We are excited to announce our latest partnership between BRUTE LABS and Red Rock Coffee! Year round, Red Rock will be a venue and outlet for us to share our ideas, raise awareness about pressing issues of the day, and get the local community involved in our various initiatives. We are greatly excited to embark on this new partnership, as both Red Rock and BRUTE LABS stand on a shared fundamental belief - the power of the collective, the power of the community to enact meaningful change in the world.
Great Coffee, Clean Water
To kick things off, Red Rock will be promoting Well Done, our ongoing effort to bring clean water to rural communities throughout Ghana, with a goal of raising $8,000 to drill a well in Kamancheli. We will also be raising awareness on the clean water crisis through display of posters, informative pamphlets at tables, and hosting of Well Done events. Red Rock will be receiving donations on our behalf at the register, in addition to selling Well Done t-shirts (more on this soon!).
If you live in or are visiting the bay area, be sure to drop by Red Rock and show your support!
Red Rock Coffee 201 Castro Street Mountain View, CA 94041
Red Rock is a not-for-profit coffee shop located in Mountain View, CA that is built upon three core values: caffeine, culture, and community. From serving quality fresh coffee, to hosting arts and music events, to providing a meeting space for local interest groups, Red Rock exists to bring together and strengthen the very community that supports it.
Great news! With well drilling season underway, we have successfully struck water in 3 of the 4 sites that we've identified this year. This initial step is one of the most critical in constructing a well.
As many of you know, Well Done has committed to raising $32,000 in order to implement four clean water projects in remote villages throughout Ghana. The support we've received thus far has been nothing short of incredible. In order for us to make these projects a reality this season though, we still need to raise $12,000 by the end of June. Please consider joining the effort and donating today at www.brutelabs.org/welldone
P.S. We've just received a huge shipment of Well Done stickers! If you'd like to help us spread the word, please email us at welldone@brutelabs.org and we'll send some your way.
The public eye may have moved on to more recent events, but those affected by the earthquake in Sichuan, China are still in the midst of the aftermath.
BRUTE LABS has teamed up with Prime Produce to design a t-shirt for the victims of the May 12, 2008 natural disaster. Contribute to the effort to provide relief services by buying a t-shirt today at www.primeproduce.org/relief
Well Done sticker bombing in Istanbul, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Amsterdam and London! If you'd like to hit some places of your own, send us an email at welldone@brutelabs.org with your address and we'll send you some stickers - all we ask for are some pictures in return!
Dr. Margaret Mensah Receives Medical Books from BRUTE LABS
When we visited Dr. Margaret in the Banda Health clinic, one of her highest priority needs was some up to date medical books. Under the oversight of Dr. Margaret, the clinic provides low to no-cost health services to a large, remote population which would otherwise would have no access to affordable health care. Upon our return, we decided to take her request to heart, and asked some of our friends if they had any medical books that they would be willing to donate. A couple phone calls and emails later, we were able to get a hold of some amazing resources for Dr. Margaret, including a slew of brand new medical reference books. Now, the only issue was to figure out how to get these materials to the clinic, no small feat given the destination of Ghana, Africa. Using FedEx Economy, we discovered the shipping costs would run us a whopping $637! After asking around, we amazingly found someone who would be traveling to Ghana shortly and graciously agreed to bring the 45lbs of books with him! Gotta love partnership (and check-in luggage)!
Special thanks to Lauren Kim, Eugene Kim, and Joseph An for their generous donations. A big thanks goes out to Mr. Fletcher, who lugged the books over to Ghana for us. To find out why we love Dr. Margaret, please take a moment and readMeeting Heroes - Dr. Margaret Mensah
One of BRUTE LABS' main goals is to launch projects quickly but always make it a point to look back to see how we could have done better. Over the past two years, we have been lucky enough to have done plenty of both. I recently came across an article written by www.givewell.net titled 'Social Programs that Just Don't Work' and found it to be very valuable and interesting. Check out the article here.
Finally... A long overdue update on our well drilling status. Much has happened since we last reported in, so we'll get straight to the news. After considering a few options throughout the country for our project location, Ensunyameme was selected as the site for the well, a village located in the Central Region of Ghana. The village's population consists of approximately 50 adults and 100 children. The villagers mainly rely upon a local, hand-dug mud hole for their water supply that is both unreliable in production and unsafe in quality. The Ensunyameme village was therefore selected based upon its particularly dire water supply situation along with the practicality in mobilizing and transporting construction equipment to the location in the near future. Through contacts with our Pioneers partners in Ghana, the Beza-lel Water Company was hired as the engineer and contractor for the design and construction of the well. The company is based in Ghana and has extensive experience in overseeing water and sanitation projects throughout the country. After some delays in mobilizing necessary equipment and securing key resources, the actual construction is now scheduled for an April 25th launch. We're hopeful this schedule will be met and that we'll have a well in the ground soon!
The project has had some interesting twists and turns along the way, but perhaps the most surprising and welcoming of these came a couple of months ago. The foundation of our project team is based upon a relationship between some of our folks here in the U.S., who primarily focus on securing funds for the project, and the Pioneers staff out in Ghana, who go through all the necessary footwork to see through the project and who provide access to long-standing relationships with remote villages in the country. Beyond Ghana though, Pioneers is actually somewhat a giant of an organization that does work throughout the entire world. Through word of mouth, news of our project reached some key staff at Pioneers headquarters in Orlando. They were impressed that a couple of random youngters such as ourselves would have the initiative to launch a project such as this - so much so that they decided to provide the funds necessary to drill a second well in another village neighboring Ensunymame! This additional well has already been added to Beza-lel's drilling contract. And just like that, plans for one well have multiplied into two. We've always believed the smallest and most spontaneous of actions can translate into big results - and it seems the progress of this project is proving that. Well Done indeed (or shall I say, Wells Done). A few of us from the project team are planning to visit Ghana this summer once the wells are constructed and are eagerly looking forward to the opportunity.
That's it for now. More drilling news soon to come. As always, thanks for your support and interest!
Here is a scan of a receipt we received for the deposit we made for the first well.
I came across an interesting movie online today. The movie is based off the text 'State of the Village Report' by Donella Meadows. The premise is 'If we could turn the population of the earth into a small community of 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have today, it would be something like this...'
A couple months ago, Greg and I were invited to guest lecture at a course in entrepreneurship at a local Community College. Although we've only had limited experience with formally starting companies, we agreed that it would be exciting to share our perspectives and learnings - from working at a company that has grown at a neckbreaking pace to starting projects for BRUTE LABS on a monthly basis. For more info, check out the Business 55 project page.
While standing in line at Pinkberry this past weekend, it dawned on me how quickly $20 comes and goes.
Then a question came to me. How far can you stretch $20 for good? Some possibilities floated around in my head but I realized that I honestly didn't know. Is it enough to build a house? How many trees can I plant if I got a really good deal? How many lives could it save? In the month of December, BRUTE LABS will try to lead the effort in trying to figure that out—or at the very least, generate an interesting list of what $20 can do. I'd like to challenge you to do the same and let us know what you were able to do by commenting to this post. For the first 5 people who take me up on this challenge, I'll send you a twenty dollar bill myself. Just email me at josh@brutelabs.org. All I ask is that you send us a picture that shows us what you did.
