Earlier this year, the NewsHour featured a remarkable non-profit called the Peter C. Alderman Foundation. Its mission is to provide psychiatric treatment to victims of terrorism, war and genocide.
I hadn't thought to consider the mental needs of conflict victims in addition to their immediate physical safety until I read this book: "A Long Way Gone," by Ishmael Beah. It is the memoir of a young man from Sierra Leone who now lives in the United States. Ishmael was kidnapped by the government army at age twelve and made a child soldier. In the book, you read about him being forced to kill until killing became normal and he could laugh at his victims. Ishmael was eventually removed from the conflict and rehabilitated by UNICEF, re-learning how to interact with other people without violence.
If you believe, as Ishmael does, that all humans are "capable of true evil and equally capable of regaining our humanity," then you understand the urgency of psychological healing.
The Alderman Foundation is associated with the Harvard Program for Refugee Trauma, but what I like most about it is that, instead of sending American physicians abroad, it gives trauma rehabilitation training to local psychiatrists. Counselors practice in their own home countries, sometimes in clinics funded by the foundation.
Being an economics major, I'm impressed with efficiency above all else, and I understand that using native counselors gives the foundation the best bang for it's buck, as one of the founders likes to say. Besides having lower fees and travel costs than Americans would, native psychiatrists minister with an understanding of the country's history and culture that an outsider can't replicate.
You can read the transcript from the NewsHour feature here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/july-dec07/alderman_09-11.html
I plan on giving a small percentage of my income to the Alderman Foundation, but most of my contribution will be from the second cool thing I'm writing about: Google Self-Powered Commuting (SPC) dollars. I live ten minutes away from the Ann Arbor office, and every day that I walk (or bike) to work, my company donates $5 to the charity of my choice. There's no cap on donations, and we track donations by logging in clicking a button (honor system).
It's great Google gives me the chance to support a charity, but the way I see it, I'm saving Google money too. The office pays for our parking in a public garage, so each day I don't drive represents money that Google doesn't have to spend there. Furthermore, this garage in downtown Ann Arbor gets nearly full every morning, and if many Googlers walk or bike to work, Google A2 won't have to find more parking space, and our resources can be better spent elsewhere.
From the cold room in the Big Yellow House in the lovely town,
Your friend Renee
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
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