Ripples

Making Ripples in the World

I find it really hard to write about Ripples as an entity, with measurable effects on the world.  Of course, things are measurable: number of NGO’s helped, number of blog posts receiving readers, number of comments, number of columns written about sustainability…but are they visual?  Not nearly enough.  This video, shared with me by my friend Teresa, illustrates the way I see Ripples.  I guess technically Ripples is just Ryan & I, and you could argue Ripples includes projects with our partner organizations, and the growing list of volunteers wanting to build with earthbags.  But when I picture what Ripples actually does, well it looks more like this video.

So I invite you to watch this video and enjoy these scenes, then watch it again and replace them with scenes from the past year at Ripples.  Notice in the video that the love flows both ways Same with Ripples.  Here are our real life “scenes” painted with words so you can see them better as you watch the video (I’ve tried to keep identities anonymous just like the video).  Ripples’ scenes are about gardening, websites, compost toilets, sharing information, and little acts of kindness.  Someday I would love to actually put together a video with photos and live scenes from Ripples!  For now just try to imagine it:

1. A toilet built with locally harvested bamboo in Kathmandu, Nepal, inspires a girl in the United States to use local bamboo to build a solar shower with a 5-gallon bag.
2. Better publicity makes sponsorships grow for a trail maintenance organization, encouraging more people to enjoy and protect our parks after the re-development of their website allows the web developer to learn more about web development for helping non-profits in the future.
3. 235 youth in Cameroon are trained in fundraising after a local leader learns about capacity building via the internet, sparking more support for free access to the internet.
4. Writing about raising baby chicks inspires people in other locations to consider urban farming.
5. A child with food allergies is able to enjoy eating a totally safe cookie, so his mother helps pay for a solar platform for Ripples’ blog.
6. An Armenian organization supporting people with disabilities creates a Facebook page after receiving training in the importance of online communication.
7. A woman with experience in gardening helps a youth learn to grow herbs, and the resulting cilantro and basil are given as gifts to neighbors.
8. One girl receives training in non-profit management and contacts an international organization to provide curriculum materials for an online class taken by students in 34 countries who then pass the materials to their organizations, improving them with their own ideas.
9. After learning in workshops about native species and their needs, native habitat is created and publicized on Ripples’ blog, helping a city become the first in its state to receive certification due to the whole community working together.
10. A trip to a sustainably built retreat center inspires us to use cob for sculpting shelves in the walls at Ripples’ future homestead, and our post on sustainable building inspires a family to get in touch with us to learn more about how they can do it, too.
11. [insert your Ripples moment here]