Eugene Celebration and GWoB
Sep. 21st, 2003 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusJust got back from Eugene Celebration. Wow.
Yeah, I'm pretty tired, so pardon me if this rambles wildly a bit. We spent two days talking to people who stopped by our booth. A lot of people dropped by and talked after first laughing at the name and then coming over. The most frequent question was "What the hell is this, a joke?" Many people immediately reacted with "Wow, that's a great idea. That's so cool" once we told them it wasn't.
Many different people have told us that the humor value in the name alone was gonna be a big attention-getter, and I guess they were right. I guess I knew that, but didn't really experience it first-hand until now.
We were sandwiched between the booths of the Unitarian Church, and a group called "Beyond Vermont", which is working with PFLAG to make gay marriages legal beyond the borders of Vermont.
There were a great many other non-profits besides us along the so-called "community causeway". Including a local group that I had no idea existed called Mac Renewal (whose web site is here, which takes specifically Macs of all ages and gets them working, and gives them to people who need computers. They started locally and have recently branched into international donations, recently shipping 150 systems down to Guatemala, where they will be kept alive and useful by a Peace Corps volunteer in the area.
The conversation with the woman running Mac Renewal (and damn me for losing her name already!) really put a lot into perspective, as she is also still learning the whole non-profit administrating thing, after a year and a half as a 501(c)3 corporation, and a year and a half doing this in her spare time before then.
There is a hell of a lot to learn. We both swapped information, and had pointers to other resources of which the other was unaware. I told her of the existence of Gifts in Kind and she told me that she managed to get 150 computers shipped to Guatemala for free thanks to a donated cargo container from the Rotarians. They're also a partner with Free Geek in Portland. She also told us she had a bunch of PC parts and laser printers which we're going to be picking up Wednesday afternoon.
About a dozen or so other people also stopped by our booth and asked "did you know about..." followed by some cool resource that we had no idea existed. I got all sorts of notes on various pieces of paper stacked in front of me now, which I will go through later tonight, or maybe tomorrow. I might just go to sleep instead tonight.
I was amazed at just how many great non-profit organizations exist in Eugene. A lot dedicated to political causes (we spent a lot of time talking to the Lane County Democrats two booths down from us. At one point, as I was walking away from their booth, someone asked how come there were three Democrat booths in the Community Causeway but no Republican booths, so I turned and told them it was because this was the non-profit area out here, the for-profit companies are all in the paid area. Well, I thought it was kinda funny at the time, but I'd been up for two days and was pretty tired out. Actually, that's not really true. I slept for over ten hours last night, I dunno why I'm so tired now. It's not like it was really that much hard work, standing around talking to people all day.
Anyway, one of the people who came over and talked to us for a bit was the founder of a group called Amigos de Los Sobrevivientes who help survivors of torture from Latin America, with therapy, trauma centers, and a safe community. A worthy cause if I've ever heard one, which is why I actually cared about his opinion when he was reticent to think that Geeks Without Borders might be useful. I certainly, under no circumstance, want to do anything to enable anyone who would engage in torture to get away with it more efficiently, nor to support any regime that would do such a thing. He talked to C and her mother for a while in Spanish while I was talking to some other people, and I only caught a few bits and pieces of what was said. I think he went away feeling a little better about us once he understood our mission better, which is good. Not just because I don't want to be thought of badly, but I certainly don't want to end up doing any harm out of my own ignorance!
Torture, I think, thrives in secrecy. It is used to try to intimidate people out of speaking out, communicating, and especially organizing. I think our mission, setting up computers and internet connectivity among people who can't afford it, can actually help fight against this sort of thing. If people are able to speak out, without risk to themselves, and especially if they are able to contact groups like Amigos de Los Sobrevivientes and get help, torture may become less efficient, and harder to get away with, than it might otherwise. That's my hope, at least, and support of human rights, of which torture is one of the most egregious violations, is one of the reasons I helped found Geeks Without Borders.
I cannot express the outrage I feel when my own government engages in such activities, to any degree, although I've tried to do so on many occasions.
You know, when we discuss the links we're putting in our bookmark pages on the systems we send out, we might want to put this group in there. Let people know that there are groups trying to stop torture, and that there is help if they become victims of it.
Anyway, we got a lot of people expressing interest this weekend. We raised a decent amount of money (I was told that this was a pretty dead year for fundraising, but we actually did better than I expected. We now have enough for gas money for our Sonora trip, and part of Chiapas!) A lot of people also said that they had computers, or computer parts they wanted to donate. A couple of dozen signed up to be on our mailing list. Overall, I think this may have been an incredibly successful event. And, if interest is any indication, GWoB may become as big as people keep predicting. It would be great if that were so, and I think we can make a big difference in many many people's lives, both here and abroad.
The future is going to be interesting.
Yeah, I'm pretty tired, so pardon me if this rambles wildly a bit. We spent two days talking to people who stopped by our booth. A lot of people dropped by and talked after first laughing at the name and then coming over. The most frequent question was "What the hell is this, a joke?" Many people immediately reacted with "Wow, that's a great idea. That's so cool" once we told them it wasn't.
Many different people have told us that the humor value in the name alone was gonna be a big attention-getter, and I guess they were right. I guess I knew that, but didn't really experience it first-hand until now.
We were sandwiched between the booths of the Unitarian Church, and a group called "Beyond Vermont", which is working with PFLAG to make gay marriages legal beyond the borders of Vermont.
There were a great many other non-profits besides us along the so-called "community causeway". Including a local group that I had no idea existed called Mac Renewal (whose web site is here, which takes specifically Macs of all ages and gets them working, and gives them to people who need computers. They started locally and have recently branched into international donations, recently shipping 150 systems down to Guatemala, where they will be kept alive and useful by a Peace Corps volunteer in the area.
The conversation with the woman running Mac Renewal (and damn me for losing her name already!) really put a lot into perspective, as she is also still learning the whole non-profit administrating thing, after a year and a half as a 501(c)3 corporation, and a year and a half doing this in her spare time before then.
There is a hell of a lot to learn. We both swapped information, and had pointers to other resources of which the other was unaware. I told her of the existence of Gifts in Kind and she told me that she managed to get 150 computers shipped to Guatemala for free thanks to a donated cargo container from the Rotarians. They're also a partner with Free Geek in Portland. She also told us she had a bunch of PC parts and laser printers which we're going to be picking up Wednesday afternoon.
About a dozen or so other people also stopped by our booth and asked "did you know about..." followed by some cool resource that we had no idea existed. I got all sorts of notes on various pieces of paper stacked in front of me now, which I will go through later tonight, or maybe tomorrow. I might just go to sleep instead tonight.
I was amazed at just how many great non-profit organizations exist in Eugene. A lot dedicated to political causes (we spent a lot of time talking to the Lane County Democrats two booths down from us. At one point, as I was walking away from their booth, someone asked how come there were three Democrat booths in the Community Causeway but no Republican booths, so I turned and told them it was because this was the non-profit area out here, the for-profit companies are all in the paid area. Well, I thought it was kinda funny at the time, but I'd been up for two days and was pretty tired out. Actually, that's not really true. I slept for over ten hours last night, I dunno why I'm so tired now. It's not like it was really that much hard work, standing around talking to people all day.
Anyway, one of the people who came over and talked to us for a bit was the founder of a group called Amigos de Los Sobrevivientes who help survivors of torture from Latin America, with therapy, trauma centers, and a safe community. A worthy cause if I've ever heard one, which is why I actually cared about his opinion when he was reticent to think that Geeks Without Borders might be useful. I certainly, under no circumstance, want to do anything to enable anyone who would engage in torture to get away with it more efficiently, nor to support any regime that would do such a thing. He talked to C and her mother for a while in Spanish while I was talking to some other people, and I only caught a few bits and pieces of what was said. I think he went away feeling a little better about us once he understood our mission better, which is good. Not just because I don't want to be thought of badly, but I certainly don't want to end up doing any harm out of my own ignorance!
Torture, I think, thrives in secrecy. It is used to try to intimidate people out of speaking out, communicating, and especially organizing. I think our mission, setting up computers and internet connectivity among people who can't afford it, can actually help fight against this sort of thing. If people are able to speak out, without risk to themselves, and especially if they are able to contact groups like Amigos de Los Sobrevivientes and get help, torture may become less efficient, and harder to get away with, than it might otherwise. That's my hope, at least, and support of human rights, of which torture is one of the most egregious violations, is one of the reasons I helped found Geeks Without Borders.
I cannot express the outrage I feel when my own government engages in such activities, to any degree, although I've tried to do so on many occasions.
You know, when we discuss the links we're putting in our bookmark pages on the systems we send out, we might want to put this group in there. Let people know that there are groups trying to stop torture, and that there is help if they become victims of it.
Anyway, we got a lot of people expressing interest this weekend. We raised a decent amount of money (I was told that this was a pretty dead year for fundraising, but we actually did better than I expected. We now have enough for gas money for our Sonora trip, and part of Chiapas!) A lot of people also said that they had computers, or computer parts they wanted to donate. A couple of dozen signed up to be on our mailing list. Overall, I think this may have been an incredibly successful event. And, if interest is any indication, GWoB may become as big as people keep predicting. It would be great if that were so, and I think we can make a big difference in many many people's lives, both here and abroad.
The future is going to be interesting.
