Pangea and Seattle International Foundation Join Forces to Inform a Concerned Community. Pangea members Gary Tabasinske and Katy Crouch co-sponsored with Seattle International Foundation a gathering recently to learn about the humanitarian crisis of children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador fleeing gang violence and poverty to seek asylum in the US. Katy Crouch and Mauricio Vivero introduced the presentation with heartfelt references to their own experiences with migration: Katy referring to her two adopted children from Guatemala and Mauricio speaking of becoming a refugee from Cuba at an early age. Jorge Barron, Executive Director of NW Immigrant Rights Project...[ Read More ]

Earlier this month, Pangea members and guests gathered for an evening with Van Sar, Vice President of the Khmer Alliance Foundation, to learn about the situation in Cambodia and the irrigation project Pangea helped fund in Kandek. The Khmer Alliance Foundation (KAF) is a U.S. based organization founded by the Cambodian diaspora to help Cambodian communities address their development needs. KAF has established the Foundation for Cambodian Development (FCD) in Phnom Penh and it was FCD that Pangea funded to organize and carry out the irrigation project. Van Sar, traveled to Cambodia to provide technical assistance to FCD so he...[ Read More ]

This summer an educational evening for Pangea's Asia pod will be taking place at a member's home in Seattle.  The special guest speaker will be Van Sar, Director of the Seattle based Khmer Alliance Foundation. He recently returned from a site visit to one of Pangea's grantees - Foundation for Cambodia Development (FCD) in Cambodia. Sar will provide an overview of Cambodia, describe how he helped start FCD, and give an update of the Kandek irrigation project that Pangea funded. You can think of this as a virtual site visit to one of Pangea's newest Asia grantees. We'll have slides of the...[ Read More ]

The book, "However Long the Night", Molly Melching’s Journey to Help Millions of Africa Women and Girls Triumph, by Aimee Molloy was read and discussed  by Africa Pod members recently and was thought pertinent to some of our Kenyan partners. This important and thoroughly enjoyable book begins with the arrival in Dakar, Senegal in 1976 of Molly Melching, an American student intent on studying linguistics at the University of Dakar. She falls in love with the country and its people and spends the next 40 years deeply engaged in the betterment of the lives of Senegalese women through her organization,...[ Read More ]

On the eve of International Women's Day, we learned that one of Pangea's first members, Leslie Grace was featured on Oxfam America's internal website about women who inspire them. Here is the story: Leslie Grace-Oxfam supporter and more...   I met Leslie years ago when she was the chair of the Rotary Foundation in my new Rotary Club. I have appreciated her perspectives on global philanthropy because she gives so widely and with such energy. She founded a famous store in Seattle more than fifty years ago called "La Tienda." While the store finally closed last week, Leslie is a...[ Read More ]

Pangea Giving co-founder, Allan Paulson, recently returned from 15 days in Kenya visiting four of our current partners, two for the first time, and ‘interviewing’ a couple of other prospective partner organizations. Following are his impressions:  I arrived in Nairobi a few days after the end of the terrorist siege at Westgate Mall, not without misgivings. But I was met by a familiar face, Raphael Okumu, a long-time Pangea partner and iLEAP fellow. Raphael accompanied me on all the site visits and he opened his home to me in Nakuru. His insights were invaluable. Since I have been to Kenya four...[ Read More ]

TO RSVP FOR THIS EVENT: CLICK HERE NOW Deogratias (Deo) Niyizonkiza, the visionary founder and CEO of Village Health Works,  will be the featured speaker at Pangea's upcoming 10th anniversary celebration to be held Friday, November 15 from 6-9 pm. Deo will share his own amazing story as a young man in medical school surviving a massacre at the Burundi hospital where he was an intern, then escaping to New York homeless and unable to speak English. The people he meets along this journey, inspire him to complete his college degree at Columbia and then attend Harvard School of Public Health...[ Read More ]

On Friday April 12, Seattle International Foundation partnered with Pangea to host Human Rights Activist and Priest, Father Alejandro Solalinde for a dinner and informal discussion about his views on immigration reform and his work with Central American migrants in Ixtepec, Oaxaca.  The group of 23 gathered in Pangea member Betsy Hale’s home. Migrants face extortion, rape, and kidnapping from Mexican gangs who know that they have family members and dollars in the US.  Father Solalinde waits nightly for the cargo train coming from Guatemala that passes through Ixtepec.  Migrants from Central America jump on this train and ride it...[ Read More ]

Wednesday, May 15 is The Seattle Foundation's one-day online charitable giving event called GiveBIG. All donations made through the Foundation's website on this day will be matched with funds from a "stretch pool" giving donors the opportunity to increase the value of their gift. In addition, donors will be selected at random to receive a "Golden Ticket" which awards an additional $1000 to the non-profit they have selected. In 2012, Pangea's share of the stretch pool was $3845, and helped make our 10th annual grant pool our largest to date: $140,600 will be awarded by the end of Pangea's 10th grant cycle....[ Read More ]

Grants Awarded to 18 Global Organizations in Six Developing Countries The year 2013 marks a significant milestone for Pangea. While celebrating its 10th year of grantmaking, Pangea grew its 2013 grant pool to an all-time high of $140,600 a 10% increase over the previous year. Those funds are being used to help support 18 projects in 6 different countries across the globe, focusing on food security and empowerment of women. In addition, a portion of the grant pool has been reserved with the expectation that, later this year, Pangea will make its first grants in Burma, where Pangea sees tremendous...[ Read More ]