WORLD ON A STRING

FORGOTTENSONG BRINGS ATTENTION TO NEEDS

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A local nonprofit group is working to make positive changes for people in war-torn countries.

ForgottenSong is an organization that works in war-torn countries to create self-sustainable economic solutions that benefit the lives of women and children, founder Charles Davidson said. This is done through the process of starting sustainable small businesses, he added. The nonprofit incorporated in 2009. He said the name comes from the thought that “a lot of times women and children in war-torn countries are a forgotten song of the world.”

Davidson said his organization prefers projects that are “organically reproducible.” One chicken farm becomes 10, and 10 become 100. He said one was created in Uganda, and it is growing, noting it should be 10 chicken farms by the end of the year. The nonprofit has also sponsored a project in Iraq during which a building was remodeled to become a preschool. The nonprofit is planning to work on projects in Nepal and Palestine by the end of the year.

On the domestic side, ForgottenSong raises awareness about its mission and educates the public by bringing together people from countries where the organization has worked.

World on a String is a night of ForgottenSong awareness, and it will take place Thursday at the University of Arkansas. The event will include a concert by three local bands, videos about ForgottenSong and food by Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches.

Davidson encouraged anyone who has a hammock to bring it to the event and hang it in a tree to watch the concert.

The campus will be split into four sections to symbolize the various countries in which ForgottenSong works, according to a news release. Davidson said there will be thousands of yards of string that will be passed through the hands of every participant to connect everyone involved in the event. The gesture demonstrates that many people doing one small thing can come together to create a really big change.

“One person supporting ForgottenSong is good, but 1,000 people supporting ForgottenSong can ignite world change,” Davidson said.

STARTING SMALL

ForgottenSong does not use the same plan in each war-torn location, he said. The organization works with local populations and business leaders to formulate plans that suit that particular culture. Nonprofit staff members take an initial business trip and devise a plan after staying for about a week, he said.

Davidson said the chicken farms were created in partnership with orphanage directors. The farms range in size from 1,000 to 5,000 chickens, and they belong to the orphanage, providing nutrition to all the children who live there.

Eggs and older chickens are sold for income for the orphanage.

He added they found that a huge problem in war-torn east Africa is not a shortage of orphanages, “it’s a shortage of money for orphanages,” he said,

The chicken farm was asolution to help remedy that problem. The grant for the chicken farms is contingent on an agreement that the orphanage donate 1,000 fertilized eggs back to ForgottenSong every six months, and money gained from these are used to start more farms, Davidson said. It costs $10,000 to create each chicken farm.

Davidson decided to start the nonprofit after a travel experience. Davidson, 28, began traveling at age 20 or 21 and said he loved the aspect of adventure and going to places no one else traveled. He visited a prison in La Paz, Bolivia, where he and his friends found children who were living in the jail with their incarcerated parents.

The children were being used as “cocaine mules in and out of this jail,” he said.

“This idea came into my head of children paying the price of their parents’ crimes,” he said. “This statement kept rolling through my head all the time.”

He didn’t know what to do about it, and he said he searched online to see what other people were doing. He came across news stories about war-torn countries, and he decided to buy a ticket as a civilian and travel to Iraq to see what he could find. He lived in Afghanistan for a year, along with visiting Colombia, Uganda and other places plagued by war and violence to do research on what’s being done to help the civilians there.

He noted that many nonprofits have good intentions, but they’re not willing to give control over to the people they’re helping. He founded ForgottenSong on the idea that “people in war zones are fully capable of helping themselves if given the opportunity.”

“We haven’t been proven wrong yet,” he said.

GROWING STRONG

Zac Trout, graphics director with ForgottenSong, has been involved with the nonprofit for about two years. He traveled to Iraq in April 2012 with other nonprofit staff and stayed two and a half months to start a preschool there. The project cost $60,000, which included funds for creating the school and financial commitments through the first year, he added.

They had purchased a freestanding building and renovated it to what was needed for a school, Trout said. An account was also set up to send money to the school to take care of bills for the first year. He said it became fully self-sustaining two months after they left.

While he was there, he helped with remodeling and also taught English to children at the school. After leaving, the school would become more of a daycare for children ages 2 to 4, and he said they plan to implement teaching at the school when it raises more money. Women who take children there often have moved to northern Iraq to start a new life after fleeing from violence, and they are charged $5 a month to send a child to this daycare, he said. Once they obtain a job, they will pay $50 a month, which will be the cap. When 25 kids are paying $50 a month, the school is fully self-sustaining, he said.

Trout said this trip was a great learning experience for him.

He traveled around the United States growing up but never internationally, and since he was about 17, he has had more of a desire to see the world. Going to Iraq was a “life-changing experience for me.” Often viewed by Americans as a culture that is hostile and radical, he said he found that people he met in Iraq were very hospitable. He was invited into their homes moments after meeting them and asked to sit down for dinner, he said. He was taken aback by their genuine kindness.

“They blew Southern hospitality out of the water,” he said.

Life, Pages 8 on 04/03/2013