GMin - Global Minimum

Pictures from a completed project

2006-10-19T08:43:00.000-04:00

These are pictures taken from a donation we did this summer to the school called Livingway Preparatory School. The kids are mainly orphans and we bought the stationery and furniture with a small sum of $400.

New website

2006-10-05T16:19:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone

So it's been a while since our last update. So what have we been doing?

Well, we've been busy on a completely new website, be sure to check it out at GMin.org..

More content will be added in the following weeks.

A little start

2006-08-16T09:14:00.000-04:00

"-it is high time we did the talk" - yes, it is passed time. GMin-Sierra Leone has completed its first project in a private school in the outskirts of the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown. A group of students in Red Cross Nordic UWC helped fundraise the sum of NOK 2,500 (an equivalence of about $400) which I took with me to Freetown. This summer, I made 5 ply-wood blackboards, chairs and tables for 22 kids, 5 sets of chairs and tables for teachers, a book for all 55 kids, two pencils for each of the kids, a box of sharpeners, 5 boxes of chalk, 5 dusters, 80 black ball point pens, a box of erasers and most especially an inspirational talk to the young untapped future leaders between the ages of 3 and 11.

Well, the above enumeration was not limitless but it was well appreciated and timely donated to a group of kids who used a building and furniture that belongs to a church. The above amount of money can be seem as small, but how often do we do something as concrete as that? Could we say GMin helped inspire the above gesture? Yes. Should we say we could do more with GMin? Yes.

The underlining principles behind GMin and the above project is that nothing is ever small to make a change and the solutions to peoples' problems come in different packets. Maybe we should note that NOK 2,500 in Norway is just about enough to buy 2 pairs of jeans. Stop and Think GMin.

Growing...

2006-08-06T09:21:00.000-04:00

GMin - or should we for once use the full name "Global Minimum" - has been visible for the public eye in about a month now, and we're already seeing growth. At this moment there are 2 branches under the GMin organization and 2 more are on their way:

Sierra Leone - The goal is to provide footballs to all kids attending primary school. The project is currently being facilitated in co-operation with Unicef Freetown.
Danish refugies - Still under development. The goal is to help refugiees from e.g. Iraq who have been denied residens permit by the Danish government. Among the allmost 1300 refugiees, 350 are children - of which most of them have lived longer in Denmark than in their country of origin (Iraq, Palestine, ...). The goal is to provide the childrens with footballs, football gear and offer training at least once every second week.
Denmark - A database is under development. The goal is to create web bases database, that will enable good ideas to be shared between different sources, in order to promote co-operation in the youth sector.
Honduras - The making of a campaign movie. Heavily inspired by the infamous "Sunscreen" movie (check it out by clicking here). The movie will focus on the bad situation in Honduras, and is meant to make the people in Honduras realize that something can be done about it.

This makes 4 branches in the first month of existence - that's pretty amazing. Maybe the slogan should be growing fast towards the better for tomorrow?

If you would like to help out in one of our branches or start one yourself, please drop me a line at mortenkh@gmail.com. Thanks!

Realizing the Issue

2006-07-30T03:18:00.000-04:00

Honduras. A lovely country. Central America. The country has taken my heart with storm. Its completely amazing, and every person who haven’t gone yet, should pack his/hers bags right away and go.
Despite the beautiful nature, the friendly people and the historical ancient monuments, Honduras is among the poorest countries in Central America.
According to the International Monetary Fund, and The World Bank, Honduras has a GDP (PPP) pr capita on less than 300 dollars. This puts Honduras nr 126 in the world, and the second poorest in the entire Americas.
The political situation doesn’t look good either. The corruption is 2,6 on the international corruption index, from 0-10, where 10 means absolutely no corruption; further more a high unemployment and a high crime rate is pulling the country in the wrong direction.

But more important; people seem have lost faith in the fact, that there can be done something. A new government recently won the election, and since the government took over, the crime rate has only raised, while the employment rate has gone down.
People don’t believe in democracy. People don’t know about democracy.

Even though Honduras is a world away from Sierra Leone, and other developing countries on the African continent, they are still suffering from poverty, starvation and insecurity. But the solutions in each case are different. Here in Honduras most people go to school, unfortunately they just don’t learn anything, since the teachers aren’t either smart, or interested in teaching.

The country is “lucky” in the sense that it haven’t suffered from civil war or war with occupational powers, neither is their big internal struggles when it comes to religion or cultural identity. Furthermore the country is extremely fertile, where the seed of a flower is planted, a tree will spire. It’s amazing. The key issue lays in the people understandable lack of faith in democracy and the government. As a Honduran explained to me the other day, while talking about the subject “Poverty breeds poverty, if people are poor they don’t think they can ever become rich, so they don’t see any reason even trying”
It’s a long-term process, but we have to stress the importance of good solid education to all people. Democracy can’t work if people aren’t educated to live with it, and that needs to be done. And only through solid education, and hard work we can give people their faith back.

After having learned all this from my experiences in Honduras, I even more begin to understand the importance of GMin. All around the World there are countries in poor conditions, with high crime, bad education, big unemployment, much corruption etc.
But each country has to be worked with in its own way.
First of all due to cultural differences, second because different countries have different reason for being the situations they are in.

"The Faces of Poverty..."

With GMin we can establish a network that support each other, help each other and motivate each other – yet realizing that what works to help Sierra Leone raise from poverty, might not help Honduras to do likewise. Therefore a similar task handling would be unfavorable.
We need to see different action in order to solve similar problems. Each lock has its own key. Before, people have thought that one single key, could open all locks, but we have to realize that the lock of poverty needs different keys, even thought the lock might be the same.

Every person can make a difference, doesn’t matter how small it is. But if we all make a little difference, we’ve made a major contribution. So if every person makes a small contribution, collectively we could make a great leap towards what we are all striving for. A better tomorrow for all of us.

Global is upon us

2006-07-26T14:58:00.000-04:00

12 hours ago - not counting the extra time added by the time-zones - I was in the San Francisco, US, now I'm in Copenhagen, Denmark. Thinking about Denmark is almost on the exact opposite side of the world of San Francisco, this really proves our slogan: "Definite Domain, Infinite Range".

In this new world - the one we've been living in for at least the last 10-15 years - you can go from one side of the world to another in no time. In other words: there's no boundaries anymore. We can travel land as the gazelle. We can travel the sea as the fish. We can travel the air like the hawk. Can we also help Africa raise from its poverty?

Expanding the Bubble

2006-07-20T04:00:00.000-04:00

So the second post comes online!.

As a brand New NGO with big ambitions, we are still at the stage of an infant. If we compare it to the life of a human being, we've barely been born yet. Still laying thinking, whether it's worth comming out, or whether we should stay another 2-3 weeks inside our moms stocmock with the free food and the soft bed.

But outside awaits a big world, with many things to be discovered as well as a lot to take care of.
Gmin-SL has barely seen the first rays of daylight, and Gmin-DK is still only on the project map.
But we are certain that these two new branches will be followed up by many more, and in the end create a whole unity. Like many babies creating a kindergarden:-)

We are hoping that many others, will be inspired by our idea and passion, to make a difference in this world and join in, by helping with the establishment of other Gmin Branches.

If we can create a worldwide web of localy based branches of Gmin World, we can all help eachother make the best of tomorrow.

To continue the allegori: 1 ant can't build an anthill, but a thousand can.
So if we all, as ants, (>->:< ...ant) stand together, and help eachother, we can make the nescesary difference.
Its not going to be easy, it's not easy being a newly born ant. But we will grow, and an anthill we will build. A safe one. A good one. One that makes the best of tomorrow.

And so GMin begins...

2006-07-20T02:38:00.000-04:00

So this is the first post on the GMin (Global Minimum) blog. Not number two, neither zero. Three is out of the quistion, and so is minus one. The first one, yes, 1.

GMIN is founded based on the concept that we all have our lowest points either on an atomic or a universal scale. A parallel can be drawn to a mathematical function with many Local Minimums but one unique Global Minimum. As individuals, families, communities, nations, continents and the universe, at what ever point we may be on the curve presently, we may have either passed that point or for others, we have reached that Global Minimum!

Whether it is the World´s most hungry people, the world's largest number of HIV/AIDS infected people in human history, the highest rate of unemployment, the highest illiteracy rate or what ever the dip, we have a commitment to make these facts rest in History books.

You can see our website at GMin.org if you feel like reading more or you can write to me, Morten Kiehn Holst, at mortenkh@gmail.com if you have any questions or want to sign up or create a branch under the GMin organization. You should also check out our lens at squidoo.com and while you're at it, you might want to read the article about us at wikipedia.
Have a pleasant day!