Global Agents for Change is a fellow traveler with their GFAC fund The group’s vision is to create the world’s largest youth built, youth led microcredit fund and connecting youth with developing world entrepreneurs, providing a crucial tool in the fight to escape poverty. In 2007 they did a 7 week 3000 kilometer ride from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico to help build the fund. They will be doing it again May 31, 2008.

Relief International
Founded in 1990, Relief International provides emergency, rehabilitation and development services that empower beneficiaries in the process. RI’s programs include health, shelter construction, education, community development, agriculture, food, income-generation, and conflict resolution. RI employs an innovative approach to program design and a high quality of implementation performance in demonstrating deep and lasting impact in reducing human suffering worldwide.

Philosophy

RI dedicates itself to seeking and addressing the long-term developmental needs of its beneficiaries even while in the emergency phase. The agency recognizes that disasters have the most negative impact on the lives of the poor; yet disasters, and especially the movement of the populations, can also bring about unexpected, positive social change. This context can therefore serve as a window of opportunity for eradicating poverty and social injustice.

RI focuses on serving people who typically have not received due attention, and in several large-scale crises RI has been the first US-based agency to provide high-impact development emergency programming to communities in need. RI believes that as a humanitarian agency one of its main functions is to communicate the pronounced needs of the vulnerable and affected populations to the international community. RI thus consults closely with the local communities it serves in order to ensure that its programs do not impose solutions from the outside but rather address their needs and requirements for the long term. This grassroots approach proves effective in fostering an environment of self-help and sustainability.