Open up your mind, you are more powerful than you think. Behind all the funny t-shirts and important fundraisers this is what we really want. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to be a stereotype, but why can't we be original and have passionate ideas.

Lets be...
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Open up your mind, you are more powerful than you think. Behind all the funny t-shirts and important fundraisers this is what we really want. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to be a stereotype, but why can't we be original and have passionate ideas.

Lets be FEARLESS.
If there was a whole generation of creative, young, educated, open-minded students do you really think they couldn't make a difference in the world?

It can't just be me and it can't just be you. It is all about motivation. We need ideas and we need people behind the ideas. If enough people want something, they can get it.
There is strength in numbers. Thousands and thousands can create a critical mass and seriously save someone's life.

Maybe it's a little crazy... but this is the idea that I came up with
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Introduction to SAGA

Students Against Global Apathy (SAGA) is a groundbreaking new student organization at the University of Alberta that was literally born very, very late one night in a small tent at the footsteps of Mount Kilimanjaro. SAGA is fun, innovative,...
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Introduction to SAGA

Students Against Global Apathy (SAGA) is a groundbreaking new student organization at the University of Alberta that was literally born very, very late one night in a small tent at the footsteps of Mount Kilimanjaro. SAGA is fun, innovative, 100% non-profit, and we will change your attitude about global poverty. Our mission is simple: to get YOU thinking because you are more powerful than you think. Students are the future of the world and as such, we can determine what kind of world we want to live in and what kind of world we want for future generations. SAGA, as young minds with open hearts, strongly believe that that the suffering of fellow human beings is the greatest shame of our modern society. We seek a world of hope, tolerance and social justice — where poverty is defeated and all human beings on the planet live in peace, security and sustainability. Tsk…. not possible you say. Just watch us.

SAGA is not going to be like any other charity that you know. We are not old grand-mothers at a church bake sale; but young students with independence and open minds. We are not forming political or religious alliances that segregate people from people; but instead we will cooperate together for the common good. We are not having a vertical structure of management with trickle-down orders and egos; but rather something more like the branches of a tree, with thousands of beginnings and thousands of ends coming together to be united for a single goal and always reaching for the sky. SAGA will not be labelled as any stereotype: left-wing, right-wing, neutral, rich, poor, middle-class, black, white, brown, yellow, Canadian, American, Pakistani, Portuguese, or whatever. The nuances of our identity will be the same as the nuances of the entire human race. Can you find a word that describes all six billion of us without an exception? There is but one: human.

SAGA was founded by students, run by students and is marketed towards students. Therefore, we are still crazy enough to believe that we can make a difference in this chaotic world and that all we need is our imaginations to break free from the shackles of our apathy. This apathy is ridiculously pathetic and if we could ever find the courage to defeat it, the world would become an empty canvas for our inspirations. Yet apathy still plagues our society because poverty is an incredibly abstract concept. It is intangible and surreal. Poverty just doesn’t exist; at least not in our own comfortable modern lives. It is always on the other side of the planet happening to someone else in a country we probably can’t find on a map. So we fail to grasp any perspective and it just becomes buried in our subconscious as another fantasy-word that exists only in far-off magical fairytale lands. Sadly, the word itself, “poverty”, has become no different than purple unicorns, green leprechauns or flying elephants. We recognize the word is something bad and maybe form some pictures in our minds of starving black kids; but really this is all superficial. How can someone growing up in a place like Canada know what it is like to live in the pathos of poverty? It is impossible. But this doesn’t mean that we can use ignorance as an excuse. The human race is better than this. We know that global poverty is fundamentally wrong. So do something. Educate your mind, open your imagination, and erase the stereotypes and the false fears. Then believe, intrinsically and completely with your entire heart, that poverty can be defeated – that it is possible to do the impossible. This is the first step to creating the future that you want.

Simplicity and creativity, these are the foundations upon which we build our castles in the sky. SAGA ideas will be simple because simple works. We will also use our innovation to create these brilliant simple ideas so that they bring happiness and generate mass appeal for a young population whose motivation lays dormant for now. SAGA is 100% non-profit but doing something for a good cause should never feel like a burden, it should be fun, exciting and empowering. SAGA believes in this principle and is able to be fun, to do new things, and laugh at itself because we are not your typical non-profit organization – we are fearless, both in our commitment and in our experiments with life. We will try and fail, and try and fail, and try and fail, and try again to achieve our dreams because we have passion and we know what we are doing is fundamentally right. “To live a creative life; you must lose your fear of being wrong.” Joseph Chilton Pierce.

Simplify, simplify, simplify and you shall find answers. When you break down and tear apart the concept of poverty you will find that underneath its economical, logistical, and political layers; the problem is entirely psychological. Standardized beliefs that a G8 Summit or the United Nations or a governmental law will solve everything are deadly wrong and just displace the responsibility to someone else. A single person just like you can make a real difference. Further, if you believe that poverty will always plague the planet forever and ever; then you have already lost the battle. You must believe that poverty can be defeated and there is an end. You can’t change the minds of others and you can’t slap Bush in the face; however, you can change your own life and change your own actions. Freedom is yours to do anything you want; so dream big, think positive, and take those first tiny steps because they will not be irrelevant. Your actions will cause others to follow and others to follow the followers, and so on and so on. Your discontent can create a revolution. “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world, that is a myth of the atomic age, but rather in being able to remake ourselves” Mohandas Gandhi.

Sincerely,

Alex Daraseng
SAGA President
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Simplify, simplify, simplify and you shall find answers. When you break down and tear apart the concept of poverty you will find that underneath its economical, logistical, and political layers; the problem is entirely psychological. Standardized beliefs that a G8 Summit or the United Nations or...
[ view more ]

Simplify, simplify, simplify and you shall find answers. When you break down and tear apart the concept of poverty you will find that underneath its economical, logistical, and political layers; the problem is entirely psychological. Standardized beliefs that a G8 Summit or the United Nations or a governmental law will solve everything are deadly wrong and just displace the responsibility to someone else. A single person just like you can make a real difference. Further, if you believe that poverty will always plague the planet forever and ever; then you have already lost the battle. You must believe that poverty can be defeated and there is an end. You can’t change the minds of others and you can’t slap Bush in the face; however, you can change your own life and change your own actions. Freedom is yours to do anything you want; so dream big, think positive, and take those first tiny steps because they will not be irrelevant. Your actions will cause others to follow and others to follow the followers, and so on and so on.
[ view less ]