Making the “Go” Possible
I had just completed a 14-hour flight and gotten back on the plane for the 7-hour journey to my destination – Bangkok Thailand. It was about ½ way through this second trip when I realized that I had almost convinced myself that if I jumped out in mid-air, I could potentially make it. I was so tired of being on the plane. It was my first really long flight and I just wanted off the airplane.Five days later, I was laying on a hard wood floor in a hut on the hillside looking out over the mountain. It was so hot that you could barely breathe and everything you saw was covered in a haze from the heat. As I was miserably laying there, I asked myself a question I should have asked myself quite a few months earlier - Why am I in Thailand?
I didn’t have an answer right away to that question. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have an answer for another three years.
When I stepped into Thailand that first time, I visited a house that was partially constructed and inhabited by squatters. It was supposed to be the Home of Hope Children’s home. A home built to help prevent children from being sold into sex trafficking. Money had run out and the building was just existing over there. I didn’t know it at the time but that one photo of that one building was THE photo I would share when people asked me about my trip.
That photo sparked compassion and three years later when I was back in Thailand for my third trip, I walked through a finished building inhabited by the host family and over 15 children.
I realized something very powerful that day. I realized that humanitarian work - regardless of if it is medical, agricultural, religious, relief, construction, education… Whatever it is, they all have one thing in common.
They all require people to choose to Go.
Entheos has a duty to its Members, its community, to work very hard to create responsible spending when it comes to outreach. Creating trips with pricing structures that take care of the team and make travel an option is a high priority. We receive lots of questions on how our trip prices are determined. Today we want to address some of the pricing dynamics.
I50% of the cost of the trip satisfies the expenses of the ground – hotels, transportation, food, in country flights, etc…
15% goes to trip insurance, equipment rental and miscellaneous expenses such as tips, translators, canvases, duties/customs
10% goes to overhead – that is the project management of a trip. Everything from identifying dates of the trips, the opportunities for clinic and retreat days, and verifying the patients to be seen TO collecting passports, application and flight plans to pass along to the hosts on the ground. All of this is project management.
5% goes to Media support. This is vital to the GiveBack of Entheos to create cause marketing around your participation on these trips and to encourage a lifestyle of giving back. Media can look and does look different for each trip.
5% creates a space on the trip for staffing. On a trip, the staff’s role is to handle on the ground logistics so that the clinical staff and volunteers can focus on providing the hearing healthcare.
These combinations make up the cost of a trip and help to create resources to tackle any challenges that we have in planning international outreach.
But how do you measure impact?
One of the things that you HAVE to love about Entheos – YOU HAVE TO LOVE IT – is that this team of people – all of you – don’t just want to fit a hearing aid on someone. You all want people to experience a fuller life through accessible, sustainable hearing healthcare. And these trips reflect those same goals. Each trip has impact and a huge return on your investment:
Imagine a team of 15 people responding to the “GO”. Half being Audiologist/Volunteers.
If a team of 15 pays $6000 a piece for their trip, the impact your dollar more than doubles. More than $170,000 is strategically inserted into an area where the partners are willing, the need is great and the opportunity is wide open.
It is at this moment that you are create Access, Resource and Support to people who would otherwise NEVER have the opportunity for community through hearing healthcare.
Is going easy – NO – you may want to jump out of a plane at some point
Is giving easy – NO – you may have to re-evaluate your financial priorities
Is growing easy – NO – you may not feel the value of your sacrifice as you see firsthand the pains of something new starting.
Is your passion for reaching a world of people cut off from family, friends and community because of lack of Access, Resource and Support your literal heartbeat? - Yes
We Go, We Give, We Grow because it’s who we are.