In honor of the release of GFC’s latest book, Our Grandparents: A Global Album, GFC On the Road has invited GFC staff to share memorable stories about their grandparents. The following post is from Anne Sorensen, GFC’s director of development.

Washington, DC - Grandpa Hansen (J Kimball Hansen) grew up during the Great Depression in the United States. Like many who lived in that era, he learned early lessons about hard work and frugality that he has passed down to three generations. “Always practice a good amount of self-denial” and “Never spend good money on something you can either make yourself or do without” are some of the words of wisdom he has shared with his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

When I was growing up, I loved hearing my mom tell stories about how Grandpa made her and my aunts and uncles reuse wrapping paper and how he drank the “green-bean juice” out of the can so that it didn’t go to waste. He owned a fleet of VW buses, only one of which was usually road-worthy, and even that was sometimes dubious. The others furnished him with spare parts for repairs. Grandpa is probably more resourceful than my siblings and me combined, but we do what we can to demonstrate our gumption to him so that he never has a reason to call us “pantywaists.”

Grandpa Hansen worked for many years on Native American reservations throughout the western United States. My mom has great stories about growing up on and around these reservations and Grandpa took some amazing portraits of some of the Native Americans he knew, but that is another story.

Lusaka, Zambia - In many countries, adolescent girls are a particularly vulnerable population. They often face gender discrimination within their families, at school, and from society in general. A lack of respect for women in some cultures puts them at risk of sexual abuse or harassment. In places where the HIV/AIDS epidemic has produced many child-headed households, girls may have to assume the responsibility of managing a household and caring for younger siblings. GFC has been a member of the Nike Foundation’s Grassroots Girls Initiative (GGI) since 2006. GGI invests in grassroots organizations that work to empower adolescent girls (see www.girleffect.org). For the last several years, GFC has expanded its portfolio of community partners that focus on girls. In doing so, GFC strives to help these girls recognize their value, arm them with the knowledge and skills they need to create a better future, and nurture their dreams. Read more

Cairo, Egypt - GFC’s senior program officer for Africa, Solome Lemma, and I have just wrapped up the organization’s first visit to Egypt. In addition to meeting with potential new grantee partners, our goal for this trip was to learn as much about the landscape of the country’s civil society as we could in a week, in preparation for expanding the number of GFC grantee partners here.

We soon realized that it is not possible to gain a full grasp of civil society in a country in a week. We talked with many people, from representatives of large, international development organizations to community volunteers. Each conversation added to our understanding of the sector and helped clarify some things. But each of these discussions also raised additional questions. We leave feeling that we have just scratched the surface and that GFC will need more time to develop these relationships to gain a fuller understanding of the civil society context here. Read more

Cairo, Egypt – Solome Lemma, GFC’s senior program officer for Africa, and I have been in Egypt for three days, and it’s been a whirlwind. Like other large cities, Cairo is a mix of the old and the new. The ancient origins of this city and civilization are evident in the Great Pyramids and “Old Cairo.” But right next door will be a brand-new mobile phone store, coffee shop, or shopping mall.

This juxtaposition of the old and the modern is all around here. Today, we visited a prospective grantee partner that provides physical therapy and rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy. There may be as many as 250,000 children in Egypt with cerebral palsy. While the government provides funding for organizations that work with people with mental disabilities, very few options exist for children with physical disabilities. Old attitudes about people with disabilities—that they bring shame to their families or are incapable of contributing to society—are here. But so are newer ways of looking at and working with these children. Read more