Organizations

As a wildlife rehabilitation and education facility, we see and hear every day how the public is misinformed, or uninformed, with respect to the opossum. Designed for children and adults, this video has been created as an education tool to show the opossum as it truly is, present facts, and to dispel some of the myths about this wonderful creature. TWRC is an urban wildlife emergency and rehabilitative care facility serving the Greater Houston area. Established in 1979, TWRC focuses on conservation, public education, and wildlife rehabilitation, and is operated by part-time staff and volunteers who are permitted rehabilitators and animal lovers. TWRC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which receives no federal or state funding. Because of this, we rely on individual, corporate, and foundation contributions to continue our efforts in preserving and caring for Texas wildlife. Visit us at www.twrc-houston.org or call 713-468-8972 to learn how you can become a volunteer or donate to our organization.

Duration : 0:2:46

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/07/05/Transforming_the_System_An_Interview_with_Michelle_Rhee

Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, shares some prominent moments in Teach For America and how they have affected her reform ideals. She describes her personal experience discovering and participating in the program.

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Transforming the System: An Interview with Michelle Rhee with Eli Broad. – Aspen Institute

Michelle Rhee is chancellor of DC Public Schools, a district with 50,000 students and 144 schools. She is also the founder of The New Teacher Project, a nationally recognized leader in developing innovative solutions to the challenges of hiring new teachers.

As president and CEO of TNTP, Rhee partnered with school districts, state education agencies, nonprofit organizations, and unions to transform the way difficult-to-staff schools recruit, select, and train highly qualified teachers.

Her work resulted in widespread reform in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, New York, Oakland, and Philadelphia. Rhee’s commitment to excellence in education began in a Baltimore classroom as a Teach-for-America teacher. Rhee currently serves on the advisory boards for the National Council on Teacher Quality, the National Center for Alternative Certification, and Project REACH of the University of Phoenix’s School of Education.

Duration : 0:5:3

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Google Tech Talks
September 4, 2008

ABSTRACT

High performance depends on the self-organizing capability of teams. Understanding how this works and how to avoid destroying self-organization is a challenge. Until you understand complex adaptive systems and how Toyota works it is difficult to improve team velocity. Jeff will discuss three core topics:

1. Shock therapy as a strategy for booting up teams.
2. The Cosmic Stopping Problem, otherwise known as the choice uncertainty principle.
3. Punctuated equilibrium – how software systems evolve

Take advantage of these concepts and you may find a way to achieve the ultimate potential of a team. This session will be a “Deep Agile” presentation keying off topics presented to engineers at MIT.

Speaker: Jeff Sutherland
Dr. Jeff Sutherland is one of the co-creators of the Scrum software development process. He and Ken Schwaber invented Scrum in 1993. Since then he has worked with many software companies and IT organizations to extend and enhance this process.

For more info please Google Jeff or visit his web site.

Duration : 1:33:20

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Video courtesy of the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy.
http://www.ofcp.on.ca

The Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy is a non-profit, charitable organization with a mandate to address the changing needs of people in Ontario with cerebral palsy. The OFCP goes about accomplishing its mission by way of three core activities:

(1) Assisting individuals and member groups in the development and provision of services and programs including accommodation in all parts of the province of Ontario.

(2) Advocating and promoting awareness, understanding and acceptance of persons with cerebral palsy.

(3) Encouraging and supporting research, education and programs related to cerebral palsy.

Vision Statement
The Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy is an organization committed to supporting independence, inclusion, choice and full integration of all persons with cerebral palsy.

Values Statement

CORE VALUES

To our Consumers:
To provide solutions, through service, advocacy and research, which further equal opportunity, self-sufficiency, dignity and quality of life.

To our Employees:
To create an environment that nurtures, recognizes and rewards excellence.

To Society:
To demonstrate leadership through innovation and initiative.

To our Stakeholders:
To be accountable and responsible as financial stewards, quality service providers and advocates.

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a term used to describe a group of disorders affecting body movement and muscle co-ordination. The medical definition of cerebral palsy is a “non-progressive” but not unchanging disorder of movement and/or posture, due to an insult to or anomaly of the developing brain. Development of the brain starts in early pregnancy and continues until about age three. Damage to the brain during this time may result in cerebral palsy. This damage interferes with messages from the brain to the body, and from the body to the brain. The effects of cerebral palsy vary widely from individual to individual. At its mildest, cerebral palsy may result in a slight awkwardness of movement or hand control. At its most severe, CP may result in virtually no muscle control, profoundly affecting movement and speech.

Depending on which areas of the brain have been damaged, one or more of the following may occur:

(1) muscle tightness or spasms
(2) involuntary movement
(3) difficulty with “gross motor skills” such as walking or running
(4) difficulty with “fine motor skills” such as writing or doing up buttons
(5) difficulty in perception and sensation

These effects may cause associated problems such as difficulties in feeding, poor bladder and bowel control, breathing problems, and pressure sores. The brain damage which caused cerebral palsy may also lead to other conditions such as: seizures, learning disabilities or developmental delay. It is important to remember that limbs affected by cerebral palsy are not paralysed and can feel pain, heat, cold and pressure. It is also important to remember that the degree of physical disability experienced by a person with cerebral palsy is not an indication of his/her level of intelligence.

Duration : 0:15:35

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NSA Foundation

Overview

The NSA Foundation is the charitable arm of NSA. The Foundation serves members and the public through:

Financial help for NSA members and their families who are facing health or natural disaster emergencies;
Grants to NSA members who need help with their dues or meeting registration fees;
Scholarships for speech/communications students;
Provide funding for research related to the speaking profession; and
Grants to help charitable organizations communicate through technology.
Thanks to the generous contributions of NSA speakers like you, many worthy people have received financial support when they need it most.

Contributions come from three basic sources:

Major gifts donated to establish various funds;
Memorial and other contributions from individual NSA members and chapters; and
Fundraising events such as seminars, receptions and parties at NSA conventions and workshops.

For more information about the NSA Foundation please contact Diane Paradise at diane@nsaspeaker.org our call (480) 968-2552. You can also visit Mynsa.org for more details on the NSA Foundation.

Duration : 0:7:55

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Google Tech Talks
November 6, 2008

ABSTRACT

In the 1970s, essentially all of the educated population of Cambodia were murdered in the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia today, despite its rich culture and stunning temples, remains a devastated country, suffering from poverty, lack of education, and corruption. The best hope for Cambodia lies in improved education and new leadership. To that end, Lightman and Smead have been working to empower a new generation of women leaders in Cambodia. (Studies by the U.N. and World Bank have repeatedly shown that the most effective method of helping third world countries is through education of its women.) The critical obstacle to higher education for women in Cambodia , remarkably enough, is housing. Universities in Cambodia do not provide housing for their students. Male students can live in the Buddhist temples but not females. Seizing upon this weak link in the chain, in 2006, Lightman and Smead’s nonprofit organization built the first dormitory for female college students in the country. The Harpswell Foundation Dormitory and Leadership Center for College Women in Phnom Penh not only provides free room and board and medical coverage to its 36, carefully selected residents. The facility also gives them English and computer classes, leadership training, and critical discussions of national and international events. After two years of operations, these young women are at the tops of their classes at the 7 different universities they attend and are committed to leading their country into a new era of hope and transformation. In another two years, a new crop of 36 outstanding young women will enter the mentorship and cultivation of the Harpswell facility, and in ten years, we will have a powerful force of over a hundred women dedicated to revolutionizing their country. This is a story of how a small, highly-targeted nonprofit organization can potentially change an entire country.

In this illustrated lecture, Chenda Smead, who escaped Cambodia in 1979 at the age of 18, will describe her family’s experience living under the Khmer Rouge. Alan Lightman, founding director of the Harpswell Foundation, will discuss the work of the Foundation, the strategy of leadership training and maximum social impact for minimum investment, and the challenges facing modern Cambodia.

Speaker: Alan Lightman
A physicist and novelist, graduated from Princeton University and received a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology. Lightman has served on the faculties of Harvard and MIT, where he was the first person to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities. Lightmans novel Einsteins Dreams was an international bestseller, and his novel The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award. After a life-changing trip to Cambodia in 2003, Lightman founded the nonprofit organization The Harpswell Foundation, which has been working to empower a new generation of leaders in Cambodia.

Speaker: Chenda Smead
Chenda Smead is a Khmer Rouge genocide survivor who escaped Cambodia in 1979 as a refugee to the U.S. and later graduated from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln with degrees in computer science and mathematics.

She has helped build a school in Siem Reap and a Learning Center near Phnom Penh, as well as contributed significantly to the Harpswell Foundation Dormitory and Leadership Center for College Women in Phnom Penh. Ms. Smead is on the Board of Advisors of the Harpswell Foundation.

Duration : 0:50:44

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We’ve come to recognize a serious problem common to almost every charity and non-profit organization in this country. You just don’t have or get anywhere near as much money as you’d like or need. In fact, the vast majority of charity and non-profit organization struggle just to pay their bills from month to month.

Whether you are currently fundraising or not, you know that our country’s charities and non-profit organizations are our future, and adequate funding is the key ingredient to the development and empowerment of our charities and non-profit organizations finding their true potential.

For the first time ever, a uniquely innovative 21st century fundraising program has been created to help charities and non-profit organizations raise the much needed funds in these days of shrinking budgets and raising costs – what better way to complement those hard to get funds by leveraging your community network and their real estate!

In just a few minutes, you could potentially begin to leverage your time, money, and resources by simply getting involved and participating in our fundraising program!

Duration : 0:2:45

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Download the rest of the video at http://www.TotalLifeCounseling.com/shop
1. Thank the parents for their shared interest in the student.
2. How to hear the parents complaints.
3. Validate their Feelings.
4. Discuss choices and options for the well being of the student.
5. How to use this approach to retain students and grow your organization.

Testimonial – “Interactive presentations made it interesting, engaging, and fun.”-Miriam H

Testimonial-”Super Presenter — Great Info & Sense of Humor”-Dr. Colin S

DOWNLOAD ENTIRE 50 MINUTE VIDEO INSTANTLY AT
http://TotalLifeCounseling.com/shop

Duration : 0:7:26

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Please visit our site http://www.ChildrensWishListFoundation.org
All children are our future. They all deserve our love. Join us to feed, teach, protect, and nurture children in America and around the world.In keeping families together, we have avoided the placement of children into foster situations. In keeping families together, we have provided a safe, loving, nurturing environment that has already existed. Parents become more happy when they are self sufficient and are able to earn the income they need to raise the standard of living for their family.
Childrens Wish list Foundation doesn’t claim to be the biggest wish granting organization, just to be the best. The services and personal attention that we provide our families are unsurpassed and our Wish Families praise us daily for our professionalism, attention to each detail of their child’s wish, and the extra mile we always go for our families. We know, however, that all of these efforts would be impossible without the support of individuals and corporations that choose to contribute to CWLF. We make it easy for our donors to give in many ways.
http://childrenswishlist.wordpress.com

• There are 143,000,000 orphans in the world
• There are an additional 20,000,000 displaced children in the world
• The combined count of these categories makes the orphan population the 7th largest nation
on the planet slightly larger than the population of Russia
• In Eastern Europe, less than 50% of the orphan population will live to see their 20th birthdays
• In Eastern Europe, of the orphans that survive their 20th birthdays, 50% will end up in organized crime, drugs, or prostitution
• In Africa, homeless children are armed and used for war
• In Africa, there is a concerted effort to extend childrens lives beyond 5 years of age
• In the US, 25,000 children will leave the foster care system without families
• 25% of these foster children become homeless,
• 56% of these emancipated foster care children enter the unemployment ranks
• 27% of the male children who leave the foster care system end up in jail
• 30% of the female children who leave the foster care system experience early parenthood
• 30,000 children in foster care are simply dropped from state care because they have run away
• In the US, most young adults ages 18 24 still live at home with their parents, while approximately 25,000 children are annually released at age 18 from the foster care system without families to support them

Each Day in America for All Children

2 mothers die in childbirth.
4 children are killed by abuse or neglect.
5 children or teens commit suicide.
8 children or teens are killed by firearms.
33 children or teens die from accidents.
78 babies die before their first birthdays.
201 children are arrested for a violent crime.
404 children are arrested for a drug crime.
928 babies are born at low birthweight.
1,154 babies are born to teen mothers.
1,240 public school students are corporally punished.*
2,224 babies are born without health insurance.
2,367 high school students drop out.*
2,479 children are confirmed as abused or neglected.
2,583 babies are born into poverty.
4,184 babies are born to unmarried mothers.
4,520 children are arrested.
18,493 public school students are suspended.
* Based on calculations per school day (180 days of seven hours each).
http://CWLF.org

Duration : 0:5:26

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OYE supports and empowers at-risk youth in Honduras by promoting their self-sufficiency through education, health, and art programs. Visit www.oyehonduras.org for more information.

Duration : 0:5:42

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