College Student Brings Organization to Help Children in Developing Countries to San Luis Obispo

 

Above: Biomedical engineering graduated student and founder of CURE SLO, Jacob Harandi speaking to organization members at the Line-Dancing for Kids Who Can’t fundraiser.
  • A college student’s spiritual journey leads to helping others
  • CURE is an international non-profit organization
  • Bringing a worldwide volunteer organization to California Polytechnic State University through students’ convictions
  • Student volunteer opportunities with CURE abroad

The Beginnings

     Jacob Harandi, a Christian and biomedical engineering graduate student at California Polytechnic State University came to a point where he desired a deeper understanding of his beliefs and his relationship with God. Through reading the Bible and prayer, it was evident to him that as a Christian he is called to “love on people.”

“Like the parable of the Good Samaritan makes it pretty clear,” Harandi said. “Love your neighbor as yourself, but your neighbor is not necessarily the person right next to you or the person that is just like you. It could be people across the world or people completely unlike you.”

   Harandi searched his soul and focused on changing his mindset on how he viewed the world. He continued to study the Bible and also read many books on the subject of how to affect the world around him through his beliefs. After reading the book, “The Hole in Our Gospel” Harandi’s eyes were opened to the impoverish conditions and suffering many people experience in different parts of the world.

   Being very interested in the realm of prosthetics as he studied biomedical engineering at Cal Poly, Harandi set a goal to someday bring prosthetics to developing third-world countries, to the people who needed them the most.  The only thing he hadn’t figured out yet was how.  So he did what most do when they have a problem needing to be solved, he consulted Google.

CURE

   This is where Harandi discovered the non-profit organization CURE International. According to their website, CURE is the leading provider of specialty pediatric surgical care in the developing world and helps children who have little hope for the future because of their physical disability. CURE operates hospitals and programs in 27 countries worldwide and treats conditions such as clubfoot, clef palate, bowed legs, untreated burns, and hydrocephalus.

    CURE is also committed to the spiritual well being of their patients and their families and communities by spreading the message of God’s love to those they help. The organization has many different outreach programs and ways people can get involved, from merely making an online donation to starting a CURE chapter at an individual church or university.

Becoming CURE SLO

   Jake Harandi decided he would bring CURE to San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly. He sent an email to CURE and got an enthusiastic response.  At the time there were few CURE charters on college campuses and none on the West Coast, so the organization was excited to expand its reach to California at Cal Poly.

     Harandi began to spread the word about CURE and through his active involvement with Campus Crusades (Cru), a Cal Poly organization that gives students a place to learn about Christianity and fellowship with fellow believers, where he recruited local college students to join. They formed an executive board and began the process of becoming an official student organization at Cal Poly. Over the summer, the board petitioned for university recognition, wrote its bylaws and found a Cal Poly faculty advisor. Cal Poly approved their bylaws and CURE SLO received its charter just before classes began in the fall of 2012.

“Jake is really passionate about CURE,” said Cal Poly kinesiology junior and CURE SLO’s secretary Andrea Voigt. “You could tell when he was first telling the Cru group about it. We all knew he would be a great leader from the start.”

Community Involvement

  CURE SLO’s first event was a benefit concert held at Mountain Brook Community Church in San Luis Obispo on Nov. 9, 2012.  The 25-member CURE team displayed pictures of the children they were raising money for and had supplies for people to write get-well cards to them. Solely through donations, supporters raised over $5,000 in one night that funded five surgeries.

 “You think of a big orthopedic procedure and you think its thousands and thousands of dollars, but CURE can actually do it for a lot less in those countries that we can here,” Harandi said. “That kind of blew me away, I wasn’t really expecting to make that much at our first fundraiser.”

   In a little less than two academic quarters, CURE SLO has raised over $8,000 to send to CURE hospitals to fund surgeries. They’ve hosted an ornament decorating party, a line-dancing event and partnered with the Cal Poly Athletic Department to not only raise money but to increase awareness about CURE to the local community.

CURE SLO members at their first fundraising event. The benefit concert held at Mountain Brook Bible Church raised over $5,000 for children’s surgeries, which funded five operations.

CURE SLO in Africa

President Jacob Harandi, Secretary Andrea Voigt and three other members are taking a trip to Zambia, Africa this summer to visit the Zambia CURE hospital. They will be spending three weeks in Africa with the children in the hospital, lending service in whatever means possible and venturing into the Zambian community to spread the Christian gospel of Jesus to the people.  

    Another CURE SLO member and Cal Poly student, art and design photography senior Kaori Funahashi has the prospect to lend her expertise to CURE in Africa. CURE International’s college campus director approached Funahashi at CURE SLO’s first fundraiser with an opportunity.

 “Apparently Jake [Harandi] told her all about my photography and I didn’t know any of this,” said Funahashi.  “And so she came up to me and unofficially offered me this job to work in Zambia to be a photojournalist for CURE… I was speechless and still don’t know really what to say about it. [As time went on] it was just so clear that this is what I should do after I graduate and I’m currently in the process of applying for the position.”

  Jacob Harandi and CURE SLO are inspiring examples of how the willingness and desire to help others can create something much bigger than yourself. This story shows an individual’s motivation to “love thy neighbor” not only builds community and affects people around them, but also can impact lives on a global scale.   

 

Photo courtesy of CURE Intl.  This photo depicts a before, during and after view of a child who’s life was changed by a surgery he received through CURE.

Locations of CURE hospitals around the world:

  • Honduras

  • Dominican Republic

  • Niger

  • Uganda

  • Zambia

  • Ethiopia

  • Kenya

  • Malawi

  • United Arab Emirates

  • Afghanistan

How to start your own Cal Poly student organization:

  • Research that no other student organization currently exists with a similar purpose.

  • Find 8 or more currently enrolled Cal Poly students that are interested in being a part of the organization.

  • Find a Cal Poly State employee who would be willing to serve as a student organization's advisor.

  • Complete a "Petition for University Recognition"

  • Complete bylaws using the “Bylaw Template”

  • Submit "Petition for University Recognition," and bylaws to ASI Club Services for processing and approval.

 

 

 

 

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