Three years ago, my older brother and I founded a non-profit corporation called International Collective Ministries (ICM). Its mission is to address, educate, coordinate, and provide aid and relief to eradicate chronic malnutrition and hunger on a local and global level. Coming into college, I was unsure of my involvement concerning the organization, seeing the pace of a collegiate life would pose enough of a commitment for me to handle. Although I want this non-profit to succeed, I first need the means to get it off the ground. The first phase of ICM is to bringing goods and cash crops into the United States from impoverished nations to establish a competitive selling environment for those nations.

Presently, one of the ministry’s partners, a friend and business owner named Khalid, is returning home to his country in Sudan at the end of the month. Sudan’s impoverished regions are in desperate need of basic necessities. A primary objective of his trip is to establish shipment methods and destinations for future trade relations. The Sudanese have hand-crafted artwork, jewelry, clothes, and shoes to trade; Khalid discussed with the board that these items can be exchanged for clothes sent from a consumer-heavy nation like the United States.

We intend to send more people on trips to second and third-world nations in an effort to teach business skills and building techniques; these trips will result in the construction of various projects such as orphanages, group homes, hospitals, and schools. Infrastructure is an essential part in the development of any nation, but our primary concern is to provide places with whatever basic necessities they are lacking.

International Collective Ministries is aware of the political and socioeconomic issues that plague many countries. Therefore, the main objective of the corporation is to recognize the merit of the human person and their work so a community can be provided for and preserved. Whatever need is posed within a community, it must be protected and maintained. Self-sustained living is the final goal within the action items of ICM; wherever a community finds itself, we hope to create an informed environment that continues to eradicate the bonds of devalued and impoverished living.

I am excited to embark on this journey to become the-best-version-of-myself and to take advantage of the resources I have been blessed with to make the world a better place.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton