>Is there any way for you
>to solicit support from any
>of these Norwegian-based organizations?

Yes, im sure many of them would love to either give support and assistance, participate or what ever else they can do (e.g. give us material). I will get anything but a no, i am sure about that

I'll contact them!

>The OD project sounds very
>interesting. I wonder if
>they have US partners/connections.

It is in USA! but still very new
http://odw.info.usaid.gov/

But, from what i have seen from various american volunteer organizations, because their "framework" or "pattern" is the way it is (traditional), it is difficult for them to reach as far as e.g. ODW does.

The traditional organizations have much in common: they follow methodes that have already been created, have very few followers.. and have ugly webpages and publications (i think the design actually has much to say)

I think because OD was started and is being run by students, who dont follow those old patterns, they are able to reach much further than the traditional organizations. OD is preceded by International Week, where a whole week is dedicated to study a culture, which is the culture where the OD project of the year will support. The students who were responsible for OD & International Week at my school managed to do very much with that week! So, even if most school doesnt do as much as mine did, for a whole day 50% of the highschool students in norway does their day's work for ODW. Doing that, the organization also gets very much publicity - the students clean homes, work at a factory, sell coffee at the street, start a small street café - and that way people see them everywhere for a whole day.

My school's OD organizers, who worked close together with the teachers, had the musician from Tanzania come to lead the singing. He also lead the drum-group (they became real good)! And also, we had a representative from the OD organization who came to our school at the first day and held a small "conference" about who we would support that year, and we were shown a documentary made by the OD organization themselves. (And: they got dope ass designs, anything from webpage to flyers!)

The teachers were very involved, they too participated in the dancing or art lessons. It isn't voluntary, everybody who go to a highschool has to participate. And everybody has to do a day's work, where the money has to be given to the OD organization. If they skip the OD week they will get the same punishment as they would get for skipping a whole normal week.

I think that is what the american ODW has a problem with: being heard and seen. They aren't national, they dont have a week dedicated to their project in most american highschools.

For each year's ODW, the ODW organization provide all schools with a massive amount of material. Movies, music, pictures, written and spoken stories. I got the feeling that the ODW workers couldnt possibly do more than what they were doing! They covered all areas.

Their webpage is divided into three parts:
1. Project/information
2. Teacher
3. Student
...and they try to have the teachers and students work together as much as possible.

For last year's OD they gathered very much material. They sent three representatives to South Africa, for three weeks. On the OD webpage you can read stories from south african youth, who are the same age as the representatives/highschool students, who told their story. You can download a south african AIDS-counsious rap and read a long story about the southafrican MCs that they got to know. You can read short stories written by south african youth, see art made by south african artists and read articles by norwegian youth on anything from the western view of Africa to AIDS/HIV globally. They even provide a cooking book! And a more important book, a resource publication for teachers.

Look at last year's ODW's page, to fight AIDS and HIV:
http://www.od.no/2000/index.html

"The results from OD 2000:
857 schools participated, 50% of norway's highschools.
180 000 students participated.
70 000 students met a representative from OD.
2 976 758 dollars was earned (i had to calculate roughly).
12,27% was used for information and administration of the OD organization in Norway, the rest went to fight AIDS and HIV"

Norway is a country with a 4.5 million population, and they are happy with the result (but of course they will work to get more schools, and they feel they have it difficult to raise more money for every year). They had good publicity, e.g. the education minister agreed to be sold to the highest bid on an online auction, like ebay.com She had to work for a whole day, for the person who won the auction.

Read a very good page about how it started and spread out:
http://www.usaid.gov/odw/odwhistory.html





I dont think i can say much more
But i think that the system/community we are trying to get started can be very useful for ODW. It would be wrong for us to jump in, out of nowhere, and say they should use "our baby". But if they would give us support by becoming a partner, it could give good to both us and them. The people behind ODW are very activists, and they have gathered very much GOOD material from all the previous projects, and continue to do so every year. It can be used as inspiration or as a resource. And that could inspire someone to one day star an online ODW alternative that isnt limited to one country and which would be run over "our baby".

And again: this is just OD, there are many others to pick (we even got the OkaySistas collective which is being started on this board right now)

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"Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness." — Marshall McLuhan