We need funds to pay for a two hard-drives ($1,000 each) to log over 200 hours of footage and presskits (DVD duplication, color prints, photocopies and mailing). To date, we've edited a 6 minute teaser, which you can screen on-line at the link below ... yet have not been able to access all our footage with the proper hard-drive storage needed. We've worked on this project for 7 years. Most of what we've accomplished to date is a result of 100s of hours of in-kind labor.

Here's a synopsis of the story we wish to share with whole world ...

Four men go on an unlikely journey, yet not an ordinary one. David, Gary, Bud and Bill set out across the landscape, looking back at the horrific acts of violence they once faced. Despite their differences, they discover a shared sense of purpose and a brotherhood in the most unlikely place. David Kaczynski turned in his brother, the Unabomber, to authorities. Gary Wright, the 11th victim of the Unabomber survives to face his perpetrator. Bill Babbitt sacrificed his younger brother’s life for the greater good. Bud Welch claimed his daughter’s body from the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing. Follow these four men as they travel from New York to Texas, from Oklahoma to California on a road that takes them beyond crime and punishment and into their hearts and minds on An American Journey.

Please let us know if you wish to join our journey ... and help make this film a reality.

Tens of thousands of rape kits are sitting on police shelves nationwide and going untested year after year. In many cases, the only way for a victim of sexual assault to press charges is to have the DNA evidence collected at a hospital and stored in a rape kit. It is extremely difficult for victims of rape to submit to the lengthy and invasive examination, but they do it because they believe that the evidence they provide will be used by police to track down rapists.

However, an outrageous number of rape kits with incriminating evidence are sitting in police storage all over the country and going untested for years. A recent investigation by Human Rights Watch found more than 12,000 untested rape kits on police department shelves in Los Angeles County. As Sarah Tofte, an investigator with Human Rights Watch, says this is "an incredible denial of justice for victims who had submitted to the collection of a rape kit in the hope that this evidence might help bring their perpetrator to justice."

Allowing rape kits to go untested allows rapists to go free. Addressing the backlog of rape tests has been proven to lead to the arrest of sexual offenders. New York City, for example, once faced a backlog of 17,000 untested rape kits. After analyzing the DNA that had been collected in the kits, police were able to provide the necessary evidence to prosecute 140 rapists.

The Los Angeles Police Department estimates that it will take at least four years to clear its backlog of 12,000 rape kits. By then, hundreds of rapists who could be convicted with existing evidence will have committed additional acts of sexual violence. Due to the outrageous number of untested rape kits and the importance of analyzing the evidence that they contain, it is necessary for us to take immediate action to ensure that every rape test is examined. 

It costs approximately $1,000 for a rape kit to be tested, and many cities simply do not have the required funding to pay for these kits to be tested. Other cities have the money, but do not spend it all due to insufficient laboratory capacity and administrative mishandling.  

We need to immediately enact federal legislation that provides the necessary funding for the testing of all rape kits, requires greater oversight of the funds allocated for the testing of rape kits, and ensures that no rape kit goes untested for more than six months. 

$0 of $875 raised.

Started raising funds on Apr 2, 2009

María Guadalupe Ortiz Jimenez is a married woman who lives in Villa Lobos, a rapidly growing urban community outside of Guatemala City. She has 3 grown children. María says that she owns her house and she also lends rooms to the local church as a charity so that they have a proper meeting place.

For about a year, María Guadalupe has been selling clothes. She sells women's, men's, and children's clothes in all sizes and prices. She would like to expand her business a little bit by buying more clothes and perfume to sell. Her goal is to grow the business and to help her family become more financially stable with the aid of this loan. Her husband works but he doesn’t earn enough the support the family.

María prays to God that everything will turn out well for her family and believes that this loan will be a good investment for the betterment of the lives of her family members.

Translated from Spanish by Andrea Bouch, Kiva Fellow

María Guadalupe Jiménez Ortiz es una señora casada vive en Villa Lobos Guatemala tiene 3 hijos mayores de edad, la casa en donde vive es propia y presta un local para reuniones de la iglesia es una obra de caridad de doña María Guadalupe. María Guadalupe tiene 1 año de vender ropa de damas, caballeros y niños diferentes tallas y precios solo que ella desea ampliar un poco mas su negocio comprando ropa y algunos perfumes para vender. Su meta es crecer en su negocio de la venta de ropa con la ayuda del crédito que se le dará ella podrá crecer como comerciante y estará mejor económicamente su familia ya que su esposo trabaja pero no alcanza para sustentar a su familia, María espera en Dios que todo le salga bien y que este crédito sea para un buen beneficio en la vida de su familia.