Seatle Insight Meditation Society

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Work with a team to offer trainings in mindfulness meditation to men and women inside prisons or returning to the community after being incarcerated. For more information see the web site below or contact Ruby Phillips at the email address below.

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Founded by longtime SIMS members Cora Edmonds and Phil Crean, NCF is a Seattle-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization supporting community-based education for predominantly girls in remote and underserved regions of Nepal. A major focus is education for girls from the Thehe village located in the Humla region in far western Nepal. NCF has partnered with the people from Thehe to build a hostel and English medium school in Simikot that will eventually support over two hundred students. NCF is developing a sponsorship network to sustain the school over time and build the connection between our communities.

Other NCF programs include funding two teachers who work with over fifty young nuns at the Gargen Chyoling Nunnery and the sponsorship of sixty children to attend school at the Hindu Vidyapeeth School near Dang. NCF is also involved with village development projects including building biogas toilets in Thehe and support with village development of solar energy and water supply infrastructure. 

In March and April of 2011, the SIMS community participated in a "Change for Change" program where SIMS families and individuals were encouraged to mindfully collect their daily change for girls living at the Simikot hostel. The funds raised were used to purchase school art supplies and help develop the school arts department. NCF is hoping to connect the girls from Simikot with the children in the SIMS community through the exchange of art and other creative media.  

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Project Kesho ("tomorrow") is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to improving the lives of children in villages and orphanages located in Tanzania and Uganda. Primary emphasis is on improving access to and quality of education in the villages of Lundamatwe and Ulonge, near Iringa, Tanzania, and at the Little Angels orphanage in Kigogwa, near Mityana, Uganda. Building primary school classrooms has been a major part of the work that has taken place over the past five years, in addition to helping to provide the basic necessities that enable children to attend school, such as digging and securing wells to provide clean water, buying medical supplies, and starting a sustainable food source farm. At this time Project Kesho is also funding secondary school scholarships to allow children to continue beyond the primary level.

In the past two years, Project Kesho has provided support to Little Angels, a privately run primary school and orphanage. Most orphans are children of parents who have died of AIDS. The school has 350 students, of which 150 are orphans, and 70 of these orphans board at the school. Food permitting, all orphans receive a meal at lunchtime, and the orphans who board receive two meals a day. This year's improvements have been construction of a bathroom, two classrooms and an office; purchased goats and home supplies; and the establishment of rainwater harvesting. 

Sponsored by Joyce Michelson, a longtime SIMS member, and her husband, Guy, through the Village Assist charitable group. 

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