PledgePage: Help Send Taylor Johnson to Ecuador!!!
I am embarking on a once in a lifetime volunteer program to the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon. To make it there I need your help! Please browse through this website to learn more and feel free to contact me with any questions.
This volunteer adventure is the byproduct of a class assignment in my MBA leadership course and my own personal goals. I have always been actively dedicated to community service, working for a variety of different domestic causes. As an MBA student I decided to pursue a career in nonprofit management. I currently work for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida (see above picture), a youth-development organization for underprivileged children. When given this opportunity in class, I was pushed to finally make the jump to immerse myself in an international community service project.
The class assignment, "Big Bold Leadership Goal", is something which must keep you in the "discomfort zone", be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely, have HEART and of course, develop leadership. This project will be an intense experience in self-development and self-leadership. As one of my favorite quotes by Gandhi states, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." Also, it is well known that one must be able to practice self-leadership before practicing leadership of others.
During the first two weeks of January 2006, my friend and classmate, Ashleigh Davenport, and I will be traveling together to Ecuador. We will be volunteering at the 4,500 hectare Tsukura Reserve in Pastaza Province of the Amazon. The reserve is communally owned by the indigenous Shuar Indians and the Jatun Sacha Foundation. Mahogany, a commercially extinct hardwood, grows in abundance here. A main objective of the reserve is to "send Mahogany seeds and tree saplings to interested individuals, communities, and businesses throughout Amazonian Ecuador to assist in its recovery as a viable species." The overall objectives are "to provide development initiatives to the communities of the reserve, and help them conserve their environment." Ashleigh an I will be working with the Shuar on projects of greatest importance to them, such as teaching environmental education and English in local schools, developing trails and medicinal gardens, fish production, and visiting Shuar communities. Throughout our stay, we will be living in very basic conditions performing a good deal of manual labor.
We are looking forward to this amazing opportunity to help an indigenous community create sustainable development, to conserve the environment, and to experience life-changing personal growth.
Personal Mission:
Continuously seek and develop opportunities for personal growth through service and support to our world, while encouraging equality, understanding, freewill and self-reliance.
Global Volunteer Network Mission:
Connect people with communities by supporting the work of local community organizations in countries through the placement of international volunteers.
Jatun Sacha Foundation Mission:
The Foundation is dedicated to the conservation, investigation, management of ecologically important habitats, and environmental education and community development.
This volunteer adventure is the byproduct of a class assignment in my MBA leadership course and my own personal goals. I have always been actively dedicated to community service, working for a variety of different domestic causes. As an MBA student I decided to pursue a career in nonprofit management. I currently work for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida (see above picture), a youth-development organization for underprivileged children. When given this opportunity in class, I was pushed to finally make the jump to immerse myself in an international community service project.
The class assignment, "Big Bold Leadership Goal", is something which must keep you in the "discomfort zone", be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely, have HEART and of course, develop leadership. This project will be an intense experience in self-development and self-leadership. As one of my favorite quotes by Gandhi states, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." Also, it is well known that one must be able to practice self-leadership before practicing leadership of others.
During the first two weeks of January 2006, my friend and classmate, Ashleigh Davenport, and I will be traveling together to Ecuador. We will be volunteering at the 4,500 hectare Tsukura Reserve in Pastaza Province of the Amazon. The reserve is communally owned by the indigenous Shuar Indians and the Jatun Sacha Foundation. Mahogany, a commercially extinct hardwood, grows in abundance here. A main objective of the reserve is to "send Mahogany seeds and tree saplings to interested individuals, communities, and businesses throughout Amazonian Ecuador to assist in its recovery as a viable species." The overall objectives are "to provide development initiatives to the communities of the reserve, and help them conserve their environment." Ashleigh an I will be working with the Shuar on projects of greatest importance to them, such as teaching environmental education and English in local schools, developing trails and medicinal gardens, fish production, and visiting Shuar communities. Throughout our stay, we will be living in very basic conditions performing a good deal of manual labor.
We are looking forward to this amazing opportunity to help an indigenous community create sustainable development, to conserve the environment, and to experience life-changing personal growth.
Personal Mission:
Continuously seek and develop opportunities for personal growth through service and support to our world, while encouraging equality, understanding, freewill and self-reliance.
Global Volunteer Network Mission:
Connect people with communities by supporting the work of local community organizations in countries through the placement of international volunteers.
Jatun Sacha Foundation Mission:
The Foundation is dedicated to the conservation, investigation, management of ecologically important habitats, and environmental education and community development.