When our team first sat down to brainstorm ideas for our mission statement we started by going around the table and asking everyone what they would like our statement to include. Our initial list:
- CAPACITY--allow the local people to benefit and grow
- working with community resources
- sustainability and getting locals involved
- relationship with the government
- education
- Knowing WHY you’re there
- focus on oil spill--recovery aid
- independence- hearing and empowering the people
- make sure you focus on the right people
- balance between oversight and liberties
We then asked everyone to take a minute and think about what goals and objectives they would like to achieve through the creation of our NGO. We drafted this list:
The team then split into smaller groups of 3 to 4 people to come up with possible mission statements. We have a variety of different statements all employing different aspects that we wanted to cover in building our NGO.
Potential Mission Statements
Key phrases that we liked and wanted to include:
Work in Progress...?
Mission Statement:
Our goal is to empower people to improve and sustain land and water quality in regions affected by industrial pollution.
At the end of this class we had all felt confident about the mission statement above. What we had yet to realize is that our mission statement should be a dynamic entity; something that is able to change as we research more and grow into our future NGO.
- sustainability
- recovery
- oil cleanup
- political organization
- capacity building
- independence (self wrought development)
- education
- dialogue with government and Big Oil
- EMPOWERMENT
- Advocacy-safe water and sanitation
The team then split into smaller groups of 3 to 4 people to come up with possible mission statements. We have a variety of different statements all employing different aspects that we wanted to cover in building our NGO.
Potential Mission Statements
- Advocate for the indigenous people affected by big oil companies. Educate the people with sustainable solutions to the direct effects of oil spills. Work to achieve community goals through building capacity.
- Create an improved lifestyle amongst the victimized Ogoni people and establish a cleaner more wholesome lifestyle in the polluted region.
- Our mission is to provide education and improve the quality of life in the wake of the recent oil spill.
- Our goal is to provide disenfranchised people with access to clean water and education. We will sustain our goals through building capacity with the government and education of the people. We plan to take a localized approach in tailoring the process and goals of each community.
Key phrases that we liked and wanted to include:
- Mitigate environmental impacts.
- Alleviate suffering brought about by soil and water contamination
- Suffering → hardship,
- to reclaim their land, clean water, and industry. (?)
- Our goal is to improve the livelihood of those threatened by ecological degradation.
Work in Progress...?
- Our goal is to alleviate suffering brought about by ecological degradation. By building capacity through training (guidance?) and sanitation initiatives, we hope to empower the environmentally disenfranchised people of the developing world.
Mission Statement:
Our goal is to empower people to improve and sustain land and water quality in regions affected by industrial pollution.
At the end of this class we had all felt confident about the mission statement above. What we had yet to realize is that our mission statement should be a dynamic entity; something that is able to change as we research more and grow into our future NGO.