Chrissie Lam

During 2008, I started a creative philanthropic effort called Create for a Cause. Create for a Cause engages and networks artists and activists in philanthropic work by connecting their skills and talents to a cause.

I enlisted designers' talents to raise awareness and funds for philanthropic endeavors in Rwanda and Central East Africa. During my time in Rwanda, I partnered with local non-profits and connected them to contacts and companies abroad, which helped them obtain donations. Beneficiaries included children at Gisimba Orphanage, which received thirteen boxes of brand new clothing, medical, sport and school supplies, as well as the organization Voices of Rwanda, which is constructing an oral history archive of the Rwandan genocide.

Currently, still fundraising for Gisimba Orphanage, AFEM (women's media group in DRC reporting on sexual violence, as well funding school supplies in the Afar region of the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia.