For Immediate Release PDF version

Gay Dollars for Global Causes

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDERED (LGBT) CHARITY DELIVERS HUMANITARIAN AID TO GUATEMALA

San Francisco, CA, July 28, 2011 – Rainbow World Fund (RWF), the only international humanitarian aid organization that is based in the LGBT community, just returned from a ten-day humanitarian aid journey to Guatemala. Over the course of the journey 13 volunteers visited orphanages, schools, medical clinics and human rights' projects delivering over 1,300 pounds of life-saving medications, medical equipment and school supplies as well as hundreds of stuffed animals and a series of monetary grants. RWF's mission is to promote LGBT philanthropy in the area of global humanitarian aid and development.

This was RWF's seventh annual visit to Guatemala. Since 2004 RWF has delivered supplies valued at over $1,000,000 and distributed $122,000 in grants to humanitarian-based projects in Guatemala. In addition to delivering much needed aid, the group represented a team of ambassadors for LGBT human rights, met with individuals and groups -- from school children and rural villagers to shamans and religious leaders -- speaking openly of our experiences as LGBT people. The journey's highlights included visiting an orphanage for HIV+ children, meeting with the street children of Guatemala City and dialoging with OTRANS, also known as "The Queens of the Night" a group of transgender women fighting for their survival in Guatemala. RWF also built new and reinforced existing connections with the indigenous Mayan population, exploring our common humanity. Historically, Guatemala's Mayans have been subjected to genocide by their government, had their marriages invalidated and been denied a voice in the political process. We discovered that the LGBT community has a lot more in common with indigenous people than we realized! The establishment and nurturing of these relationships is important for everyone's survival, here and abroad.

"I came home knowing that suffering and compassion is actually the greatest equalizer between people regardless of their differences in culture, race, gender or social status."  -Laura Tracy, Trip participant

Over the last seven years RWF has donated over $3 million in humanitarian aid (financial grants/medicine/medical equipment) worldwide on behalf of the LGBT and friend's community to those in need around the world. 

“Rainbow World Fund's work is about serving humanity, gay and straight alike. We are living in a time that tells us our survival on this planet depends on each of us giving more to each other. The aid that we provide builds relationships and changes misperceptions about who we are. It allows people to see that LGBT people are engaged and positively contributing to the world. We are about showing the world who we really are and what we care about." -Jeff Cotter, RWF Founder

About Rainbow World Fund  
Founded in 2000, RWF (www.rainbowfund.org) is an all-volunteer international humanitarian service agency based in the LGBT and friends community. RWF's mission is to promote LGBT philanthropy in the area of world humanitarian relief. RWF works to help people who suffer from hunger, poverty, disease, oppression and war by raising awareness and funds to support relief efforts and sustainable development projects around the world. 

RWF currently supports projects focusing on global HIV/AIDS, water development, landmine eradication, hunger, education, orphans and disaster relief in Africa, Asia, Central America, the Caribbean and the United States. RWF is unique as the world's first and only LGBT-based humanitarian aid organization. RWF also works to raise awareness of the charitable contributions of the LGBT community, and to establish connections with non-LGBT communities.  RWF programs strengthen the LGBT community by increasing LGBT visibility, serving as a platform for and active demonstration of our community’s compassion and concern.  We change how the world sees LGBT people by building bridges based on compassion, help and hope with the larger world community.

RWF’s philosophy is that we are all “One Human Family” and that we are living in a time that tells us that human survival is directly linked to each of us giving more to each other. We bring people together who believe that together we can heal the world.  We believe that LGBT people, like all people, have a unique voice and powerful role in world healing. RWF is proud to support and further that healing. We are working to change the separation consciousness that is underlying the disparity in the world – how people feel divided in the world today – by racism, sexism, homophobia and so on. RWF is about reminding people that we are really all part of one big global family and we need to help each other.

Rainbow World Fund has three primary goals:

•  To provide humanitarian aid to communities in need around the world;
•  To create awareness within the LGBT community of the need for these relief efforts and;
• To change perceptions of the LGBT community by putting our highest beliefs and values into action demonstrating our compassion and caring for the world. RWF’s projects affect social change at home and abroad through education, networking, developing solidarity, fostering understanding and building community.

The Call of the LGBT Community  
s with the fight against AIDS and with our continuing struggle for civil rights, we cannot wait for others to lead. Our world is as interdependent and interconnected as ever before. We as LGBT people have a role, like all peoples, to play in healing the planet -- making peace, building bridges, providing perspective and balance. Having grown up in a straight-dominated world, we learned valuable survival skills that we can now use to help others. And the world is certainly in short supply of the gifts that we bring in abundance: humor, grace, selflessness, an appreciation of beauty in all its forms, justice, equality and love of life. 

If the 1969 Stonewall riots and the years following represented our community's painful birth and burgeoning development, then the 1970s represented our wild teenage years. The crisis of HIV/AIDS pushed us harshly into our early adulthood and taught us a tremendous amount about giving, growing and coming together as a community for support and our very survival. We are now entering our true adulthood, which brings both power and responsibility. It's up to us to create the world we want. It's time to assume our authority as partners in global healing. The opportunity is here. You can be the source. You can be the inspiration. Together we can change the world.

Why Give Internationally?  
The AIDS epidemic taught us to get involved with hardships facing others before they affect us locally. The way that AIDS has been allowed to spread around the world is representative of our old way of seeing the world and treating each other. For many people it was okay for AIDS to spread as long as it was not affecting their family, community or home. We all know now how short sighted that type of thinking is and how its ripple effect serves to degrade humanitarian efforts at all levels both here and abroad. The level of giving that RWF represents is not about taking away from our community or our country. We give our community the opportunity to reach out beyond our own borders and connect with other oppressed minorities. RWF goes beyond the LGBT community to share what HIV/AIDS and our civil rights struggle has taught us about coming together as a community in loving, giving and caring compassion.

"People often ask me why is it important for LGBT people to help others beyond our community. I have often been told 'charity begins at home.' That may be true, but I believe that we are living in a time when we need to expand our definition of what “home” is and realize that the entire planet is our home and that everyone in it is our family." -Jeff Cotter, RWF Founder

Please note that RWF gives both domestically and internationally.  For example, in response to Hurricane Katrina we provided one million pounds of food aid and funding to help rebuild massive damage and stock life-saving food banks.

RWF's Recent Contributions to World Well-Being  

• Food aid for Hurricane evacuees (including funding one million meals for Hurricane Katrina survivors);
• Emergency supplies in the aftermath of the South East Asia tsunami;
• Medical supplies and financial aid to various humanitarian projects in Guatemala;
• Water projects throughout Central America which provide safe drinking water to hundreds of desperate people;
• Thousands of pounds of medicine, medical supplies and school supplies to communities in Mexico;
• Launch of a landmine eradication project in Cambodia;
• An HIV/AIDS case management program in South Africa which funds the monthly salaries of rural HIV peer educators;
• A computer lab for a Guatemalan middle school;
• A benefit concert for Haiti;
• Annual trips to Washington DC to advocate on Capitol Hill for development and aid issues and;
• Thousands of stuffed animals to children in hospitals, schools and orphanages.

Other high profile projects include RWF's annual creation of The World Tree of Hope in San Francisco's City Hall, and The Bus of Hope humanitarian aid trip to Tijuana, Mexico.

MEDIA CONTACTS  

Jeff Cotter, RWF Executive Director (415) 608-5333 / jcotter@rainbowfund.org
Karen Kai, RWF Vice President (415) 823-9355 / ruskykai@earthlink.net
MEDIA RELEASE: http://www.rainbowfund.org/press/guatemala2011
Photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwfund/sets/  

Rainbow World Fund, 4111 - 18th Street, Suite 5, San Francisco, CA 94114

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