(By Conrad Chavez) I visited India as part of the first SalaamGarage team, which visited Vatsalya in 2007. I was impressed to discover that Vatsalya does not merely rescue street orphans, but is a caring community that transforms them into educated, productive persons with job skills. On our pilot trip, each of us was encouraged to interact with the community in a way consistent with our skills and abilities. I photographed the children, their classrooms and activities, and the work of the dedicated staff. Back home, our trip team mounted photo exhibits about our visit to raise awareness of the work of Vatsalya, and to help jump-start more SalaamGarage trips.

Current SalaamGarage teams commit to developing more specific projects with the organizations they visit, and I also felt I could do more than just show pictures. So I kept my eye open for a future opportunity to help Vatsalya. In 2011 Vatsalya announced a project to fund the building of a new, expanded school. I thought that the new school’s fundraising campaign could benefit greatly from having a visible, accessible presence like we often see in US fundraising projects.

The Facebook page created for Vatsalya by Caroline Poiner pointed the way, reminding me that we can use our experience with cutting-edge social media to support the goals of organizations in developing countries who may not yet be aware of the latest online opportunities. I proposed creating a web page specifically to promote the new school and that would also provide a way to donate in just a few clicks, which is how so many of us in developed countries now prefer to shop, pay bills, and donate to charity. I hoped that Vatsalya could direct potential donors all over the world to such a page, and that it would have an easy “Donate” button on it. Vatsalya director Jaimala Gupta connected me with the US fundraising organization Edge of Seven, which guided me to the online service they use for instant Web donations (crowdrise.com). I then created a fundraising page (bit.ly/vNewSchool), telling the story of the new school project in text and photographs.

Why did I choose this particular project? I saw an opportunity to fill a need, and realized that a relatively small investment of my time could bring significant benefits to the new school project. I am happy with the results: Vatsalya is able to to raise worldwide awareness of the project by frequently linking to the page from sites such as Facebook, and four weeks after the launch of the donation page, online donors have contributed over $2200 with several more weeks of fundraising still to go. Please consider donating to this important project; visit crowdrise.com/VatsalyaNewSchool or bit.ly/vNewSchool.

To see my photo essay of Vatsalya Udayan from the 2007 trip, please visit conradchavez.com/udayan.

Come back with us to Vatsalya this fall! SalaamGarage is returning to India, and Vatsalya: click here for more info.

Lisa Field-Elliot is a photographer and writer who seeks travel, beauty, and connection. Anytime. Anywhere. She shares her experiences in words and images at doorwaystraveler.com, with the hopes of inspiring you to look for the next doorway to greater freedom in your own life.

doorwaystraveler.com | twitter @doorwaystravelr

Amanda Koster

During the cleanliness and hygiene drive, a Vatsalya water truck delivers water to the children of the Samvedna slum for bathing, one or two times a week. It was exhilarating to be around the children as they splashed around in the water. Their joy was infectious and I didn’t mind at all when my camera lens also got a bath. As you can see, this was a pretty good day.

India 2009: Amanda Koster – Images by Amanda Koster

Jesse Powell: India has more inspiring stories than could ever be told. Despire all the trouble, the hardship, the poverty, the Indian people seem eternally optimistic. Their optimism is not without good cause, thanks to organizations like Vatsalya, and the unwaveringly devoted, often self-sacrificing people who’ve committed themselves to the greater good. More than anything else, it was the stories of these crusaders that I found most intriguing. We’re not talking about people with nothing better to do. These are MDs, PhDs, – people with everything in the world going for them, who chose to give up lucrative careers in order to devote more time to humanitarian causes. The guts, the vision, the long-term societal interest put before one’s own – it pulls at the heartstrings. What are these men and women made of, and how can we make more of them? They’re setting an example that will be challenging, yet compelling to meet. I think all of us on the SalaamGarage team were blown away. With friends like these, who needs angels?

India 2009: Jesse Powell

Jesse Powell is the co-founder and CEO of Lewt, Inc. and the found of Verge gallery & Studio Project. His primary interests are philosophy, law, education, and psychology. He says, “Ultimately, I’d like to do something big to help improve education around the world, (including public education in the U.S.) My feeling is that poor education really is at the root of a number of the world’s other major problems. If we can get education sorted out, these other problems will solve themselves.”

This is a great week. Blurb and SalaamGarage began an official partnership. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Blurb, the company has revolutionized the way people can self-publish books of their work be it photographs, illustrations, words, etc.

Let me back up. Our India09 travelers self published a book “India as witnessed by 10 citizen journalists” using Blurb.  They rounded up photos and some very powerful personal stories, got it together and published a book!  Proceeds from the book will support the work of Vatsalya, the SalaamGarage NGO partner in India.

From there, we realized Blurb would make a great partner. Our participants always produce amazing content, and the content is ultimately for the greater good: inspiring stories of social entrepreneurs around the world. Each story is more compelling than the next.

What company doesn’t want to be associated with powerful content and inspiring stories? None.

So, through a few contacts and a Facebook call-out borne was an e-intro between myself and Blurb. From there, Blurb and I talked about what made sense for both of our organizations and a partnership was born.  And this is a really sweet relationship, here is the gist of it:

All SalaamGarage travelers will receive a coupon for a free book of their own content created on their SalaamGarage trip. The coupon is roughly the cost of a standard landscape hardcover book with up to 120 pages. In addition, Blurb will provide another coupon code for 20% off future books. Each participant can use the coupon up to five times!

In addition, for each trip, Blurb will sponsor and contract a Blurb+SalaamGarage specific designer for the creation of a book, combining all participants work. The book will be available through the Blurb bookstore and all proceeds go to the non-profit.

And if that doesn’t excite you enough, Blurb will feature the SalaamGarage project books in their bookstore, and will feature books created by the individual journalists!

And the cherry on top, Blurb will also feature any SalaamGarage book projects on their Facebook and Twitter feeds, and take copies of the books with us when we attend events where it’s appropriate. (They said their CEO was at a TED conference in February, and definitely would have taken one if they’d had it!)

And last, Blurb will also feature the project books and interviews with myself and people who attended the SalaamGarage trips on their blog:http://blog.blurb.com/.

This is awesome to say the least and we are all very excited and grateful.  All of this is included when you travel with SalaamGarage. Seriously, now is the time to jump on. Trips are filling, more partnerships are on the horizon and more press is underway. Shabam.

This new partnership begins with our upcoming Guatemala trip, and we have 2 spots left. Want to get published, work with amazing photographers, have your work featured in the Blurb worldwide ecosystem? I’ve been working as a photographer for 15 years and never found an opportunity like this when building my career and self: rare access to social entrepreneurship, innovative, native projects, amazing fellow travelers, solid mentorship on how to let your work out here, and now, guaranteed way to be published and publicized.

2 spots left for Guatemala, and Ethiopia trip now booking. Are you ready to take the leap and truly make a difference? Join us.

Cheers, Amanda

Buy the BOOK and help Vatsalya:

Here are a few flip videos I recorded at Udayan home for children and Anoothi shop run by Vatsalya.org

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqzWtrQAX8o

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXurHUX9dVc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_he_9_E6iRg