As the fall semester was winding down and the Horizon Middle School gymnasium was blasting tunes for a school dance, a small group of students was still hard at work in Benjamin Honeycutt’s classroom after school on Dec. 12.

Members of the club, the Kenya Read Project, were brainstorming different products to create with their 3-D printer, sell throughout the school and their community and different marketing strategies for their mission.

In Dr. Kristin Mattson's second edition of “Digital Citizenship in Action, Second Edition: Empowering Students to Engage in Online Communities,” she publishes a spotlight story that focuses on Open World Cause’s evolution from a high school project to a professional non-profit.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shelby [Todd].

Hi Shelby, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It’s been a wild ride, haha. I went to school at KU to study graphic design and started doing freelance design as a student. That was about 10 years ago! Graphic design led me to a non-profit organization called Open World Cause, where I worked on their design needs for flyers and social media. It’s an organization that works with schools worldwide, so this led me to travel with them to Nepal a couple of times to visit a school there

Erika Taylor, one of the co-founders of Crossing World Barriers, a student-led project overseen by Open World Cause, worked from 2018-2019 on creating videos to help English Language Learning for students at the Tri Ka school in Nepal. Erika was the 2023 winner of the prestigious Wagon Boss scholarship in part from her work with Crossing World Barriers, and plans to travel to Ireland for her senior year of high school.

I, [Ben Honeycutt] was inspired by a teacher to start something called the legacy project that was required in order to graduate. I ended up getting connected with a principal in Nepal who wanted to bring a library to his school. So, we started a fundraiser and we were able to bring two laptops, internet access and furnish a library. When I got to college, I expanded that into a nonprofit and we have helped fund the construction of classrooms for two schools one in Nepal and one in Kenya. And we were able to supply clean water filters for those communities.”

Pre-Trip Planning
In 2017, Executive Director Ben Honeycutt spoke with Govinda Panthy about the potential of OWC traveling to Tri Ka in 2019 to establish long term curriculum and professional development programs to serve the students and teachers of the Tri Ka school. Govinda said structural barriers at Tri Ka made teaching English an incredible challenge and requested that OWC help provide solutions to these structural barriers. Ben reached out to Professor Collum and Chief of Operations Connor Janzen who approved of a planned trip to Nepal in 2019.

We are so proud to introduce Open World Cause’s Consultant for Women’s Health & Educational Initiatives, Sarita Timalsina. In September 2019, Sarita attended the International Youth Day 2019: Engaging Youth to Advance Sustainable Cities and Communities at the United Nations headquarters in New York City!

Natalie Chabot, Open World Cause’s Director of Foreign Language Acquisition, served as a translator for French Speaking Delegates of West African Countries who were during a tour of the United States during the midterm elections

Today is a big day. As many of you know, our organization survives purely on the goodwill and volunteer hours of our members, consultants, and global network of activists. For much of this year, we were considering new funding outreach and how to engage with our community in new ways.

We are beyond thrilled to announce that through the hard work and selection process of the Elevate Committee at RS&H, and on behalf of our board Chair, Connor Janzen, that the Open World Cause was granted $5,000 to support end-of-year goals for 2019 and our ability develop other exciting programs within our organization.

In June of 2015, we had a Skype call with Livingstone Kegode, the director of HIPAfrica, and were so impressed with his work that we were committed from the moment the call was over. A little over a year later, Livingstone informed us that the country of Kenya had changed its zoning standards for schools, and unless HIPAfrica could raise over $14,000 for three new classrooms, a new washroom, and new fencing, HIP would have to close its doors to the 59 children who attended its school.

We traveled out to Kimilili to survey HIP and the surrounding community in May of 2017.

On Monday, Hutchinson's Garrett Wilkinson won the coveted Marshall Scholarship for post-college study. On Tuesday, the 22-year-old may get arrested in Washington, D.C. At least, that's what he calculated, based on Monday's arrests of tax-cut legislation opponents on Capitol Hill.

At K-State, Wilkinson is director of special projects for Open World Cause, supporting educators in Nepal and Kenya, providing community school nutrition programs and purified water.

Dr. Kristin Mattson published a spotlight story about the Open World Cause in her 2017 book “Digital Citizenship in Action. Read the spotlight on Page 99 here:

By the National Council for the Social Studies: In early June, we received some intriguing snapshots from NCSS member Melissa Collum, so we interviewed her about her community service work in Kenya.

Ben Honeycutt and Connor Janzen are on a mission. Lifelong friends, these two took a class project and grew it. The guys reflect on their highs and lows, along with the power of mentorship for Open World Cause.