Who is Global Relief Resources?
Donkeys used in transport to village near Tasaru Gilrs Rescue Center in Narok, Kenya
Azlan White and friend Isatou in Kenya
Tyler Rogers in the hills around Santa Fe, NM
left to right: Paul Stamets, Mikayla Lev and
Azlan White at the 2008 Food and Seed Security Conference in Tesuque Pueblo, NM
Who We Are
We are a small grass-roots organization founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico spreading west to California, run by a small team of heart-driven forward-thinking organizers and volunteers.
We work with community organizers and natural leaders on the ground to build ecologically sustainable structures that are powered with alternative energy, empowered with rainwater catchment systems, recycled water systems, and gardens.
In AFRICA, we build Safe Houses /educational centers: supporting the leaders of the movement to End Female Genital Mutilation.
In HAITI, World Hands Alliance, our partners, build ecologically friendly self-sufficient schools and small inexpensive houses, powered with alternative energy and solutions for our times.
In USA, we build Eco-Villages. Our eco-village program is new. Our first village is just forming now through the building of small ecologically-sustainable, self-sufficient living units located in Northern California. Check back with us in a few months to see an update!
FREE ENERGY everywhere! We believe in alternative energy. We join the world’s organizations working to build a new alternative energy economy. Through freeglobalenergy.org, we are collecting funds to distribute self-sufficient hydrogen power units in Haiti, Africa and Global Relief Situations.
We share water systems with communities when we can. We share resources to support women to end violence.
In 2008, the “Bring Water, End Violence” Campaign was born. We gifted water grants to Safe Houses in Tanzania and Kenya.
Thank you to the following people without whom this work would not have been possible, building the movement that ENDS Female Genital Mutilation in Africa, through empowering girls and women to free themselves from oppressive outdated practices that do not serve them.
Cecile Lipworth of V-Day, for being my solid ally on my first trip to Kenya and supporting the elevation of the spirit of women at the conference we attended. The talk she gave at the end of the third day and the joyful story-telling spirit that emerged late into the night, played a big role in the work we currently do in Africa. Thank you Cecile!
Eve Ensler, Builder of the Tasaru Girls Rescue Center in Narok, Kenya and Founder of vday.org
Lola Moonfrog of the Pond Foundation, producer of the “Conference for Grassroots Organizers to End Female Genital Mutilation.”
Equality Now: Organizers of “Conference for Grassroots Organizers to End Female Genital Mutilation.” This conference has not happened since 2007. Funding is needed to continue this important work!
Agnes Pareyio, founder (with Eve Ensler) of the Tasaru Girls Rescue Center in Narok, Kenya. Global Relief Resources staff and volunteers have worked closely with Agnes through our scholarship fund for girls, continuing on to college and livelihoods.
Isatou Touray, FGM community leader and educator in West African Gambia. Isatou is a brilliant speaker and charismatic graceful heart-centered leader of the movement to end Female Genital Mutilation in the Gambia. The next safe house we build will be in support of her educational movement that elevates girls beyond the suffering imposed by FGM, empowering them with health education and life support counseling.
Thank you to our Volunteer Staff, Board and Advisors.
Robert Kline—Founder of Global Relief Resources and dedicated Advisor
John Meade—Registered Agent
John has given four years of service to Global Relief Resources, we are grateful for his tireless spirit of service!
Jennie Bradway—Co-Director and Board Member
Thankyou to our volunteer project Directors!
Ornesha Depauli—Director of FREE ENERGY project freeglobalenergy.org. Ornesha spearheads the Free Energy initiative like a warrior of free light
Karuna DeLibero—Co-Director of FREE ENERGY project & Board Member
Constantine Alatzas—Director of Haiti Initiative worldhandsalliance.com.
Michael Baron—Co-Director of Haiti Initiative through World Hands Alliance
topThank you to Mary Walker!
In 2008, 2009 and 2010, Mary Walker, Scholarship Fund manager, volunteered countless hours of her time to maintain the scholarship fund and support every recipient in her entire process of application, attaining supplies and attending college. Scholarship Fund established itself as a functioning network of support for girls leaving the Tasaru Girls Rescue Center in Narok, Kenya. Global Relief Resources is currently providing scholarships to young girls who are choosing to say “No” to FGM. These awesome young leaders in Maassai-land in Kenya are teaching us about how real change happens, one person at a time, one choice at a time.
2010 has brought our focus to Haiti. We are honored to join the world’s relief workers as a small, mostly volunteer-based, grass roots organization supporting Haiti in its rebuilding with water systems, solar and hydrogen power systems, and building support through the unified hands of World Hands Alliance. We met the directors of World Hands Alliance in 2010 as we were focused on bringing small community water systems to Haiti—looking for places to host these systems. World Hands Alliance is supporting Haiti with ecologically friendly earth-quake proof blocks with which they are currently building a SCHOOL! We are happy and proud to be fiscal sponsors for World Hands Alliance, entrusting them with our Haiti initiative. See worldhandsalliance.com to learn more about our work in Haiti.
topAzlan White
Executive Director
Azlan White, Executive Director, was born in Boulder, CO and raised in St. Louis, MO. where even as a young girl, she was outspoken about her desire for a world that allowed freedom of expression and showed care for all people and all life. Her childhood heroine was Harriet Tubman, the most famous leader of the “Underground Railroad,” aiding escaped slaves to reach the free states from the south.
Azlan studied in the respected journalism program at the University of Missouri in Columbia and began working as the assistant to the publisher of Mid-Missouri Magazine and Mid-Missouri Business Journal. During this time of being submersed in Media, Azlan underwent a training in Alchemical Hypnotherapy and specialized in supporting people to go into trance to receive their own guidance for health and life direction. Relocating to Santa Fe in 1993, she has been the host of several radio shows at KSFR, Santa Fe’s public radio station. Azlan’s devotion to self-healing lead her to study at the University of Natural Medicine, familiarizing herself with the natural curative power of herbs, elixirs and essential oils. Through years of independent study, she has developed a proficiency in astrology and personal ritual, through which she offers perspective and guidance for the lives of many people.
With a heart impassioned by justice and truth, Azlan became a highly effective “grass-roots” political organizer with activist groups, Move-On and Free Press, out of which she was invited to be a panelist at the 2007 Media Reform Conference for her successful work on the Internet Neutrality Campaign. In addition to this advocacy work, she was engaged in organizational development, on staff, from 2001–2006 at Bioneers, a non-profit dedicated to promoting solutions around social justice and sustainability issues worldwide through a nationally syndicated annual conference and other year-round programs. In 2006 Azlan was trained to be a facilitator for the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium of the Pachamama Alliance which is committed to “bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just human presence on the planet.”
Through a series of serendipities, Azlan met Bob Kline, the founder of Global Relief Resources, and was enlisted in August 2007 as it’s executive director. Having recently participated in a conference in Nairobi, Kenya with 30 African women activists working in their respective countries to end the violent cultural practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), Azlan was inspired to take GRR in a new direction while continuing it’s focus on making water resources available to people in less developed areas of the world.
topTyler Rogers
Water Solutions Engineer
Project Manager for GRR’s Fresh Water to Haiti project, in 2010
Tyler can be found weekdays, around the hills of Santa Fe, installing passive solar and geo-thermal high efficiency heating units, or repairing anything involving water systems and power systems. He has designed and built water treatment plants in New Zealand, Australia, Figi, Cook Islands, Tahiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Spain.
Tyler Rogers was born in Seattle, Washington, got into trouble the way boys in Seattle will do, and then was transformed by his world travels when he saw the need of people in third world countries, for water hygiene and power source support. Tyler traveled around Central and South America with his own solar power generator and desalination plant. He built desalination and other water treatment plants in villages along his journey.
As Tyler went back through villages, he noticed people who had seen his solar system had ordered parts off of the internet, and then didn’t know how to put them together and make them work. He realized there was a need for a “do it yourself solar power generator system for dummies.” Tyler is the founder of a company called Just Add Sunlight, that manufactures Passive Solar Power Generators that are simple to use and extremely durable for high stress situations.
Tyler’s latest innovative contemplations are focused on building newer stronger, more durable, easier to operate systems that will serve more people. With your financial contributions we will build a system good enough to serve one community with fresh water at a time.
“Since the Fresh Water to Haiti project began, I have been on the phone with Tyler almost every day, discussing the details of water filtration systems. The spirit, genius and hands-on knowledge he brings are priceless.”
—Azlan, ED, just after the Haiti Earthquake
Our History
Global Relief Resources (GRR) was founded in 1999 by C. Robert Kline, an engineering and national security consultant to governments and international corporations, to develop and implement a modular, integrated emergency relief system incorporating water filtration and portable power equipment for immediate deployment to disaster areas worldwide. While he ran Global Relief Resources, Robert Kline guided the development of the Global Water Voyager, an efficient, hand-portable water filtration system. In addition to its focus on water and emergency relief, GRR has contributed to educational efforts in the area of natural resource protection. To this end, they were a supporter of the Pole to Pole project that sent a team of highly motivated students from the North Pole to the South in 2000, sharing stories and teachings about preserving our planets waters and forests.
In February, 2007, Bob Kline and Azlan White met in the Washington DC airport, as Azlan was returning from a trip to the Conference for Grass Roots Organizers to end Female Genital Mutilation, in Nairobi, Kenya.
In August 2007, Bob Kline passed the Executive Director position to Azlan White, remaining on the Board of Directors. Azlan, who had been working in development at Bioneers, since 2001, had recently participated in a conference in Nairobi, Kenya with 30 African women activists working in their respective countries to end the violent cultural practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Azlan was inspired to give support to this movement toward safety and empowerment for women in Africa, while continuing GRR’s focus on clean water resources and global relief efforts.
In early 2010, Robert Kline, the founder passed his position on the board of directors over to what is now a board of Women, based on his suggestion, due to the nature of our work in Africa. Deep gratitude to Robert Kline and his family for their contribution to global relief efforts, and their legacy of excellence in providing water and power systems to communities who need them.
All those who have been involved and continue to be involved in the work of Global Relief Resources understand water is a basic human need and a human right while living on the earth. We believe water filtration is a temporary solution to a larger need for restoration of the earth’s living water systems. We support the building of communities and structures that honor the earth and all of life in balance.
Thank you to all those who have come before us and all those who join us in this work of providing water as a sacred gift of life.
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