SAGA Open House - Part 2of4 - Background

Title:
SAGA Open House - Part 2of4 - Background

Description:
Students Against Global Apathy (SAGA). Made in October 2008 at the University of Alberta. Part 1 - Introduction Part 2 - Background Part 3 - New Members Part 4 - Q&A and pics Transcript of Part 2: SAGA started in the summer of 2005 and this is the beginning of our 4th year at the University. We have had many, many highs and many, many lows; but we have learned from our experiences and this year is going to be the best we ever had. All of you probably know about our cool t-shirts, but how many of you know that SAGA was actually started in Kenya? Yeah, its true. I first came up with the idea when Allison, me, and about 20 others went on a school trip to Kenya to study ecology and anthropology. What I felt when I was over there, what I saw, what I heard, what I breathed in from the air, was the tipping point for me. Underneath the stars very late one night, I decided to do something and take action. At the time I had no clue what that was going to be and no money to get started; but that didnt stop me because I knew I was capable of making a difference. Looking back now, I can see that I was a dreamer who was young and foolish but I dont regret any of it. In fact SAGA is probably the best thing that has ever happened in my life. The biggest defect we as human beings have is our shortsightedness. We dont see what we could become. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything imaginable because we are young, educated, and living in a country with so much opportunity. This optimism and our belief that words and ideas can change the world is the reason why SAGA has been successful. For example: we have sold over 4000 t-shirts, of which all profits have gone overseas; we have given away over $25,000 to high quality projects in Sierra Leone, India, Nicaragua, and Uganda; we have sent students to Sierra Leone and India; we have gone on road trips to Calgary and Vancouver to attend conferences and exhibitions; we had an online store that shipped across Canada, to the US, and even London; and our creativity has been so effective that it not only established name recognition here at the UofA, but also universities across Canada even wanted to start up there own chapters of SAGA. What SAGA does really successfully is grab peoples attention, raise a lot of money, and hopefully inspire. Now for our failures, SAGA used to be too much around Alex. He is very enthusiastic but he was over-committed, over-engaged, and over-extended so that he almost caused the death of his own creation. Alex didnt know what he was doing when he first started so he had to learn everything from the beginning. For example, he had to: learn about the issues; learn how to fundraise; how to do marketing; learn how to make t-shirts; learn how to be a salesman; learn how to build a website; learn how to make win an argument; learn how to inspire strangers; run meetings; learn how to plan events; learn how to do accounting; learn how to run a business, and more. But you get the idea that SAGA revolved too much around Alex. I admit this. Most of the mistakes of SAGA are mine. I never wanted it to be just about one person and I really didnt want it to fail; but even learning how to teach and delegate responsibilities is a skill one isnt born with. Also I am an ideas guy. I like poetry and theory and big leaps of imagination, more than number-crunching, measurements, and steady, incremental growth. So therefore I wasnt building the best strategy or documenting the details as much as I could have been. Also because I was over-stressed and never felt like I had the time, I wasnt mentoring the other members of SAGA as much as I should have been. In general, trying to balance SAGA and school and life the way I was doing it was just too much. I broke down. Helplessness, suicide, depression, and a lot of really bad thoughts were there; and if it wasnt for my big trip to Asia to escape and re-energize myself I dont know where I would be. So, when Alex left it was a big shock to all of us because he didnt tell anybody really anybody! He just hopped on a plane and left. While back here in Canada, the remaining members of the SAGAcore had to decide whether or not we wanted to continue with the dream. It was hard. It was really hard. But in the end we didnt give it all up because we knew SAGA had too much potential. However last year, even though we tried our best, SAGA struggled. There were only four people who were really running things. I was in my first year of med school so I was super busy..... For complete typed transcript go to: https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgkhcftv_2fxg36hcf&hl=en

Author:
SAGAualberta

Tags:
SAGA, Students, Against, Global, Apathy, non-profit, Africa, change, youth, activism, travel, adventure, leadership, alberta,