WELCOME to our newsletter, which we plan to publish quarterly to keep our members and friends connected to what’s happening across Pangea.
Summer is usually a quieter season — a time for gardens, hikes, vacations, and of course our annual Summer Social, hosted this year by Audrey Shiffman and her husband Peter Langmaid at their lovely West Seattle home. But even during these slower months, there’s plenty happening behind the scenes: putting together the 2027 budget, planning education events, preparing for a site visit, and gearing up for a new grant cycle.
Read on for updates on these and other activities and keep an eye on our social media pages for more frequent news and partner stories. For friends reading this newsletter, you can find out more about Pangea at our website or send us email.
|
UPCOMING EVENTS September (various) – Pods begin discussions of next grant cycle. If you want to attend a meeting of a pod to which you don’t currently belong, send email for details of the next meeting.
Oct 3: How Do We Know We're Making a Difference?
A workshop exploring practical, right-sized approaches to evaluation and learning at Pangea. In person and on Zoom, members only. Led by Pangea member Anne Sivley.
Nov 6-14: Cambodia site visits by the Pangea team.
Late November: Convening of Central American youth-led organizations to form a Youth Agroecology Council (Guatemala)
December (date TBD, Zoom): Reports from the field: Cambodia site visit, East Africa Leadership Forum, Central American Youth Agroecology Council.
|
PANGEA'S BOARD
Pangea is guided by a volunteer board of directors, each serving a three‑year term. Current board members are listed here. If you’re ever interested in serving on the board, please reach out to Paul Silver — we’re always glad to hear from members who want to get more involved.
|
Paul Silver, President
Mary Williamson, Vice President
Jeff Harris, Secretary
Jim McCullagh, Treasurer
Walt Adam, Asia Pod Chair
Allan Paulson, Africa Pod Chair
Janet Pearson
Patricia McInturff
Chris Doerr
|
A heartfelt thank‑you to Allan Paulson for his many terms as President, especially during the challenging transition from Global Washington. Allan was one of Pangea’s founders and served as president for the first few years and several times since. His steady leadership and dedication to Pangea and our partners has always kept us moving forward.
|
We’re on Social Media! As we look for ways to connect with new members — especially younger Gen X folks in tech‑heavy places like Seattle — we’re complementing our excellent website with a more active social media presence. Take a look, give us a follow, and help spread the word (click the icons below.)
|
Site Visit Plans Our planned site visit to East Africa has been postponed until next summer due to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the DRC.
Meanwhile, it’s full steam ahead for the Cambodia site visit in November. The site visit team will be meeting with potential new partners identified through weeks of research by a small group from the Asia pod. We’re excited to learn more about these organizations and explore whether they might be a good fit for Pangea.
|
Africa – TAI Kenya is a second-year grant partner operating in Meru County, Kenya. Our 2026 operating grant supports their programs of community health education, agroecology and livelihoods, climate change and conservation, and gender equity and advocacy.
Recently, they reported on a successful sexual and reproductive health class at KKMau Comprehensive School, one of the 15 schools where mentorship classes are planned. These classes are unusual because they’re taught to boys and girls together, with male and female instructors working collaboratively. In this instance, the team was expecting 50 students but over 200 showed up: 174 girls, 82 boys from Grades 7,8,9. Topics included positive masculinity, teenage pregnancy prevention, menstrual health management, and disease prevention with a focus on STIs and HIV/AIDS. The instructors were inspired by the sheer numbers and the hunger to learn—and we’re inspired by their courage in taking on 256 middle-schoolers in a single workshop!
|
Asia – This year marks the last year of funding for our Cambodian partner CIWA (Cambodia Indigenous Women Association) whose mission is to enhance the participation and leadership of indigenous women in Cambodian society by strengthening their knowledge of rights and laws and by encouraging preservation of traditional culture and identity.
In a recent email, their president Sreymom Choeun thanked us for our support: “On behalf of CIWA, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your support over the years. Your support has contributed greatly to CIWA’s development, from when we had only two staff members to now having around 20 resource persons working on various projects. You have also supported us in developing policies and strengthening our organizational management.” Sreymom, we’re happy that our partnership has had such a positive impact and wish you well in the future.
|
Latin America – Plans are underway for a five-day convening of youth-led agroecology organizations around Central America. Our Guatemalan partner Voces y Manos is organizing and hosting the gathering of 20-25 youth leaders from four countries, with financial support from Pangea. The goal of the convening is to establish a self-governing Indigenous Youth Council to share and promote ancestral knowledge, strengthen the agroecological movement, and advocate for the rights and interests of Indigenous youth.
|
THE LONG VIEW: IMPACT OVER TIME
|
It’s not always easy to see big changes in the first few years we work with a partner. We intentionally choose organizations with strong local leadership that are still early in their development, supporting them for five to seven years as they grow and become ready for larger funding. By the time we transition to a new partner, we can usually see how that steady support has strengthened a community. And sometimes, when
|
we check in years later, it’s truly heartwarming to see how far those organizations have come and how much their impact has expanded.
That’s exactly the case with Dandelion, a women‑led NGO focused on women’s health and economic empowerment. Founded in 2009 by Wendo Sahar, Dandelion began with small efforts to improve women’s economic status. But Wendo and her team soon recognized the urgent needs of girls who were struggling in school and vulnerable to early pregnancy or forced marriage.
Pangea met Wendo during a 2013 site visit in Kenya, and the Africa pod followed up with a longer visit the next year. Our first grant supported the new Girls for Leaders program in two primary schools, offering training on sexual and reproductive health, hygiene, girls’ rights, and the dangers of FGM, along with tutoring and mentoring. The next year, Dandelion expanded the program to include boys, creating Girls for Leaders, Boys for Change.
By 2020, when Pangea awarded its final grant, the program had grown to 45 schools, and Dandelion had opened a resource center and several medical clinics. Their budget had expanded significantly as they attracted new funders.
Their 2025 annual report shows just how far they’ve come: - 98% of girls in the program go on to high school
- 42 communities are now FGM‑free
- 10,000 women‑led businesses launched
- 242,000 people reached by “backpack nurses”
- 250,000 women received contraceptives
- 80,000 trees planted each year
- 14 community‑based organizations mentored
This remarkable growth stems from Wendo’s leadership and her commitment to working collaboratively with community leaders, schools, and local officials. Steady, flexible funding from Pangea — a small part of their budget by the end, but consistent — helped Dandelion focus on programs rather than fundraising.
We’re proud to have been part of Dandelion’s early story and grateful for Wendo’s continued involvement as a regional advisor. Learn more about their work at dandelionafrica.org.
|
|
