ME to WE is an innovative social enterprise, founded in 2008 by Canadian brothers Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger, that provides products and experiences that make an impact, empowering people to change the world with their everyday consumer choices. ME to WE is part of the WE organization. Learn more at we.org. ME to WE is an innovative social enterprise that creates socially conscious products and experiences, empowering consumers to change the world. ME to WE is part of WE - a family of organizations making doing good, doable. WE was founded more than 20 years ago by social entrepreneurs, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. Join the movement at WE.org.
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FAQ – ME to WE
School Building
Who is ME to WE?
What is this collaboration?
Call It Spring collaborated with ME to WE to create a limited edition capsule collection. Every ME to WE product you purchase at Call It Spring helps change the life of a child or family in a developing community overseas. Through the work of ME to WE’s charity partner, WE Charity, essential resources are delivered that work to break the cycle of poverty and create real, lasting change.
How are the accessories made?
ME to WE accessories are handmade by Maasai Mamas in Kenya. They are beaded using traditional skills passed down through generations.
Each accessory created:
·Represents Education, an important Pillar of Impact
·Celebrates heritage art forms
·Provides the Mamas with a fair and sustainable income – women are paid 2.2x more than what is considered a fair wage by the B lab, (a non-profit organization that assesses companies against rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency)
·Empowers women to further their journeys as respected voices within their communities
How are the accessories tied to an impact?
Product
Women’s Bracelet
WE Communities Pillar
Education
Impact
School supplies for a child
How are WE providing access to this impact?
With every purchase of a ME to WE bracelet, you'll provide school supplies to a student at 1 of the 10 classrooms in Kenya that we're helping build.
When you choose EDUCATION, you help build schools and provide the essentials for students to learn. WE builds schools to last with members from the community using local materials. WE works with communities and government to ensure the schools are sustainable and accessible in the long-term.
What is Track Your Impact?
Every ME to WE product has a code that lets you connect with real change in a WE partner community overseas. Use your code online to see where you made your impact.
How do I know I can trust Track Your Impact?
WE has been in the changing-the-world business for more than 20 years and we know it requires a collaborative effort. The Track Your Impact program is part of the WE family of organizations. Your impact stays in the family from purchase to delivery – our organization collect the funds and deliver the projects your impact created. We know the change you’ve made because WE delivered that change ourselves.
Every impact is delivered by our experienced WE teams. We employ local staff familiar with the unique needs and challenges of each community in which we work. This means that every project your impact is supporting is needed and wanted, and is part of transformational change.
What is WE Charity?
WE Charity carries the power of WE globally, empowering communities to lift themselves out of poverty through our holistic, sustainable international development model called WE Villages.
What are WE Villages?
Designed to meet the basic needs of developing communities, WE Villages is an international development model made up of five pillars crucial to community development:
Education
Water
Health
Food
Opportunity
Sustainability is the goal of all WE Villages’ projects. We work closely with the government to ensure that local community members have real ownership over each WE Villages education project. Community members are involved in each project, helping to construct a school, digging for a water project and more.
How many schools will be built and why so many?
Call It Spring and ME to WE are planning to build 10 schools in the Narok community in Kenya.
The community currently lacks physical buildings to house students. The aim is to build enough space to house all school aged children in the community.
Why are you building schools? Is this what they need?
In 2002 a new government was elected in Kenya. One of the first things they did was make primary education free and compulsory. This is a massive move to be applauded, but they did not tell anyone it was coming. It was printed in the newspaper on a Friday, then on Monday it was in effect. Over that weekend, no extra textbooks were released, no new teachers were hired, no new uniforms were made and, as a result, schools were left unprepared. One million additional children went to school on this day, significantly overwhelming local resources and capacities. Although 85 percent of children in Kenya currently attend primary school, this figure remains significantly lower for rural schools where isolation and child labour practices continue to prevent thousands of children from acquiring even the most basic levels of education.
If volunteers don’t have any building or construction experience, to what extent do they help the community?
All volunteers are supported by ME to WE travel facilitators. ME to WE welcomes participants of all ages and fitness levels.
All participants are encouraged to work at their own pace No previous experience is necessary.
Why this community specifically?
The Maasai, Kipsigis and Kisii communities face significant challenges, which threaten the
survival of their vibrant cultures. The Maasailand region specifically has the highest primary school drop-out rate in the country, which is a direct result of poor educational facilities and resources, the need for children to tend to cattle and goats and the lack of quality health services.
Without travelling far away, how can I help support the Education pillar?
There are plenty of things you can do to get involved! Traveling to the community in Kenya is just one way to help out. To support this cause without leaving your own community, you can do one of the following things:
Purchase a ME to WE and Call It Spring accessory either in your local Call It Spring store or online at www.callitspring.com/metowe
Spread awareness by telling your friends and family about the initiative either in person or on social media with the hashtag #WECallItChange
Participate in your local community by volunteering your time.
Who pays for the building of the schools?
Call It Spring has committed to fund the building of 10 schools over the course of 3 years.
How do you ensure that communities are not dependent on the services provided by trip participants?
Success for WE Charity is when people no longer need charity.
WE Charity empowers people to be partners in identifying challenges that are barriers to transformation, to help them implement solutions, and then to educate and empower them so they can be independent.
That is WE Charity’s definition of sustainable development.
Trip participants volunteer alongside community members. Whether it’s helping to lay the foundation for a new school, or planting crops or digging trenches for water systems, they contribute towards the goals of WE Charity’s sustainable development model. Sustainability and community ownership is the goal of all of WE Charity’s development projects. WE Charity strives to leave after five years, when the community takes ownership over the maintenance and sustainability of these projects.
Participants are asked not to bring donations or gifts because the goal is to empower communities to be independent through sustainable development work. WE believes in giving a helping hand, not a hand-out.
Does work continue on projects when the participants go home? Who takes care of the projects?
WE Charity’s sustainable development model is not about implementing stop-gap measures and temporary fixes.
Work is carried out all year by local contractors and construction workers who WE Charity employs. Work schedules and logistics are overseen by on-the-ground, local staff who ensure projects run smoothly and donations are being used effectively in communities that need them most.
Furthermore, participants’ volunteer efforts help pre-planned projects move along more quickly.
Do trip participants take away jobs from local people?
No, they do not. In fact, WE Charity’s sustainable development model creates local jobs.
The main objective of WE Charity’s model is to ensure sustainable development. WE Charity empowers local community members to become key contributors to the health of their community. With WE Charity, they find jobs as engineers, project managers, supervisors, support staff, among many other roles—all in communities where work is incredibly difficult to find.
ME to WE Trip participants volunteer on pre-planned projects. They volunteer alongside community members and paid local WE Charity employees. Participants’ efforts do not determine which projects we start or work on, rather they get projects completed more quickly. WE Charity employs many local people who work on its projects year round, both when trip participants are on and off-site.
Do ME to WE Trips have a negative impact on the environment?
ME to WE is committed to reducing our ecological footprint as much as possible.
They offset the carbon footprint of each trip by growing organic produce in local gardens. They also have a tree nursery program, which supports reforestation projects.
Since 2008, ME to WE has planted almost 700,000 trees and saved almost 40,000 pounds of pesticide.
In addition, WE Charity ensures all development projects that are part of its sustainable development model take environmental sustainability into account.
How do you ensure that the volunteer work provided by trip participants is needed in the community?
All the volunteering that participants do on ME to WE Trips supports our charity partner, WE Charity’s sustainable development model.
WE Charity ensures development projects are driven by the community’s needs. Because community leaders and members are engaged in every step of the development work, they are proud, equal partners in our sustainable initiatives.
Sustainability and community ownership is the goal of all of WE Charity’s development projects. WE Charity strives to leave after five years, when the community takes ownership over the maintenance and sustainability of these projects.
The community’s priorities drive the volunteer efforts. Volunteers help accelerate the implementation of WE Charity’s initiatives, which benefit everyone.
Are ME to WE Trips “voluntourism”?
Voluntourism is a term that refers to travel which includes volunteering for a charitable cause.
While ME to WE trips are overseas and have a volunteer component, they are vastly different from most “voluntourism” experiences.
ME to WE Trips empower socially conscious travelers to make an impact in the very communities where their charity partner, WE Charity, has a 20-year history of sustainable development, working with community leaders and members in a true partnership.
ME to WE Trip participants get a first-hand look at WE Charity’s sustainable development model and make a hands-on contribution to its legacy of community-building.
On ME to WE Trips, participants volunteer alongside community members on projects that support one of the five core pillars of WE Villages: Education, Water, Health, Food, or Opportunity.
These five pillars are designed to provide sustainable solutions and empower communities to be active participants in their transformation, and ensure their sustained well-being. Trip participants volunteer alongside community members and learn about sustainable development from this partnership.
Again, all volunteer efforts are driven by the community’s needs.
Community leaders and members are empowered equal partners in WE Charity’s development work. They welcome trip participants’ volunteer contributions, and recognize the value for everyone in the cultural exchange, connections made and opportunity to work together on sustainable development projects.
ME to WE Trips are guided by highly trained and experienced facilitators. They provide participants with leadership training, skill-building workshops and help them develop action plans. When participants return home, they then have the tools to take action on social causes as well as a deeper understanding of sustainability and development issues.