How I spent $50,000 in South America - Not Forgotten SED 107
Hey it's me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day.
So the purpose of this particular video is to convince you to click at the end of the video on one thing that will change a child's life. If you're an evil person and you want to do bad things to little kids, it's a well-known fact you need to go to Iquitos, Peru. It's the largest city in the world that's inaccessible by land, and because you can only get in and out via boat or airplane, it's an awesome place to do bad things because the government of Peru has a very low presence there.
Three years ago my wife went to check it out. She went to work on an orphanage with some friends of ours and she came back telling me stories about these people called the..
Street boys.
OK. And why not girls?
Ahh, the mom gets knocked up multiple times, has these children, girls require less food, more valuable at home, the boys..
So the dude leaves?
Oh yeah.
And you just pick which one's gonna make it.
Right.
And so you kick the boy out.
Right.
Organized crime, abandoned children, they start exploiting the kids, get them hooked on drugs, and then special tourists come to town to take advantage of the situation.
Yes.
Urgh. In a world of talkers I have friends who want to be thinkers and doers. They started an organization called Not Forgotten and they bought land in Peru and they're gonna build an orphanage to break this cycle of abandonment.
Two years ago my buddy CJ had saved up a bunch of money and we headed down there to break ground by building a septic tank.
It's real. It's not monopoly.
[laughs] This just got real.
[laugh] We hired a Peruvian construction crew and worked for a week by shovelling concrete and overseeing the engineering of the project. (Destin in Spanish) It's important it's perfect for my poo.
[laughs] [snoring]
And that's what you call a siesta.
[laughter] I uploaded the video last year and asked you to vote on a two-day fundraiser called the Project For Awesome. Because you did this, and Not Forgotten was one of the top charities voted on, we got $40,000 for the Project For Awesome, and you gave $10,000 directly to Not Forgotten.
Now I personally couldn't head down there this year but I bet you're wondering how we spent $50,000 in the Peruvian amazon.
Yeah, great question Destin. Actually we're standing here with Fidel. You remember him from the last video last time we were here. So Fidel, do you wish Destin were here?
No.
[laugh] - No. Do you think we'd be much more efficient if he were here helping us?
No.
Really? Just remember CJ. I edit the video, and I get to show people how you sleep when you're in the jungle. You gonna be done pretty quick?
(groaning) Uhhh.. I think we're gonna be done right on time.
Anyway, when we were there, the land was rough and it needed to be worked. So we used the money to rent equipment and fuel and begin to shape the land to prepare it for building. We installed a power pole, we planted an orchard, we got a water cistern. I'll let CJ show you some of the big stuff that we've built so far.
- Alright so check this out. I'm standing on the brick wall that we're building this week. We've got a team of folks down here. This is our project it's gonna run along the front side of the perimeter of the orphanage. So you remember the last time you were here we had that much smaller pond that was off to my left.
Well now we have a much larger reservoir and we're standing on a brand new retention wall that we've recently put in. Before we did any of that, before we built anything that we've recently showed you, we had to do one important thing, and that's build a soccer field.
- So the next step is to build the orphanage buildings themselves. The idea is to make small modular buildings that'll house 8 kids each, so that we can actually complete a building as we get money.
So there you have it. We're building an orphanage in Peru with the intent of breaking the cycle of abandonment. We want to educate the kids, we want to teach them a trade, and we want to show them what it's like to be a good father.
This is the part where I want your click. If you're on board with this idea, I need you to go to the Project For Awesome website and go vote for Not Forgotten. This is only open for two days, and if we're one of the top charities, we're gonna build buildings and get kids off the street.
We're not playing here, this is the real deal. So if you can go vote for that I would appreciate it, but more importantly if you would tell your friends to vote. If we're in the top, we save a kid's life.
We're not gonna take the money, no organizational costs, straight to Peru. If you're watching this and it's past the voting time, I'll leave info below to tell you if we won or not, and also I'll leave a link over here for anybody that's interested, where you can donate directly to Not Forgotten, and you have my word any money that's donated there, or money that we get from Project for Awesome will go directly to the building and operation of this orphanage in Peru.
We will take no overhead or operational money out of it. I think PayPal does, or something like that.
Anyway, I'll leave you with the boys in Peru saying thank you for the money you gave them last year. Can you say thank you in Spanish? You know how to say that?
Gracias.
There you go, very good.
Anyway, I'm Destin, you're getting Smarter Every Day, you should be clicking something over there about now. Thanks.
Gracias Project for Awesome.
Thank you Project For Awesome.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
Gracias.
My name is Hawks.. umm.. Thank you Project For Awesome.
(Male in Spanish) 1.. 2.. 3..
(Group in unison) Gracias!