Fourth-quarter education beneficiary Vidnyanvahini gave us this report about how they will use the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Foundation members donated $3,735 to Vidnyanvahini last quarter.

We are very grateful for the most generous donation from all the members of FBB that gives us additional stimulus for striving to improve on our own past performance. We have been visiting rural high schools in Maharashtra in India to give students a chance to learn science through experiments and video presentations. These schools usually lack basic infrastructure such as libraries and laboratories. Some of them don't have a regular school building, and often there is no qualified teacher. We help dispel exploitative superstitions prevalent in villages. 

Over the past 16 years, we have served more than 200,000 boys and girls in about 2,000 school visits to 900 different schools. Our Mobile Science Lab has traveled more than 160,000 kilometers, an equivalent of four trips around the Earth! We make about 140 school trips per year. Our average expense per trip is $80, which includes the salary of the driver, fuel and maintenance for the vehicle, and an honorarium for the instructors. 

We expect to use the donation from FBB to cover 35 such trips until June 2011. We will use the remainder of the money for a student workshop and a few teachers' workshops. We will also organize theme exhibits at our office, the first of which is almost ready on the theme of chemical bonding and valency. 

Madhukar Deshpande
Coordinator, Vidnyanvahini

Fourth-quarter peace beneficiary the Federation of American Scientists gave us this report about how they will use the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Foundation members donated $2,460 to FAS last quarter.

As the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) enters its 65th year, we are excited to redouble our efforts to make our organization more effective both in how we apply the very generous support of the Foundation Beyond Belief and in how we reach the public with our critical mission. Donations from the Foundation Beyond Belief will support the following work in 2011:
 

• FAS nuclear security staff will release several special reports and hold roundtable events on Capitol Hill focusing on urgent security issues, including the Iranian nuclear program, planned or projected ballistic missile defense deployments, nuclear force modernization, criteria for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, and criteria for responsible development and deployment of small, modular reactors.
• The Biosecurity Program will be launching the Virtual Biosecurity Center, a community resource that will fundamentally change the way the biosecurity community communicates its efforts with each other and the public.
• The Project on Government Secrecy will continue to press for the optimal implementation of pending administration reform processes and will seek to help shape future reductions in national security secrecy.
• The Earth Systems Program will further develop the International Science Partnership, bringing early-career scientists from the U.S. and developing countries together to carry out research and applied projects on critical and timely environmental issues.
• The Arms Sales Monitoring Project will collaborate on an unprecedented study on small arms trafficking by using information from under-utilized sources of government data on illicit small arms light weapons.
• The Learning Technologies Program will continue to develop Immune Attack 2.0, building upon the many successes of the original version. In addition, Learning Technologies staff will gather teachers from across the country to participate in the largest evaluation of Immune Attack to definitively assess how playing a video game about biochemistry and cells teaches students and changes their attitudes toward the material.

Thank you for supporting our mission to create a more secure world.

With gratitude,
Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.
President, Federation of American Scientists

Excerpt from "A Humanist Resolution to Overcome the Faith Gap"
Chris Stedman, Huffington Post, January 14, 2011

The week following Christmas has passed and we find ourselves in a new year. With a new year comes new work. One of the projects I am most excited about is "Challenge the Gap," a new initiative of the Foundation Beyond Belief, an atheist and Humanist charitable foundation, which aims to find common ground between the religious and the secular. It is, to my knowledge, the first time that an explicitly atheist and Humanist foundation is funding interfaith cooperation.

It is a new Humanism for a new year, one that looks forward in hope, not back in anger. I believe that ethics and engagement are central to what it means to live in the world as a Humanist, and that Humanist community and identity require an affirmative foundation, not one structured in contrast to ideologies we disagree with.

Secular Humanism should not be defined as a rejection of religion; otherwise, we risk living our lives looking for ideas -- and people -- to rebuff. Rather, Humanism ought to be seen first and foremost as a desire to be the best people we can be, to commune with other humans and live ethically and humbly together. It should not be vindictive or oppositional. Instead, it should seek to build bridges whenever possible, with whomever possible. Let's not let our differences destroy the essential social bonds that will facilitate cooperation and understanding.

Read the full article at Huffington Post

Learn more about Challenge the Gap 
and Interfaith Youth Core, our current CTG beneficiary

An atheist with advanced degrees in religion, Chris Stedman is outreach coordinator of the Common Ground Campaign and Managing Director of State of Formation, a new initiative of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue and the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. He recently took the position of Interfaith and Community Service Fellow with the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University.

Chris also serves on the advisory board for Challenge the Gap, our new initiative reaching across lines of belief.