Hands Up Not Handouts mentors women of the developing world in the design and production of unique, one-of-a-kind goods. The initiative focuses on helping women artisans translate their traditional handicrafts into high-quality and innovative products that can be marketed at a premium price, using the profits to support the women's families and communities. All of the products featured in the program, in addition to being cool and hip, serve as symbols of friendship, hope and global connection bridging not only the cultural divide but also the economic one. The Sager family uses their business acumen and passion for design to work closely with the artisans on product development, strategy, marketing and distribution, creating a significant return on investment for all involved. The first to be featured on its e-commerce website (www.HandsupNothandouts.org) are collections from Rwanda and Palestine. The Qalandia Women's Cooperative in the Qalandia Refugee Camp in the West Bank of Palestine has created stylish, traditionally embroidered bracelets for men and women that are just beginning to penetrate the global market. In Rwanda, Hands Up Not Handouts works with two basket-making cooperatives, Agaseke and Gahaya Links, to create earrings and necklaces using traditional basket weaving techniques. Agaseke is a public program that trains and employs women from the capital city of Kigali, lifting them out of poverty and allowing them to eat three meals and day and send their children to school. Gahaya Links, a private program, works with poor women all over the country, whether they are former prostitutes, HIV positive, or just desolate and out of work to train them in this traditional skill. Gahaya Links is currently selling products in Starbucks and Macy's.

Immediately following the devastating earthquake of 2005, the Sagers headed to Pakistan to see how they could help. What started out as a simple hands-on giving out of blankets amidst the destruction and harsh Pakistani weather, ultimately led to the funding of a teacher training center. With 10,000 schools destroyed and more than a thousand teachers killed in the quake, Bobby and his family focused their funding on a center that would meet several critical criteria: training new teachers (who would then impact many students), focusing efforts predominantly on female teachers (who can teach both boys and girls a full curriculum, giving young people choices beyond traditional madrasses that only teach religious studies), and building the center in a strategic location, just 90 miles from the SWAT valley, which until recently was under Taliban control. The Taliban have destroyed countless schools and banned education for girls. The Sagers see the teacher training center as a much-needed support mechanism for the educational needs of students, as well a way to increase employment opportunities, especially for women.

Iraq is living through a period of violent ethnic and religious conflict. Many Iraqi youth - 60% of Iraqis are under 25 - lack positive opportunities in life. Young people need positive role models to guide them away from future violence and extremism, and towards a positive role in society. Iraqis' passion for soccer provides a unique opportunity to reach young people through youth soccer programs. Sager Family Traveling Foundation is working with an organization called FC Unity to train soccer coaches across Iraq to serve as mentors to the young people they coach. This initiative delivers mentorship training to help soccer coaches broaden their role with their players beyond coaching soccer skills to coaching life skills, such as leadership training and citizenship. FC Unity has hosted a series of workshops in Najaf and Baghdad and will host further workshops in several other provinces in 2009-2010.

Sager Family Traveling Foundation's Football (soccer) in Palestine aims to build soccer facilities in the West Bank, mostly in border towns, over the next few years. This initiative provides two opportunities to improve the lives of children in the West Bank. The first is through better sports facilities, which provide an outlet for children living in a very stressful situation. The other is providing better role models for the children. Amid the extremist rhetoric, their coaches and role models will be instilling patience, a good work ethic, and strategy in their young players. Sager Family Traveling Foundation will replicate its Iraq coaches-as-mentors initiative in Palestine. By choosing border towns, the Sagers are taking a concrete baby step toward normalizing relations between Israelis and Palestinians. While the short-term use of the fields will be for Palestinians exclusively, the goal is to eventually have Israeli teams come to play at these fields in the West Bank and vice versa. The Sagers strongly believe that sports can, in time, be the basis for improved community relations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Upon the advice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, since 2002 the Sagers have partnered with the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives to teach science to a select group of Tibetan monastic scholars in India who are intellectual leaders in their monasteries. It became the first time in history that monks learned science as part of the monastic curriculum. This initiative initially focused on teaching science to Tibetan monks. Leading Western scientists travelled to annual workshops to teach cosmology, physics and neuroscience to the monks. Over the last year, the focus has evolved from just teaching science to monks, to teaching monks to teach science to other monks, with the objective of creating a core group of monk leaders with the tools and training to share science learning with their peers in the monasteries. One key goal of this initiative is to enable Tibetan monks to enter into a meaningful dialogue with western scientists. This dialogue leads to an improvement in the understanding of the material world for the monks, and a better insight into Buddhist thinking and philosophy for westerners engaged in the program. In addition, scientific knowledge and understanding will allow the monastic community to continue exploring, expanding and debating Buddhist teachings in light of new and evolving information.

The Sagers' microenterprise initiative in Rwanda, Sager Ganza Ubukene (Sager Overcoming Poverty), makes loans to groups of Rwandan women to help them start small businesses. These women are often the poorest of the poor in Rwanda who have been turned down by other microcredit organizations due to insufficient collateral. For the Sagers, this initiative is not only an opportunity to help people help themselves out of poverty, but also a way to use business as an agent for social change for a people, who not so long ago witnessed unspeakable violence caused by intolerance and hatred. Many of these women have husbands who were murdered during the Rwandan genocide, and many have husbands in prison for doing the murdering. This initiative helps lift these women out of poverty through microenterprise and the choices it creates. In the process of pursuing common goals, together these women start to understand one another as people, without the filters. The economic success these women achieve through their businesses sets them up as leaders and inspirational role models in their families and communities.

Young Presidents' Organization (YPO) is a global network of 20,000 business leaders in 100 countries. YPO members' companies in aggregate generate more than $4.3 trillion in sales per year, equivalent to the world's third largest economy in terms of GDP. Many YPO members also serve as active philanthropists, foundation leaders, ambassadors, government ministers, and leaders of prominent think tanks. The Sagers believe that the YPO network with its members' entrepreneurial skills, amazing combined Rolodex and ability to get things done represents an opportunity to make a unique impact in the world. Bobby was the founding chairman of YPO Peace Action Network, which brings together business leaders on both sides of conflicts into confidential forum meetings. Peace Action Network evolved into the YPO Social Enterprise Networks, which currently has 1800 business leaders around the world working together to make a difference. In 2008 Bobby founded YPO Presidents' Action Net, an online platform and matching service that connects YPO members with their most influential peers to maximize their individual efforts to make a difference. Presidents' Action Net collects detailed information about the YPO members who have the greatest influence and resources, and it connects peers who can add unique value to each others' work. Presidents' Action Net is the best example of how Sager Family Traveling Foundation can be a platform to unleash others' efforts.

Bobby first visited Afghanistan a few weeks after September 11, 2001 in order to understand the local ramifications of the US incursion. He noticed that Afghanistan suffers from a shortage of adequately trained female doctors, nurses, midwives and other healthcare providers, many of whom were lost during decades of civil war. Since 2002, Sager Family Traveling Foundation has been working with International Medical Corps (IMC) to train female physicians from several provinces in central and eastern Afghanistan to become master trainers. After an initial three-month training period, the master trainers lead educational programs for health care professionals covering topics ranging from pre- and post-natal care, reproductive health care and family planning, health and hygiene education, and public health management. After receiving this training, the health care professionals are deployed to health posts across Afghanistan to train Community Health Workers and female members of health Shuras within their own communities, another instance of the Sagers impacting people who can then impact lots of other people. This initiative has evolved into an incredible example of female empowerment on a local and national scale. More than just training female healthcare workers, it has become a vehicle through which women who are master trainers, highly respected in their communities, have transitioned into influential leadership roles.

Building on the success of their leadership training program for Afghan women health professionals with IMC, the Sagers have helped launch Afghanistan's first Masters in Public Health (MPH) degree program. Sager Family Traveling Foundation is working with IbnSina Institute of Public Health and Management Sciences (IPHMS), a Kabul Afghanistan-based NGO, to offer a two-year Master Degree course. The goal of the initiative is to develop the next generation of leaders of Afghanistan's public health system. In particular, it tries to identify women who can rise into leadership roles in the government and NGO sectors. The two-year Master Degree program strives to improve standards of health in Afghanistan by offering higher education and management training, research, consultations, and institutional networking at the national and regional levels. IPHMS completed its first MPH course in June 2008. Twenty Afghan doctors (five of them women) completed the two-year program successfully. In December 2008 IPHMS began its second MPH degree course with an additional 22 students, five of whom were women.