Our partners at the Engine Room are working to coordinate and streamline digital activism and advocacy around the globe. Participation is the key to doing that successfully. They need your input. Please take the Social Tech Census here and check out the blog post below from their Susannah Villa to learn more.  

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From the Arab Spring to Occupy, the events of 2011 highlighted the potential of new technologies for advocacy. But new tools are more likely to facilitate social impact if they’re used by people with the right training and support.

This isn’t happening as much as it could. Why? I think it’s because of a few big challenges facing the field of support for digital advocates. First, there’s a lack of information from the ground about what is actually needed. Second, trainers are too often flown in from thousands of miles away for a few days of workshopping with no incentive to remain in contact with the advocates they trained. Third, remote training resources (like guides) often sit on the web without reaching those who might be able to benefit from them.

Part of why we founded the engine room was to address these challenges. Our first project, the Social Tech Census, aims to map the best resources for integrating digital media into advocacy work in order to inform the work of the communities of practice that we work with: advocates, support organizations and technologists.  The Census is an important foundational step for us and (if all goes according to plan) will also be a useful tool for our partners.

But how, exactly, will it be useful for them? We decided to ask, and here’s what we found out. There are four main ways that groups we partner with will be able to act on the information that we’re gathering.

1.   New program ideas based on empirical evidence for who needs what and where

Any attempt to compile an exhaustive database of resources will ideally end up spotlighting gaps in what’s out there. We suspect this will be the case with regard to regions (where are all the francophone tech trainings on mapping tools?), issues (say, digital security versus strategy for online video) and types (ad hoc communities built on email lists or formal organizations) of support.

By shedding light on these gaps the Census should make it easier for our partners to better identify and understand demand in order to meet it. Here’s an example: say WITNESS is writing a proposal for a training program in a region that they’ve never worked in before. They could use the Census to identify and include hard data about the relevant training gaps in order to underline the importance of the proposed program.

2. Adapting existing training programs to on-the-ground contexts

The first step in launching any capacity building program (technology-focused or otherwise) is often to identify local stakeholders. You need these networks to engage with the most nuts and bolts aspects of your training effort (for example, identifying the right participants). This process is both time consuming and expensive. The Census aims to allow trainers to identify local actors – and get necessary information from the ground in order to maximize the impact of their projects.  New Tactics in Human Rights, for example, could use it to connect on the ground trainers with people who are already there providing support – helping both to maximize their impact.

3. Getting resources for remote learning into the right hands

A lot of our partners have put quite a bit of very laudable effort into creating resources for remote learning so that they can help more people to become effective digital advocates. Take WITNESS’ Video Advocacy Toolkit, Access’ guide to addressing DDoS attacks or the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self Defense project. If they’re going to have as much impact as possible, these resources need to get into the hands of those who need them most.  Partners should be able to use the Census to identify outreach partners who clearly understand information needs in target communities.

4. Working together to enhance the current model by which advocates get tech support

Will the the Census minimize the degree to which trainers have to be parachuted into new contexts in the first place? We hope so. The best thing we heard from one of our partners was that they didn’t want to fly across the world to give a training (or send one of their staff). They’d rather use the Census to connect local need to local support.

Do you work with an international organization or network that supports technology use in advocacy? We’d love to get your opinions- take this survey- it only takes 5 minutes.

***

By Susannah Vila, also posted on engine room’s blog as well as by  WITNESS, Small World News and other engine room partners

Susannah used to run outreach and training content for Movements.org, where she spent a lot of time developing online resources for digital advocacy and speaking with other support organizations and advocates in the field about their work.  She co-founded the engine room to address needs that were made clear through this work and through a series of in-depth interviews that she conducted with advocates in Cairo in the summer of 2011.

Image from infographic on IHub Nairobi (startupafrica.com)

Chiapas, Mexico: Three indigenous communities in the Lancandon Jungle are under urgent threat of eviction from the Mexican authorities. We need your help to halt the evictions and help the indigenous communities gain more equal footing to advocate for their human rights. There are three ways you can help today: 1) Understand this complex issue. 2) Sign up to to for our Urgent Alerts so that you can take action as the situation evolves. 3) Donate to get a rapid response team on the ground.

1) Understand the issue
For a year Dd has collaborated with civil society actors to build the concept for a community mapping program in Chiapas, Mexico. Chiapas is a region with a complex history of land tenure disputes between ethnic groups, timber companies and the government. There, the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve holds Mexico’s greatest concentration of biodiversity. In Montes Azules, 11 indigenous communities are under threat of imminent forced eviction by Mexican authorities. Last week, three communities were told they have only weeks left on the land.

Evictions would be devastating — especially to the women of the community. Evictions would force the 500 villagers into urban slums or onto flood plains. Though the community has committed no crime, they would likely be held in detention. When resettled, finding a livelihood would be a struggle. For indigenous women in the community, it is very likely that they would be pushed into prostitution to survive.

We believe that indigenous rights should not be in conflict with environmental rights. The communities in question are practicing sustainable land-use planning and want to protect the environment of their ancestral home. Dd is deploying a small team to work directly with the local communities to help them map their land and tell their own story. Our goal is to impart media & mapping skills so the community can better dialogue and negotiate – on more equal footing – with the Mexican authorities. In the short-term we hope to prevent evictions, but the long-term goal is for the government and communities to recognize they are all working for the same thing: to protect the Montes Azules Reserve.

2) Sign up for urgent alerts

The Mexican Government is responsive to international attention. As local communities produce maps and media telling their story, we want to be sure to connect them to an audience who cares. We will send you the most relevant work they produce as well as any petitions or calls to action they put out. We’ll need your help to read, retweet and share, so that their stories can reach key NGOs and government influencers, keeping you engaged as things evolve. We will only contact you when there is a pressing need, and you can opt out at any time.

3) Help Dd send a response team + equipment to Chiapas immediately: Donate
We have raised some urgent travel funds but still need support to get equipment and a team on the ground in time. Your donation will allow us to work directly with these communities at the most necessary point: NOW, in anticipation of the eviction. Your donation will directly contribute to our mission of empowering marginalized communities to fight for their human rights.

Stay tuned to our blog, Facebook or Twitter to keep in touch. Thank you for your support.

UPDATE:  Thanks to the Arca Foundation for helping support the travel component and WITNESS for contributing cameras to ensure that the communities will have tools to document the ongoing situation. (Check out Witness’ ongoing work on forced evictions.) We still need help to make the trip possible … please consider donating today!

We are excited to have both our co-founders on stage in Austin this week, participating in Tech4Good panels at SXSWi. If you’ll be at SXSWi, please come by and join the conversation.

Tuesday, March 13, at 3:30 in the AT&T conference center, come hear Emily Jacobi on the “Women Drive Change: Tech in the Global South” panel (#femtech is the hashtag) along with Catherine Harrington of the Women’s Learning Partnership, Jenn Sramek of Civic Actions, Ashoka Fellow Kara Andrade from Vozz (who has partnered with Dd on work in Guatemala) and Zawadi Nyong’o of the Africa Cancer Foundation.

They will be discussing how, from Africa to South America to Southeast Asia, women in the Global South are using technology tools in new and creative ways with astounding results. Sophisticated and coordinated social media campaigns are becoming the domain of women all over the world.

The speakers will talk about what this means for women in the Global South, how their online personas might differ from real-world personas in societies where women have fewer rights, and where technology tools need to go next in order to meet their specific needs.

Mark Belinsky will also be speaking. His panel, “How Not to Die: Using Tech in a Dictatorship” is on Monday, March 12 at 9 am in Room 9ABC. Mark will be presenting alongside Brian Conley of Small World News, Deanna Zandt of Techbologist and Sabrina Hersi Issa of Be Bold Media, discussing how technologies often built in the west are being used around the world in extremely dangerous situations. They’ll discuss how people have protected themselves around the globe, including concrete experiences and examples from Burma, Tibet, Liberia and Egypt.

See you in Austin.

Happy International Women’s Day! To mark the 101st celebration of International Women’s Day, we at Digital Democracy want to take a moment to reflect on our work to empower women and girls,  and celebrate their remarkable vision, courage, achievements and inspiration around the globe.

Two years ago, Dd launched programming focused on Women and gender issues in Haiti, a country where women make up 52% of the population but are largely excluded from formal decision making and have historically been the subjects of disproportionate rates of violence. Following the earthquake in 2010, violence was exacerbated (Read the recently released NYU Law study reflecting on the alarming rise in sexual violence post-earthquake and how it has effected women’s lives). Dd’s work aimed to highlight our partners agency and empower them to use their voices and share their expertise in new ways, as part of a systemic address to gender-based violence (GBV).

In the wake of the January, 2010 earthquake, we began collaborating with KOFAVIV, FAVILEK and other women’s groups in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, providing trainings in photography and digital literacy. These trainings were aimed to give women new tools to share their stories and perspectives on life in displacement camps and poor neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince with a national and international audience. You can see some of their photos here.

Over the past two years, our collaboration has grown and evolved, as new digital tools and increased technical capacity have strengthened the organizing and advocacy efforts of our partners in Haiti. Other aspects of our work in Haiti include trainings to enhance digital literacy, technical skills, mapping and digital security. Following these trainings, our partners in Haiti have created a blog of anonymously posted stories reflecting their voices from the ground in PaP.

We have worked with KOFAVIV to develop a secure database to digitize & streamline information as part of a comprehensive approach to helping women survivors of gender-based violence access needed  medical, legal and psychological services. With the database, KOFAVIV can analyze and track trends in cases received. This improves their ability to report on GBV and leverage their expertise on the ground to push local, national and international power players to implement concrete measures to address the security of women and girls in Haiti.  (read more about the database in Wired here) and follow up on our progress here with a recent report on our work.

We have also worked with KOFAVIV and the two largest mobile carriers in Haiti, Digicel & Voila, to set up a FREE emergency response call center for GBV. In Haiti there is no effective 911-like system. By dialing 572, callers are connected to our partners who provide support and resources over the phone, directing them to  the nearest treatment centers, educating them about basic rights and legal recourse and stressing the importance of medical care in the first 72 hours after rape to prevent HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancy. (Read more about the call center here.)

Our work in Haiti is part of a larger constellation of work to amplify and support women as leaders in Haiti. In the Huffington Post, Stephanie Foster highlights  one of the current national initiatives to unite women as a driving force in the reconstruction and development of Haiti.

This effort has been supported by Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, United Stated Department of State. In the Ambassador’s supporting remarks, she highlights the universality of this commitment: “You know well that no country can get ahead if it leaves half of its people behind, if it fails to tap the potential, experience, talents and vision of its women. You also know that when women progress, all of society progresses.”

We agree. In solidarity with women working from the grassroots around the globe, those working with technology to help build tools to unite those women and enhance their work, from our women-led team at Dd, we wish you all a very happy, celebratory and empowering International Women’s Day 2012.

This article was written by Emily Jacobi and first appeared in the Huffington Post on 2/23/12. Read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-jacobi/burma-myanmar-technology_b_1291110.html

Once again, a global record was shattered in Myanmar/Burma.

This time, the record wasn’t for the largest number of child soldiers (designated by Human Rights Watch in 2002), the world’s longest-running civil conflict, or the jailing of dissidents. Instead, this month organizers in the largest city, Yangon, broke the record for the largest number of attendees at a BarCamp, a type of user-generated technology conference that has been hosted all over the world. Not only did more than 5,000 people attend the tech convening, the opening address was made by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, known affectionately as “the Lady.”

Barcamps, which have been hosted everywhere from Orlando, Florida to Harare, Zimbabwe, normally range from 100 to 600 attendees. Democratic in nature, BarCamps are usually convened by an organizing committee, but the full agenda and content of sessions is decided by participants once the event begins. BarCamps have inspired further types of “unconferences” including CrisisCamps to respond to events such as recent earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. Amongst international BarCampers, BarCamp Yangon has taken on a legendary status for its record-breaking attendance — three years ago, BarCamp debuted in Yangon with close to 3,000 attendees.

The success of BarCamp Yangon is all the more surprising given that it emerges from a country better known for resembling Orwell’s 1984 rather than the Silicon Valley of Southeast Asia. Ruled by a military dictatorship for five decades, even the name of the country – Myanmar or Burma, depending who you ask — is highly politicized. However, Suu Kyi’s surprise appearance at BarCamp comes on the heels of a general opening of the country, marked by a nominal transition from military to civilian government in fall 2010, Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest a year ago, Secretary Clinton’s visit to the country last December and the release of 651 detainees (including many political prisoners) in January.

I was in Yangon in fall 2009, two years following the military’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters known as the Saffron Uprising. The current changes in the country seemed unthinkable at the time — elections loomed on the horizon but few people seemed hopeful. Aung San Suu Kyi had been under house arrest for close to 15 years, and media was still tightly controlled. Yet, looking closely, I saw glimmers of the change that was to come. Internet cafes had proliferated around the city, filled with young people. The price of sim cards for mobile phones had recently dropped from $2,000 U.S. to $20. Walking downtown, illegal satellite dishes were visible across the rooftops of buildings, and in teashops I’d scour the weekly Internet Journal for words I recognized. Standing in angular roman letters beside circular Burmese script, words like “Twitter” and “Facebook” appeared frequently in articles even though both sites were officially blocked in the country at the time.

In Yangon that fall, my friend Mark and I met with technologists and bloggers who had been pushing for technological innovation in their country, despite the slow download speeds and weak mobile network. Prior attempts to organize gatherings of bloggers had failed, but in the concept of BarCamp, they saw a possibility. Mark and I connected them to BarCamp organizers in Bangkok, who had been evangelizing the format in cities across Southeast Asia, from Ho Chi Min City to Kuala Lampur. Brainstorming how to get permission to hold a BarCamp in a country where unofficial gatherings of more than 5 people were illegal, the Burmese techies decided to focus on the importance of developing the country’s technical skills and supporting the business community. Four months after our initial meeting, the organizing committee pulled it off, and the first BarCamp Yangon was hosted on January 23-24, 2010.

Held annually, BarCamp Yangon has become a fixture of the Burmese tech community, an incubator for young software developers, bloggers and budding entrepreneurs. This year, topics covered at BarCamp included Augmented Reality, Mobile Government, Applying Agile Practices and even poetry. However the idea of opening BarCamp with an address by an opposition politician would have been unthinkable even a few months ago. In the current context of the country’s opening economic and political situation, it was a cause for celebration, and 1500 balloons were released following Aung San Suu Kyi’s address.

Standing in front of the Myanmar Info Tech building where BarCamp was held, Suu Kyi addressed the crowd of attendees, connecting the work of the BarCamp participants to the broader political developments in the country. She urged attendees to consider how to “use technology for the world to be better, for humans to be better, and for citizens to become better.”

Speaking to the user-generated nature of BarCamp, where any participant can propose and lead a session, Suu Kyi cited an eastern proverb — “When one candle lights another candle, the first candle’s light doesn’t dim.” She went on to explain “Just like that, when you share your knowledge, the knowledge of others increases, but your knowledge doesn’t become less. When we share, our world becomes brighter. Knowledge is light. So, use the technology as the candle light to make a better world.”

In a country emerging from 49 years of military leadership, where university courses were often canceled in times of political unrest and where the educational system itself is top-down and autocratic, BarCamp’s emphasis on drawing out the inherent talents and knowledge of each participant might seem radical, but perhaps is just what the country needs as it transitions — sometimes slowly and fitfully — to a democracy.

The concept of “small-d democracy” is at the foundation of our work at Digital Democracy. Fast Company’s March 2012 issue features Dd in solidarity with other innovators who have helped elevate, amplify and fortify the Occupy Movement.

Tomorrow, January 28 from 3:00 to 6:00 pm, we’ll be presenting at Eyebeam’s Activist Technology Demo Day. Come say hi and check out our Occupy Votes & Choose Your Democracy systems in action.

Update 2/1/12: It was a great day! Check out our photos here: http://bit.ly/wJl35R 

“From Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, technology has played an important role in shaping contemporary resistance and the representation of these events in the media. What new tools of protest and occupation have emerged over the past year? How does their use help to shape tomorrow’s democracies?” — Eyebeam

We’ll be joining 15 other projects and organizations, presenting on how we’ve used tech to help activism.

Eyebeam is located at 540 W 21st St. New York, NY 10011 (map).

See you there!

At crossroads in my life, I bike across countries. Nine years ago, I biked across the United States. Today, I find myself at another transition: I am moving on from my role as President of Digital Democracy. In honor of that change, I’ll be crossing the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the island of Hispaniola.

Haiti faced a crossroads when it was devastated by the 2010 earthquake. Digital Democracy had a team on the ground at the time, which meant the event shook me to the core as well. The Dd team sprang into action, contributing to humanitarian aid efforts to map where people were in need to help save lives.

Yet once Haiti disappeared from the headlines, the real work to rebuild the country began. In response to increased levels of rape post-earthquake, we worked to empower women as key actors in Haiti’s reconstruction with a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. This year we worked in Haiti to launch the 572 call center, the country’s first rape-response hotline (a sort of 911 for violence against women), connected to a secure database and interactive mapping system. Next we’re working to scale these solutions nationally.

Now I’m at a crossroads too. Over the past three years Digital Democracy has grown from an idea to an accomplished nonprofit. With Dd a sustainable organization, I’m ready to move on and am looking to explore opportunities that allow me to pursue innovative projects with larger enterprises. I’ll still be involved in Digital Democracy, in a guiding role to support the work of my co-founder Emily and our amazing staff.

Since Digital Democracy launched, I’ve been able to draft policy in Iraq, securely document crimes against humanity in Burma/Myanmar, develop an international education initiative, work with government heads and active citizens in the Caucasus, host trainings with Secretary Clinton in the lands that my family fled from, and speak at US Congress and at the White House. It’s meant the world to me to work on these initiatives with such incredible people over the past few years. When I biked across the US I learned that people can achieve anything they put their minds to. I’m excited to see what this new trip will teach.

Tune in to Bike Hispaniola to join my friend Rob Munro & me on the journey. Follow the blog, featuring a live map that updates our location, twitter feed, photos and more. Please ask us questions, share tips and ideas, and let us know of people and sights to see. I’ll be sharing stories and stopping by our partners’ offices in Port-Au-Prince to see the call center staff and further explore how technology can continue to make a difference in Haiti and around the world.

You can sponsor my 500 mile ride by contributing to Digital Democracy’s end of year matching campaign in honor of the trip. All donations will go to Digital Democracy core programming in Haiti and beyond in 2012 – not the ride itself – and be doubled by generous matching donors.

Happy holidays to you and thank you for your support over these years. I look forward to hearing from you and keeping in touch wherever my travels take me and where yours take you.

Sincerely,
Mark Belinsky

Editors Note: In Dd’s work around the world, we have seen first-hand the critical need for ordinary citizens to access unfiltered content online. Take Thailand, where we have profiled the work of journalist Chiranuch Premchaiporn who has faced jail time for content posted to the comment section of the news site Prachatai. Currently, legislation is afoot in US Congress that reminds us all too closely of internet rules that have negatively impacted the lives of our partners abroad. Dd welcomes our newest Advisory board member, Jesse Friedman who guest authors this post:

You may have heard about SOPA, the innocuously-named yet frighteningly over-broad Stop Online Piracy Act. If you believe in the power of technology as a social and economic good, and think that due process of law is a good thing, now is the time to take action against this noxious bill that’s zooming through the US House of Representatives. If you are an American citizen, you can call your representative now to voice your opinion on it: http://engineadvocacy.com/voice/ 

This past year has demonstrated the astonishing power of Internet technology to effect change for the better, and shown the potential for more to come. From Arab Spring to the Occupy movement and beyond, we’ve seen policy brutality exposed on YouTube, movements organized on Facebook, and conversations and events “broadcast” in real time through novel live-streaming technologies. None of this would have been imaginable just a few years ago.

As an employee of a tech company and a member of Digital Democracy’s advisory board, I’m terribly concerned that if SOPA were to become law, this blossoming of empowerment through web-based innovation would grind to a halt. In the name of copyright enforcement, SOPA gives corporations outsized and unchecked power to stop the business of perfectly respected sites, without due process of law. (For a bit more detail, here’s a good infographic and a great video.)

The chilling effect on innovation on the Internet could be awful in two major ways. First, entrpreneurs would be severely discouraged from creating any website that hosts user-generated content; one errant link out to a site that illegally distributes copywritten content offshore, and they could be shut down in a week without any court involvement. Second, SOPA would institute a censorship regime on the Internet in the US, both by effectively compelling individual websites to review all their user-generated content, and also by empowering the US Attorney General to rework the plumbing of the web and block access to sites.

The recording industry says that SOPA’s opponents are overreacting, that we can trust them to judiciously apply these unprecedented powers of corporate thuggery to go after only really bad guys. But their track record of intimidating helpless individuals with huge lawsuits says otherwise. Plus, the way the law is written, just about anybody could make spurious claims or even outright lies about a site and still get that site shut down.

A broad base, from web entrepreneurs to news editors to human rights organizations to even the recording industry’s hometown LA Times, has slammed this bill as a huge step backwards for freedom, due process, and innovation. If you’re in the US, add your voice to the chorus, and tell your congressperson right now that they need to vote against SOPA. Just put in your name, phone number, and zip code and you’ll be connected directly to their office: http://engineadvocacy.com/voice/

I’ve joined Digital Democracy because I believe in the need for technology tools to be harnessed to empower the voices of marginalized groups and ordinary citizens to fight for their human rights. I hope you’ll join me and millions of others in working to keep the web a safe and healthy place for innovation and political action by voicing your opposition to SOPA today.

Jesse Friedman is a member of Digital Democracy’s advisory board. He leads marketing for Google Politics & Elections, and is part of the company’s team resisting SOPA. 

What does democracy mean to you? In 2011 the Digital Democracy (Dd) team has asked this question of people around the world. Egyptians in Tahrir Square, #Occupy protestors in Zuccotti Park, women in tent camps in Port-Au-Prince and folks at home have given us many answers, including freedom of speech and equal opportunity. The theme uniting them all? Participation: the ability for all people’s voices to be heard & represented in their community’s governance.

Human rights abuses are barriers to participation. Rape, violence, censorship, police brutality, lack of access to education, discrimination – these abuses silence voices and prevent participation. Dd works with groups striving to participate by helping them leverage technology to more effectively fight for their human rights. 

Mark & I co-founded Dd in 2008 because we thought technology tools had the ability to help the most marginalized people participate in their societies in a meaningful way. Three years later, there are 7 billion people on the planet and close to 6 billion mobile phones. We work to help people turn their mobile phones into tools for freedom and participation, shifting the paradigm so marginalized communities can participate in societies like Haiti, Burma and Guatemala.

In 2011, we have seen the impact of Dd’s programs around the world. Our programs have built the confidence and empowered our partners to participate more effectively in their societies.

• Women in Haiti use blogs and photos to share stories of violence, the breakdown of elections, and hope. They use digital pens, databases and maps to document their experiences. They launched a call center to provide emergency support to rape survivors and they have combined all of these tools to advocate for the changes necessary to end violence in their community.
• Refugee youth in Indianapolis have used photography as a process and a tool to break down prejudices between different ethnic groups, bring diverse stories from their community to welcoming ears, and help kids grow into community leaders and build strong friendships across ethnic divides.
• Indigenous youth in Guatemala used digital video cameras and a blog to report on elections, bridging the voices of rural & indigenous communities to the national conversation about their choice for a new leader.

This year has shown that on all levels, participation transforms possibility.

Next year, we plan to dive deep in Haiti and reignite our work in Burma. In Haiti, we aim to grow the use of our comprehensive technology system and support the position of our partners as leaders in the fight against rape.  In Burma, we continue to partner with civil society organizations & brave human rights advocates to influence secure communication and information-sharing. We will continue to be agile and small, working with lean budgets to maximize resources to do smart and effective work. 

Over three years, your donations have transformed Dd from an idea into an organization. Now, Dd is taking it to the next level. We are building our first board of directors and are now officially a public charity (501c3), making donating easier and allowing your full donation to go to Dd’s work and partners on the ground.

We can’t do this work alone. We ask you to please participate in Digital Democracy’s work and mission by contributing directly or donating in the name of a loved one. (We’ll send a card thanking you and your gift recipient!) You can double your impact now, as gifts received by December 31, 2011 will be matched by generous anonymous donors. Help us reach our $5,000 matching challenge!

Exciting Update [12/31/11]: You have helped us raise & exceed our matching challenge!! Please donate TODAY to help us raise $20,000 to start 2012 ready to make it the best Dd year yet! 

With gratitude, Emily.