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Dear Friends
Partners for Prosperity has entered a new phase of it's development. We will be actively and regularly reaching out to those we have worked with and served in the past to hear their stories, to gather their knowledge and perspectives, to learn from their experiences, to deepen our collective understanding of their challenges and successes, to share in their wisdom and cultural insights, and to help them systematically identify other Partners in their own neighborhoods who will assist them in their projects whether they are around the world or in our own localities.
In this news letter, we will cover the following topics:
- What does it mean to be a Partner?
- What's new at Partners for Prosperity?
- How do you help to develop your own community and other communities?
What does it mean to be a Partner?
Imagine that you had the power to directly impact another human soul by inspiring their potential, bringing joy to their hearts, giving hope for their future. Do you recall how others respond when you smile at them? What if that same response could be brought to all aspects of their lives? What does it mean to empower others and yourself?
Imagine that you encountered someone in need of assistance and by allowing your heart to "burn with loving kindness" towards that other soul, by recognizing their inherent nobility and potential no matter what their current condition, you were able to befriend them and through your friendship and encouragement, you empowered them to succeed in their goals. Imagine if someone would do that for you as well?
Imagine that you had an endless source of inspiration, warmth and friendship that allowed you to reach out, with kindness and extreme patience, and over a long period melt even the hardest ice of indifference or hopelessness.
Imagine that as you reached out in action and reflected on your results, you learned to inspire the recipients of your warmth and generosity to reach out to others and do the same for them.
Now imagine that at any time, you could reach out to an ever expanding network of like minded individuals to organize and systematically work towards solving every societal issue that they encountered as each arose in the path of service.
It is these abilities and characteristics that we hope to engender and inspire in all Partners. It is the abilities of facilitation, outreach, encouragement, action and reflection that will help us to grow our respective circles of influence and, one heart at a time, create a network that will transform the neighborhoods of the world that we live in.
Partners for Prosperity is a community of learners and doers. Over the past few months, we have been consulting with others in our own circle of influence, seeking input from individuals and representatives of various community organizations, and learning from our past endeavors. What we learned is that all of our Partners have the desire to be more successful in reaching out and in bettering the lives of those they serve while honouring their roots, their cultures, their beliefs and their traditions.
One of our goals at Partners for Prosperity is to become a repository of learning on how to develop prosperous and sustainable communities through cycles of action, reflection and learning, and to share this learning with anyone who wishes to participate in this Community Building process.
Being a Partner, in it's simplest form, means to be a part of this cooperative network and this cycle of Planning, Action, Reflection and Learning that contributes to the development of a culturally rich, infinitely diverse, and indefinitely sustainable world. We hope that you take the time to participate and share this benefit with yourselves and others in your own circles of influence.
What's new at Partners?
In our attempt to reach out, we have developed new systems, created a new database for Volunteer and Organizational Partner profiles, begun to identify new approaches to creating grassroots Community Building projects, groups and organizations, and we've updated our news-letter systems so that you can get the news that you are most interested in.
Our new Newsletter system now provides the ability to sign-up for all or just one of out target project groups. You are receiving this e-mail because you were on one of our previous distribution lists. We encourage you to sign-up for other newsletters if you choose.
The following news-letters are currently available:
- Corporate - The Corporate Newsletter is designed as a vehicle for communication between our Corporate Partners, Entrepreneurs or individuals within corporations who would like to learn better ways of engaging the members and leadership of their organization in Social Justice, Economic Development, Cultural and Community Enrichment programs.
- Education - The Education Newsletter is designed to share stories, information, experiences and techniques with those who are engaged in some form of education either as learners, trainers or facilitators who accompany others who are walking with them in the path of service.
- Haiti - The Haiti Newsletter will provide the latest updates from our Haiti Partners and projects and identify needs to which other Partners can contribute.
- Ghana - The news letter from Ghana will provide updates from Partners who have met with the Widow's from Tapko and or who have provided assistance in some form to projects in Ghana.
- First Nations - This News letter is designed for sharing the work of project teams primarily lead by the first people of all nations and all those interested in participating in their healing process. It is our wish to encourage first people of all nations to share their noble spirits, to discard the chains of oppression, to value their nobility, to share the richness of their cultural heritage, and to find justice through the love and friendship of the many who are beginning to understand the injuries of their past the rich potential of their future.
- Youth News - The Youth Newsletter is for Youth and Jr Youth based initiatives. It is our goal to work with the Youth on cooperative initiatives to build the communities that they desire for their own future.
Please sign-up for any and all of these news-letters by going to the web-site by entering your name and e-mail and by checking off any newsletter you wish to receive. In addition, we will continue to send a general monthly newsletter which we encourage you to share with friends, family, colleagues and associates. For those of you already participating in one project or another, you will be included on applicable news lists. If you wish unsubscribe from one of the news-letters, simply click on the Unsubscribe link.
How do you help to develop your own community and other communities?
Undoubtedly there are many ways to contribute to your community and we would like to acknowledge all of the many worthy efforts around the world that are slowly tearing down veils of ignorance, injustice and oppression. There are many organizations and individuals striving for the betterment of the world. At Partners for Prosperity, we believe that the ability to change our community is limited only by our current environment and that as we begin to change our environment through education, unity and cooperation, we open the floodgates of our individual and collective potential.
We all have a natural ability to reach out to serve our community and the ability to improve ourselves is endless. As we do so, we also have a greater ability to achieve the goals we set out for ourselves and our communities. And if one of our goals is to help our community develop, one of the many things we can do is to learn together in this process.
Our goal at Partners is to bring together that learning and to share the learning with the aim of enhancing the unity with which individuals and organizations work together. Working alone is possible but working together in groups has the potential for much greater achievement.
We encourage you to serve one of the many organizations in your neighborhood, and while you do so, join Partners as well. As we build our list of Partners, we will have a readily available list of resources and Partners in your neighborhood who can help you achieve your goals.
If you want to learn and grow with us, please go to the new Partners for Prosperity web-site http://partnersforprosperity.org and click on the "Join Us" button to create your Individual or Organizational Partner profile. You will receive a link in your e-mail to activate your login. We encourage you also to look through our Volunteer Roles and our growing list of Partners. If you are receiving this through your organization, or you have Joined Us recently, you may already have a profile and we encourage you to login to your account and make sure that it is up-to-date. If you need any assistance getting into the system, please Contact us.
Over the next weeks and months, we hope to be in touch directly with many of you to learn from your experiences, to hear and share your stories, to work with your organizations and to gather your suggestions on how we can all work better together.
We look forward to speaking with you. Please join and encourage others to join with you.
Until next month,
Garth Schmalenberg
Partners for Prosperity
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