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Within a year of graduating from Auburn University, Jessi found her dream job as Beduoins International’s Director of Development. Beduoins is a 501c3 comprised of a small group of local artists who use their talents to bring media attention to global causes. The team of four traveled to Haiti in September for the filming of a documentary about one school’s instituting the Vanilla Bean Project. Charging students with a vanilla plant of their own, the project will entrust them with the means to fund their entire education and livelihood. “No one knows about this school,” Jessi says. “A lot of times the stories that need to get told are the ones that don’t get told because they can’t afford the media they need. Nowadays, a voice costs way too much money,” she says. “I love the idea of using something that has a lot of power to it, not for your own betterment, for the betterment of others.”

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Beduoins International got its name from a gypsy tribe of people in India. “[The founders] liked the idea of this type of people that took up everything they had and brought it with them. That’s the kind of what they were doing: taking up everything they had and talking it to the world,” Jessi says.

The Beduoins is comprised of five people, though Jessi is the only one on part-time staff at this point. “We can’t do the projects that we want to do until we have the staff,” Jessi says. “But we can’t spend the money on projects … it’s a vicious cycle. Eventually, it’s going to break. I don’t think any of us are willing to give it up.” The others currently on volunteer staff are Stephen DeVries (Founder, Director and photographer), Josh Farneman (Art Director), Roger Eason (Associate Director and musician) and Paul Bryant (Associate Director and videographer).

Jessi’s primary job is to write grants to potential sponsors, distribute newsletters to current supporters and to help spread the word about what the Beduoins are doing both in Birmingham and worldwide. “[Birmingham] is an amazing place to start because it’s such a good community of artists,” she says. “We’ve found a lot of people who really believe in what we’re doing. A really active generation who really wants to use what they have to help other people.”

For more information on the organization, visit their website at: http://www.bedouinsinternational.org/