One by One

Amway is in so many communities, that it’s hard to keep track of all of our activities for children, particularly among Amway Independent Business Owners.

After learning that I would be heading to Boston next week to participate in the Boston College International Corporate Citizenship Conference, I decided to see what Amway people were doing there.

The best story I found came from Amway IBO and Claudia Nardone. She has been a longtime supporter of Easter Seals, an organization that helps people with disabilities to achieve their potential. Her network of Amway IBOs has raised approximately $3 million for Easter Seals over the years.

A couple of years ago, Claudia heard a speech by Easter Seals president Jim Williams that included the fact that $1 in preventative care can save $7 in later services. It made her think of the old proverb: “A stitch in time saves nine.”

Claudia used this spark of an idea to create a Stitch in Time campaign that collected people’s change using specially designed buckets.  The initiative raised more than $100,000 in its first year alone.

Among the programs Claudia supports is Easter Seals Explorers Camp – a camp specifically geared to meet the needs of those on the autism spectrum or with other developmental disabilities.

Explorers Camp is an incredible place, with a high ratio of staff to campers, engaging the services and enthusiasm of a large crew of high school and college-age volunteers. Many of the staff and volunteers are also people with disabilities themselves including some who have autism.

I’m sure there are many other stories in Boston, some of which we will never learn about. It’s good to know that in any part of the world, anywhere Amway does business, there are Amway people finding unique and compelling ways to help children, one by one.

Thanks to Marsha Champion for sharing this story.

Monday couldn’t have been a more beautiful day in New York, where a team of Amway employees attended the annual gala for Figure Skating in Harlem (FSH).

The name of the event is called Skating with the Stars, and there were many in attendance. Rhonda Ross, Harry Smith, Vera Wang, Carson Kressley and many Olympic and world class skaters attended.

But the true stars of the night were young ladies recognized for their scholarship and athleticism. Five senior members of the program were honored and recognized for their high achievements. All of them will be attending college later this year. 

FSH was founded in 1997 by Sharon Cohen, who still serves as the Executive Director. An Olympian skater herself, Sharon wanted to extend the art of figure skating to girls in New York’s underserved communities because she knew how it could transform their lives. The vision of FSH is to empower every young girl with the foundational academic, social and leadership skills she needs to achieve her dreams. Each will be a powerful speaker, an effective leader, live a healthy lifestyle and be a global citizen. Any of the FHS participants will tell you that skating is just a vehicle. The true impact on their lives is the academic achievement, leadership development and emphasis on personal responsibility.

In the heart of New York City, bright stars shine – tonight and forever.

Thanks to Angela Nelson for sharing this story.

Amway Independent Business Owner Wil Loewer has been a motorcyclist for most of his life.

“When we got married, he threw me on the back of a motorcycle and said, ‘Let’s go!’” laughs his wife and fellow IBO, Suzanne Loewer.

The Loewers channeled their passion for motorcycling into the Louisiana Ride for Kids, a motorcycling event held in support of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

Last year, 150 people hopped onto motorcycles and into sidecars to enjoy an hour-long ride through scenic central Louisiana. The official stars of the event – four children diagnosed with cancer – were given VIP treatment for the ride. The ride raised nearly $23,000.

“These kids’ lives change after a brain tumor diagnosis,” says Will. “When they ride, they get to forget all that and just have fun. Their smiles make everything worthwhile.”

Read more here at Amway.net. Thanks to Marsha Champion for sharing this story.

In 2012, Amway Hong Kong collaborated with The Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association of Hong Kong to create a positive learning experience for children diagnosed with dyslexia through games and a multi-sensory learning approach.

The program was brought to a successful close in March, when all participants came together for a Talent Show. The event included a series of occupational therapy, parent-child support groups, multi-sensory learning and art training to help children overcome learning difficulties.

With the support from Amway Learning Ambassadors, more than 1,100 volunteer hours were generated and nearly 3,400 children and family participants benefited from the program.

Guests of honor, Amway Learning Ambassadors, children and their families show their support at the talent show.

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Children demonstrated their talents by confidently performing a shadow puppet show for the closing ceremonies.

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Children learn English through a multi-sensory learning approach.

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Thanks to Yvonne So for sharing this story.

Amway distributors from Australia and New Zealand shared their celebration with the local community at the annual Achievers incentive trip in Thailand last month. In addition to donating sports equipment, distributor leaders donated their time to help renovate a local school in Phuket. They volunteered more than 1,000 hours painting dormitories, restoring the sports field and building a new welcome garden.

As Michial Coldwell, General Manager of Amway Australia & New Zealand shared, “Hundreds of Amway distributors from across Australia & New Zealand have qualified and worked really hard to come to Phuket on a great business trip, yet they are here in a school in Phuket giving up their time in order to help paint and renovate this school which was affected by the tsunami. This is all about unifying people across cultures to accomplish one common goal: helping children.”

Click here to see the full photo album. Thanks to Antonia Krunes for sharing this story, and congratulations to all of our Achievers!

One of the most longstanding fundraising approaches for international children’s causes is proving itself amid scrutiny from university researchers.

A team of economics professors and a graduate student from three universities published a study that demonstrates the positive effect of “child sponsorships” on education, careers and community leadership.

Child sponsorships typically involved donors getting matched up by a charitable organization with a child in poverty from a developing country. Donors send monthly payments to cover the basic needs of their sponsored child, and in many cases have the opportunity to exchange letters with the child.

The researchers surveyed 10,144 individuals in Bolivia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, the Philippines and Uganda, working with Compassion International, a leading child sponsorship organization.

The authors report, “We find that sponsorship results in 2.4 additional years of formal education, and large and statistically significant impacts on employment, occupational choice, age at marriage, age at child-bearing, dwelling quality, and community leadership. We also find evidence of positive spillover effects for many of these outcomes onto younger siblings and other village residents of the same age.”

Many Amway distributors and employees have been longtime advocates of child sponsorship organizations like World Vision, Child Fund and Compassion International.

This study shows what most of us know intuitively – that it pays off to help, even if it’s just one child at a time.

All over the world, children dream of becoming doctors, lawyers, pilots and government leaders. The children of Johannesburg, have these aspirations too, but they also have many obstacles along the way.
One of the chief obstacles is a basic one: they have no desks or tables at school or in their homes where they can do their studies. This means many students do their writing on hard, uneven, and often dirty floors.

Amway leaders in Europe and South Africa recognized this need and are responding in partnership with the Tutudesk Campaign. Named after Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, the project aims to help 20 million South African and African children by providing portable school desks by 2015.

Tutudesks provide a stable work surface for impoverished schools which have little or no permanent facilities. The hand-held desks display mathematics signs and can be carried to the next classroom or at home for homework. Teachers report a 69% improvement in handwriting skills and 77% reported improved levels of concentration and motivation among students with Tutudesks.

From Scandinavia to South Africa and from Portugal to Russia, Amway, its distributors and employees have been raising funds to support this simple but impactful idea. The first 3,500 Tutudesks were presented in the townships of Orange Farm, Tembisa, Daveyton and Mamelodi in March, and another delivery is expected in April.

Thanks to Karin Schmid for sharing this story.

Over the past ten years, we’ve learned how a child’s future can change if you just provide a little help.

Yesterday, Amway leaders in the United States took the next step to empowering our youth, by giving them the opportunity, and the inspiration to make a difference themselves.

It’s called We Day, and you can’t buy a ticket for it. Teens can only earn admission to this amazing event by mobilizing civic change in their local communities, and through global projects.

Amway helped to bring We Day to the United States for the first time, in partnership with Free the Children, an organization started by the actions of a twelve-year-old boy from Canada who, now an adult, champions this initiative with celebrities, companies, and most importantly, our youth.

Amway Independent Business Owners and their children attended the event yesterday, which was an overwhelming inspiration that is sure to drive more action, and more positive change, at home and around the world.

Amway also used this opportunity to issue its own challenge to youth in the US to share their own projects with us for a chance to win some great prizes, including a trip to the next We Day.

Innovation is happening in South Korea, but it may not be what you expect.

Young children are coming together from some of the most remote parts of the country: fishing villages, mountain towns and island communities. And it’s all under the banner of creative thinking, problem solving and partnership.

Amway Korea and partners from the university, government and nonprofit sector kicked off the Thinking Green Frogs program in 2012, and are just starting to see the return on their investment.

Last month, 40 students from four elementary schools in remote areas came together to kick off a Science Expedition, which will last two years focus on creative solutions to improve and protect the environment. Students will participate in creative festivals and travel overseas to enhance their cultural awareness and explore new ideas. These ideas will be turned into local activation projects in their hometowns.

The science expedition is supported with funds raised from Amway Business Owners across Korea. Currently, the program includes five distant regions of the country, with hopes to expand to ten regions by 2014.

“I think the most powerful weapon for the future is creativity,” said Amway Korea CEO Park Se-joon at the opening ceremonies. “Thinking Green Frogs is fully supported by Amway Business Owners because it matches well with our approach to entrepreneurship and making new possibilities based on passion and challenge.”

Creative projects identified so far include a study on the construction of a new airport and land reclamation, a study of the ecosystem of Imjado, research on plants in Ulleungdo, and measuring water quality and pollution levels of the Hwangji Stream.

More to come as we follow these students throughout the year!

Thanks to Yong-Bom Lee and Sang-Doo Kim for sharing this story.

For parents of a child with a terminal illness or long-term special needs, life takes on a whole new set of prorities. It also can mean a tangled web of doctor visits, medicines, insurance companies and expenses – all of which  overwhem parents who just want the best for thier child.

Twelve years ago, two parents in Slovenia struggled through a terminal illness with their child, and emerged with a determination to help other families like themselves. They created the Foundation to Help Children (Ustanova Fundacija za Pomoc Otrokom Foundation), which provides financial support for medical treatment, as well as mentoring, financial counseling and even legal advice for families who have a child with a terminal illness or extreme special needs.

Amway and its employees and business owners in Slovenia have embraced the Foundation, and each year raise more than US$10,000 for the cause. They also use their voices to advocate for more support and more awareness for struggling families.

At a beautiful event at the Slovenia National Gallery this month, Amway Slovenia General Manager Hedi Kovacs Resnik took the stage with the President of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, to invite other partners to support the Foundation.

The leaders encouraged the attendees to purchase beautiful art pieces and Swaroski crystals to raise funds for the cause, and Amway Slovenia became the proud owner of a colorful painting appropriately titled, The Energy of Love.

 Thanks to Sarah Wellner for sharing this story.