My Arms Wide Open welcomes new Board Members: Madelaine Hatch and Richard Filley

Vancouver, BC, April 26, 2012 - My Arms Wide Open Annual Board of Directors Meeting

My Arms Wide Open is pleased to announce two new additions to the Board of Directors bringing the board to a total of 8 directors and increasing our external independent Directors to five, including our two South African Directors, Nyameka Goniwe and Rika Featherstonehaugh.

"I am excited to have two professionals, who have already made contributions to My Arms Wide Open join the team and serve on the board. It has been important to us from the start to increase external representation on the board. With the addition of Madelaine Hatch and Richard Filley we are making progress, bringing the appropriate representation to the board. Our next steps will be to increase the level of participation from within the regions we serve", said Warren Te Brugge, Founder and Chair of the Board.

Madelaine Hatch

Madelaine is an expert in the field of public relations and marketing communications. The principal and owner of Granville Communications, she has over 35 years of diverse business experience with private, public and non-profit organizations. Madelaine brings a calm, pragmatic but creative focus to helping organizations tell their story. Blessed with a contagious enthusiasm, she is well known for inspiring and galvanizing teams to create dynamic marketing and public relations campaigns.

Madelaine has designed and executed local, national and international media relations campaigns that have resulted in front page coverage in national newspapers, high profile articles in daily newspapers, and interviews on leading radio and TV programs. She has provided project management for the development of award-winning collateral materials, videos and ad campaigns.

Prior to her work in communications, Madelaine was a director and business development officer for International Rail Consultants, a joint venture between BC Railway and Sandwell, formed to provide railway transportation consulting services to industries, international funding agencies and governments worldwide. Her professional career has taken her to such culturally diverse countries as Iran and Australia.

Madelaine has a passion for both the non-profit and social enterprise worlds and has a strong commitment to directing her skills and energy towards making a contribution to her community, both local and global. A passionate traveller who loves adventure, Madelaine’s favourite life experiences include skydiving with her son, hiking the rugged West Coast Trail and living in Australia for a year. She brings this same spirit to her work with clients – always looking for new and better ways of achieving results through communications.

Richard D. Filley

Richard D. Filley is the director of the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) Program at Arizona State University. Prior to this he served as the director of the ASU Corporate Leaders Program, which he founded in 1986. Filley joined ASU in 1985, and before that, served as an international magazine editor where he authored over 50 magazine articles. Early in his career he worked as an industrial engineer in the aerospace industry for Boeing, Garrett AiResearch and Sperry Flight Systems.

In 2002 he spent six months on sabbatical at RMIT University with his family in Melbourne, Australia. Filley travels overseas frequently, and has spoken in 22 countries. His volunteer and community service activities include terms as president of the Marc Center (Mesa, Arizona), the ASU University Club, and the Rio Salado Rowing Club (which he co-­‐founded in 1991). He is a member of Valley Leadership Class X, and served several terms on the national board of directors of the American Association of University Administrators.

The successes of two high tech student community service programs he founded have been recognized: In 2002 with an award (presented to him by Nobel Peace Prize Laureaute F.W. de Klerk) from the United Way International at their annual conference, held in Cape Town, South Africa. Also, in 1996, when Dick was selected as a “community hero” by the Valley of the Sun United Way and given the chance to carry the Olympic torch as it passed through the Valley headed for Atlanta.

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The My Arms Wide Open™ Charitable Foundation, was established to provide support and collaboration with mothers, children, and youth in South Africa, enabling them to build sustainable communities and responsible businesses. With stronger families, communities emerge as a solid foundation for society. In the process they re-engage fathers to repair the family unit. In our definition, mothers include women who are caring for children and include child-led households, working within the pre-teen and teen groups. Fathers include the fathers, young males and adult males within the community.

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Media contact:

Kim Te Brugge

480.656.7988 (PST)

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Vancouver Observer: Overcoming poverty, one brick at a time

Vancouver, BC, February 24, 2012 - Vancouver Observer features editorial on My Arms Wide Open, My Family My Community, Community Capacity Building Program.

"Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

Nelson Mandela

Being There

Place yourself in the little community of Bergnek, Limpopo in South Africa. Create a picture in your mind as I describe your new circumstance. Feel it. You are 6 years old. There are 3,500 people in this community who arrived here in 1997 after being evicted from farms under the Land Reform Act. You are now out in the dry bush 40 kilometres from the nearest major city, Polokwane. There is a hospital to the North just 45 kilometres away or another 40 kilometres to the south. Try going to the hospital, chances are you’ll get sent to the other one. Children die here. Water has been a real challenge for the past two years with the community getting a sparse water 'supply' once a week and sometimes only once a month. To add to that most of the people in Bergnek are unemployed and the community is short of about 350 houses. Meals consist of 1 meal a day, 2 if you happen to be really lucky.

The water supply has been solved to a certain extent, since we installed a new pump and reactivated an old well, but must still be carried from water points. Now the community is looking to take control of their lives and create economic activity to create reliable and healthy food sources, create jobs and somehow build houses. There have been some houses promised and about 100 have been built. The community is still short of over 250. 

What to do?

During October 2011 My Arms Wide Open facilitated it's Iziko Labahlali program in the community with about 25 people in attendance.

Through discussions with the community, its headman and council we learned that the community actually has a significant clay resource on their property that is suitable for brick making. The clay is replenished each year through perennial rains flooding the river and bringing silt from the high country. As we all talked and drilled down into needs we as a group started to realize we could solve a number of problems by simply making bricks.

The idea to create a brick making facility to support building homes in the community as well as surrounding communities is significant, Why? Well the establishment of a brick-making facility will address a number of items identified by the community as real needs during our ongoing discussions and programs:

• The need for a reliable water source (Completed Feb 2011);
• Development of sustainable business activities within and in the surrounding communities;
• The need for sustainable and affordable food sources. Particularly fresh fruit and vegetables (Underway with our My World In a Garden Vertical Food Garden program);
• The need for a local health care centre that can provide for the needs of children, expectant mothers and mothers in Bergnek itself as well as surrounding communities;
• The need for suitable and affordable housing. The community needs a total of about 350 family homes;
• Support for the local school;
• Support for girls to be able to stay in school through the supply of reusable menstrual products.
• With the well being reactivated the community has the water they desperately needed and enough to support brick making. As we noted above we have one of the needed ingredients, clay from a natural source. As for space, the community has officially set aside land for the brick making business.

What will making bricks provide? 

The making of these bricks will provide much needed employment. From the income the business will also produce bricks to build the houses the community needs at a significantly lower cost than what has been proposed by the regional government for the houses to be built. The community could build over 200 for the same budget the regional government has for 100. Not only that, but the houses will be built using clay bricks which provide better insulation and weather resistance addressing a number of sustainability challenges with the current houses. The income from “One Brick at a Time” will also go to support building more Vertical Good Gardens and build the space for a permanent clinic.

What's Next?

A full business plan for the business has been prepared and the team has been in discussions with builders and building supply companies in the region. We have commitments to purchase up to 1 million bricks a month from the business. What is needed are the funds to set the business up and get it running. The budget calls for $250,000 to purchase equipment and raw materials and will employ 10-15 people full time and another 10 on a part time basis. This does not include the employment that will be created by the building of the Vertical Food Gardens, house building and building a clinic. The kilns we will use have been developed and proven in India and are vertical kilns that are environmentally friendly.

Get Involved 

- Provide expertize

- Make a donation

- Get to South Africa - Join us on the next trip and help build the project from the ground up 

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The My Arms Wide Open™ Charitable Foundation, was established to provide support and collaboration with mothers, children, and youth in South Africa, enabling them to build sustainable communities and responsible businesses. With stronger families, communities emerge as a solid foundation for society. In the process they re-engage fathers to repair the family unit. In our definition, mothers include women who are caring for children and include child-led households, working within the pre-teen and teen groups. Fathers include the fathers, young males and adult males within the community.

Manzimvula® is a values-based as a consulting practice and a Certified B Corporation, and specializes in sustainability and corporate responsibility. To stimulate ingenuity and create growth, we work alongside our clients, guiding them through our Purposeful Path to Sustainability Program™ utilizing our Integrative Strategy Approach™ to help them engage their organization at a deeper level to understand mindset and create alignment with core strategies and principles.

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Media contact:

Madelaine Hatch

604.986.0185 (PST)

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Vancouver Observer: Supporting South Africa and Vancouver with Food Wall Gardens

Vancouver, BC, January 28, 2012 - Vancouver Observer features editorial on My Arms Wide Open, My World In a Garden, vertical food garden program.

Two of the bigger challenges for families and girls living in rural areas of South Africa’s Limpopo, Northern and Eastern Cape provinces, are food security and basic menstrual supplies for girls and young women.

Food Security

Food security is a challenge the world over in both developing and developed countries. The challenge is not that we cannot provide food. “We” can provide instant gratification, but this is a short term and band-aid solution. The challenge is being able to provide sustainable food sources. The solution is to transfer skills and to develop sustainable locally based food sources. This is the intent and underlying objective of the My Arms Wide Open, My World My Garden Cause through the establishment and management of My World In A Garden® vertical food walls.

Our Goal

Our goal is to construct 15 Vertical Food Wall Systems in communities by the end of 2015 with a number of them ‘sistered’ in cities and towns in the US, Canada and South Africa.

In the initial project My Arms Wide Open is proposing to build two identical live walls as food walls that will use both vegetable and fruit plants in place of the regular plants used in the original design. One will be located in the Town of Cradock, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

The other, a mirror of the Cradock live food wall will be located in the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at the Ray-Cam Community Centre. The Vancouver living vertical garden, like its sister wall in South Africa, will bring focus to community, food security and family.

During the spring and summer growing seasons, the garden will generate multiple harvests as well as a limited number of harvests in the autumn and winter seasons. The fresh vegetables harvested will support both Ray-Cam’s ongoing food program and in South Africa they food will support a children’s HIV/Aids hospice and a local daycare centre. A portion of each harvest during the growing season will be bottled or frozen to augment fall and winter food requirements.

During the fall and winter, the garden’s bottles not being used for vegetables and fruits will be replaced with suitable plants to maintain the wall during the off-season and allow for preparation of new vegetable seedlings for the spring. In addition to the fruit plants grown in the bottles, we intend to plant several fruit trees around the wall to support the surrounding community’s need for fresh fruit.

The fundamental emphasis, however, is on the educational opportunities that the garden and its supporting activities offer for the children and youth of both the Vancouver Downtown Eastside and Cradock, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

The project will create collaboration and a sense of ownership across the community – ownership by the children who will work in the garden; their families, as a result of their own children’s involvement; and other families in the community who will benefit from the garden’s harvests. The intention is for this project to inspire other children and youth within the community to take similar steps and spawn additional Vertical Food Wall Systems across the community. For more information on this project please visit the My Arms Wide Open site and read the blog postings.

Education Equity: creating a level playing field for girls in Africa

In struggling and disadvantaged communities across the globe, youth face a number of significant challenges. Simply being able to find gainful employment is but one of those as they struggle to differentiate themselves to find and land jobs. The young girls and women in these communities face a number of additional challenges that put them at an even greater disadvantage.

The first, in a number of cases, is ridicule and bullying as a result of having their period start at an inopportune moment while at school and they are unprepared. This can and has resulted in girls not returning to school after the experience, an experience that should be about celebrating the fact that they are becoming young women, not feeling embarrassed and having their self-esteem severely damaged. They are not just caught off guard; their circumstance is such that they just cannot afford basic menstrual products to support themselves. In a significant number of cases their families can't even afford to provide more than one meal a day and for some a meal only every two days. The result of this is that these young girls and women then end up staying home for the duration of their period, missing a significant amount of school. They underachieve and cannot perform to the real level of their abilities because they just can't be in school for a week each month.

At My Arms Wide Open, we work alongside community to identify and develop opportunities that give mothers, youth and children the power to choose how they can support and build communities. In the process we partner with organizations like Lunapads and their Pads4Girls program to improve the circumstance of young woman so that they have the opportunity to be all they can be and to thrive.

Our goal

To support 1,500 girls and young women in the communities of Bergnek, Limpopo and Cradock, Eastern Cape in South Africa to stay in School.

Give Girls the POWER to Choose and help level the playing field. To support the Pads4Girls program in Bergnek and Cradock in South Africa, please visit our site to make a donation. To read more on this story please visit the My Arms Wide Open Foundation Blog.

Visit the My Arms Wide Open site to get involved and support the communities in the Vancouver DTES, Cradock, Eastern Cape and Bergnek, Limpopo.

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Manzimvula® is a values-based as a consulting practice and a Certified B Corporation, and specializes in sustainability and corporate responsibility. To stimulate ingenuity and create growth, we work alongside our clients, guiding them through our Purposeful Path to Sustainability Program™ utilizing our Integrative Strategy Approach™ to help them engage their organization at a deeper level to understand mindset and create alignment with core strategies and principles.

The My Arms Wide Open™ Charitable Foundation, was established to provide support and collaboration with mothers, children, and youth in South Africa, enabling them to build sustainable communities and responsible businesses. With stronger families, communities emerge as a solid foundation for society. In the process they re-engage fathers to repair the family unit. In our definition, mothers include women who are caring for children and include child-led households, working within the pre-teen and teen groups. Fathers include the fathers, young males and adult males within the community.

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Media contact:

Madelaine Hatch

604.986.0185 (PST)

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

My Arms Wide Open® and youchange partner to create change

Under the program residents of the United States can submit a list of their used and obsolete electronic equipment to youchange for recycling and proper disposal. In return youchange will assess a value for the items being submitted and make a donation equivalent to that value to My Arms Wide Open foundation to support our Vertical Food Walls Systems and Pads4Girls partnership programs currently running through Global Giving Foundation.

Stephen Adelam

President, CSR Inititiatves, Manzimvula Ventures, Inc.

805.646.2600 (PST)

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