutritian, poverty, statistics, videos)
Tags: aid, breakthrough, charity, children, doctors without borders, hunger, poverty, progress, starvation
“(CBS) You’ve probably never heard a good news story about malnutrition, but you’re about to. Every year, malnutrition kills five million children — that’s one child every six seconds. But now, the Nobel Prize-winning relief group “Doctors Without Borders” says it finally has something that can save millions of these children. ”
October 25, 2007 at 1:49 pm (community, culture, current and past projects, education, giving, poverty)
Tags: Central America, donation, fundraising, gift, Guatemala, letter, mail, project, student, study, volunteer
Posted by Kristen
Over the years, I’ve gotten lots of personal emails in response to the Aura’s House site. Many are notes of support and encouragement. Some congratulate the site on its progress. Some are from people asking for money or help (unfortunately usually beyond our means to provide it). Others are SPAM and some are from people who want to help who then follow up or leave us hanging.
October 20, 2007 at 10:56 am (blog tips)
Tags: blog, personalize, tips
posted by Kristen
Great posts and comments on our new blog! Just a tip: If you want to personalize your comments/posts, all you have to do is login. Go to your Dashboard and then: Users–> My Profile. From there you can upload a pic that will be associated with your comments/posts.
October 19, 2007 at 2:18 pm (community, education, giving, poverty)
Tags: fortunate, generosity, giving back, self-pity, unemployment
Posted by Anastasia
Sometimes, I just want to kick myself.
We all have moments of self-pity, but lately I’ve been doing more than just dipping my little toe into the pool of Woe Is Me. I’ve cannonballed in with an enormous splash that soaks those I care about, too! So my job isn’t going great? I should feel lucky to have one. My HOA fees are high? At least I have a home. I’ve put on a few extra pounds? That means I have [more than] enough to eat.
October 17, 2007 at 10:32 am (art, community, culture, current and past projects, giving, images, links, poverty, shopping)
Tags: art, cards, design, donations, family, fundraising, gifts, giving, holiday, holidays, housing, online shopping, poverty, shopping
Posted by Kristen
We’ll be updating our Holiday Section of our Online Store this week. In the past we’ve had a number of great designs submitted (from adults and kids alike) that we then made available as cards, t-shirts, caps, totes, stickers…you name it. It’s a great opportunity for your personalized design to become someone’s holiday gift. 25% of proceeds go to our projects at Aura’s House. (The rest goes to Cafe Press who creates and ships out the products for us.) If you or someone you know would like to submit art for Aura’s Online shop, please send your 150dpi resolution .png files to info@aurashouse.com.
In other online shopping news: Join iGive for free and be kind to yourself and others on your shopping list. Up to 30% of your online purchases go to our projects at Aura’s House. There are over 680+ stores to choose from and include shops like Barnes and Noble, Travelocity, the Gap, EBay, Staples, Best Buy, and many more.
October 15, 2007 at 3:28 pm (culture, education, links, poverty, statistics)
Tags: countries, portrait, poverty, reality, research, world
Posted by Kristen
I recently gave my Intro to Mass Media students a handout based on The 100 People Project and asked them if our Mass Media in the US and Italy (books, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, tv, internet, etc) portray reality in an accurate way.
Many were flabbergasted to find out for example that only 1% of the world’s population has had a college education and that only 1% of the world’s population owns a computer. Many of them realized that no matter how many student loans they had or how poor they thought they were, that in fact they make up the world’s richest elite.
October 10, 2007 at 3:49 pm (community, culture, current and past projects, images, poverty)
Tags: aid, children, Honduras, housing, poverty, shack, single mother, slum
Posted by Kristen
I recently got word that Anastasia and another of our longtime donors will be putting together a fundraiser in the Florida area for the Bacilio House Project sometime before the holidays. Now that winter is coming, it’s more crucial than ever to get this family who currently live in a shack made of wood planks and plastic bags into a safe and sturdy home.
More news as we get details. We do ok with online donations, but these offline events REALLY help give us a boost. It’d be nice if as a holiday present, Bacilio and his family could learn that strangers from all over the world conspired to raise them enough money for a new house. This is exactly what we did with our first two House Projects at Aura’s House in 2004 and 2005. It’s nice we are focusing on just one family for this particular project. Who would help them otherwise?
Bacilio and his mother (recently abandoned by her husband) stand in front of the house they share with eight other family members.
October 5, 2007 at 10:47 am (community, culture, education, videos, women's rights)
Tags: arranged marriage, culture, education, immigrant, India, Indian, Sikh
Posted by Kristen
This is a documentary I worked on between 2001 to 2006. I recently changed the text at the end to reflect the latest changes in Lucky’s life. It’s 15 minutes long and broken up into two parts for web viewing. For a list of where it has screened, click here.
Lucky is about one Indian American woman’s experience with arranged marriage and how it has altered the course of her life. Themes include education, reproductive rights, and tradition versus ambition.
October 4, 2007 at 9:27 am (community, current and past projects)
Tags: fundraising, grassroots, poverty, web
Posted by Kristen
Back when I first started Aura’s House I was thinking of the possiblities of how ordinary people could help needy families just by donating a dollar. I envisioned tens of thousands of people all donating a dollar and how much money would eventually be raised, seemingly without much effort.
When the site first launched in the summer of 2004, I was completely unprepared for how much hard work was ahead of me even just to raise the first thousand. I dived into online fundraising resources. I consulted guides, wrote letters, emailed all my friends. I tried to make my site more “sticky” by offering monthly newsletters, a mailing list, a guestmap, and even the now defunct Guatemala weather report. It didn’t occur to me that the masses of people on the internet wouldn’t all necessarily flock to my site, let alone give me (someone they didn’t know or trust yet) a dollar.
October 3, 2007 at 10:32 am (community, links, poverty)
Tags: Aura's House, blog, community
Posted by Kristen
Hi There.
We’ve decided over at Aura’s House to set up a blog so our users can have more frequent updates as to what’s going on over at the site. The blog will also be a place where we can share links, images, and videos of interest. Please feel free to comment on any posts you find here.
If you would like to become one of our daily/weekly/monthly bloggers, please send us an email at: info@aurashouse.com or leave us a comment here that includes your email address. You”ll then receive a blogger invite soon after. Happy blogging!
Cheers and best wishes,
Kristen, Ana, Mike, Christina, and the Aura’s House Team
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