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The best job I ever had was working for a nonprofit organization that trained medical professionals from developing countries in the benefits of breastfeeding. The organization was funded by USAID, and the courses offered at the little clinic/campus in San Diego ranged from the microbiology of breastmilk to how to run social marketing campaigns, with a little nipple confusion in between (yes, that’s a technical term). The organization was trying to combat the negative and even deadly effects of formula-industry marketing, particularly that of Nestlé, on mothers and babies. It was a noble cause.

Funding dried up when WHO officially announced that AIDS could be transmitted through breastmilk.

Four times a year, teams of health professionals—from village midwives to ministry of health officials—arrived in San Diego for a month. My fabulous job, as a program assistant, was to help the participants with their needs. I got to pick them up from the airport and take them to their hotel. I gave them orientation presentations, walked them to the grocery store the first day, took them shopping in Mexico, went with them to Disneyland… I got to help them find toys for their kids and hair extensions for themselves. Tough job, huh? I dragged my eight-year-old along with me because I was a single mom. He has fond memories of the time he drove an Autopia car with Edwin, a Cameroonian obstetrician, as his passenger.

My favorites were the teams from Africa and, of those, I really bonded with the teams from Burkina Faso. They loved my son and called him my petit mari (little husband). I still want to go to Burkina Faso.

So I was thrilled when I read an article on Springwise that described what the design firm LJ Urban is doing for masons there:

LJ Urban has designed a new eco-urban community of 35 LEED ND Certified homes in the urban core of Sacramento, its home town. The community is suggestively named Good, and for each home within it that gets sold, LJ Urban has committed to funding the complete training of a West African mason to build sustainable homes for families in Burkina Faso. By partnering with the Association La Voûte Nubienne (AVN), which has already trained about 60 local masons to build durable homes out of earth bricks and mortar, LJ Urban aims to go beyond just providing homes to impart enduring skills and jobs to the local community. Taking the notion a step further, LJ Urban has also opted to skip the expensive marketing campaign to promote its Good community, and to use that money to train more African masons instead. So, for every 100,000 people who visit LJ Urban’s new, dedicated website by July 1st, the company will fund the complete training of another local Burkina Faso mason—up to 20 in all through this viral approach.

I don’t know why they picked Burkina Faso. Maybe they met some Burkina natives and fell in love the way I did.

If you can’t buy one of LJ Urban’s “Good” houses at the moment, you can still help. Go to the LJ Urban site and click the Good-O-Meter. No money, no registration, just a click.

You can do it! And please tell your friends.

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