Athena Study Abroad - Knowledge Has No Borders


Students Offering Support (S.O.S.)
Athena's S.O.S. program allows students to pass goodwill to the world.

What is Students Offering Support (S.O.S.)?
Athena developed its Students Offering Support (S.O.S.) Program to provide study abroad students with a way to show their appreciation to their host culture by way of a monetary donation.

Why have S.O.S.?
While we at Athena know how great it feels to give back to our students through discounts and promotions, we have designed the S.O.S. program in an effort to assist our students in passing on this goodwill to the world.

How does S.O.S. work?
Athena donates a percentage of our proceeds each year to a featured charity (which changes annually). Athena enables each student to actively participate in the S.O.S. program by allowing the students to decide which global charity they would like to support. The possible charities students can select from for this academic year are as follows:

2008
S.O.S Charitable Organization Options
Damien House
Located in Guayaquil Ecuador, Damien House is a residential hospital for patients suffering from Hansen's Disease, better known as leprosy. The hospital also treats a roster of around 700 outpatients. Quality medical care is provided seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. With the help of donations to the US-based Damien House organization, the staff is also able to provide patients with dental care, physical therapy, sanitary services, medication, and three well-balanced hot meals every day. Additionally, Damien House has a community outreach program that helps those who have been treated and cured to secure a home, find work, and participate in community activities so that they may return to living full lives.
Learn more at: thedamienhouse.org

FINCA International
FINCA's mission is to provide financial services to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living. FINCA offers loans, not grants, to low-income microentrepreneurs, because at the root of their poverty is lack of opportunity, not lack of desire to work. While many poor families have ideas for fostering their own employment by creating small businesses, few can access the capital they need to begin. They are excluded from conventional financial sources (e.g., commercial banks) because they lack credit ratings and assets to pledge as collateral. A loan is borrowed, invested, and repaid, after which it can be used to stimulate yet another fledgling business. FINCA loans circulate throughout low-income communities until their effect is multiplied many times. See the website above to read about how a $42 loan helped a woman in Uganda expand her chicken business and as a result send her children to school.
Learn more at: villagebanking.org

SOME (So Others Might Eat)
SOME meets the immediate needs of Washington D.C.'s poor and homeless population, including food, clothing and showers. Once a person's basic needs are met, SOME is able to help poor and homeless adults and families address the root causes of homelessness. SOME operates programs to help individuals with behavioral health services, additions recovery, and transitional housing programs. SOME is also addressing the severe lack of affordable housing in the District and offering job training to help clients earn a living wage. Elderly services are offered to provide care and support to this underserved population. Each day, SOME is restoring hope and dignity one person at a time.
Learn more at: some.org

Co-Op America
Donations to Co-Op America empower people to buy and invest in ways that promote social justice, ecological balance, and healthy communities. Co-Op America links individuals to green and Fair Trade businesses in the marketplace working to grow a global green economy. They mobilize people to take action against sweatshops, unfair trade, deforestation, and climate change caused by irresponsible corporate practices. They publish a directory of "green" businesses in the United States, provide information to help people make socially and environmentally responsible purchasing decisions in the corporate marketplace, work with industry and civil society organizations to harness market power to lower the price of solar and accelerate the growth and development of solar energy around the world. Co-Op America strives to create a world that is just and sustainable for all the generations to come.
Learn more at: coopamerica.org

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