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Suite 420
Washington, DC 20005
USA
Dear Friends:
On October 29, The New York Times featured the heartrending story of 6-year-old Mark Kwadwo and other boys who ended up as indentured servants to fishermen around Lake Volta, Ghana. Children from all over the region literally keep the fishing industry going. For the children’s backbreaking work, their parents are given as little as $20 annually, and the children themselves receive only a corner to sleep in and irregular meals.
The report, spread over more than two pages, highlights the growing child-trafficking problem in Africa. The region’s governments and local groups are only now realizing that solutions are needed. It was providential that our board had just approved a grant to the Association of People for Practical Life Education (APPLE) in Ghana.
In 2001, APPLE conducted the pioneering study on the conditions of children in the fishing villages of the Lake Volta region in Ghana. Today, APPLE is considered one of the leading anti-trafficking organizations in Africa. Our grant to APPLE will support its work in strengthening family reintegration programs for rescued children. I pray that one of these days, Mark Kwadwo and his friends will benefit from this program.
APPLE is among the 95 grantee partners from 47 countries that we approved in our fall 2006 round of grants. The total value of the grants exceeded $1.1 million, spread over our new investment portfolios—Learning, Enterprise, Safety, Healthy Minds and Bodies, and Creative Opportunities—and including Recovery and Renewal Grants for children affected by the 2004 tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, and Hurricane Katrina.
As we prepare for our 2007 grants, our program officers are traveling in their respective regions, visiting our grantee partners and scouting for other innovative programs to support next spring. To give you a flavor of their often difficult journeys, we have launched a blog, On the Road. We hope that this journal will provide you not only with insights on the conditions our grantee partners labor under, but also with new knowledge about our meticulous selection process.
I am delighted to report that our work in India has gotten a major boost from the Goldman Sachs Foundation. This three-year grant, valued at $1.2 million, will support innovative community-based initiatives that develop the leadership, entrepreneurial, and academic skills of young people in India, particularly in Mumbai and Bangalore.
We welcome our new board members: Peter Briger, principal, Fortress Investment Group in New York City; Mark McGoldrick, managing director, Goldman Sachs in London; and Raj Singh, co-founder, Telcom Ventures in Alexandria, Virginia. Their considerable experience and commitment will contribute greatly to advancing our work.
Finally, I’d like to welcome the new additions to our team: Ahna Machan, director of development; Meheret Mellese, information technology manager; and Tamar Schiffman, individual gifts associate. We are also joined by Sonali Ojha, our first international fellow; Stefanie Garry, grantmaking intern; and Craig Martinez, public health intern.
Sonali Ojha comes to us from Dreamcatchers Foundation, an NGO she established in Mumbai, India. Her organization guides young people with histories of violence and trauma to discover their power to heal and rebuild their lives. We are learning from her expertise in psychosocial programming. At the same time, she is learning how to grow an organization.
I am especially pleased with the arrival of Ahna Machan, director of development. She brings over 15 years of fundraising and management experience in the nonprofit sector. Prior to joining us, she was a senior director at CARE International. As we welcome Ahna, I’d like to thank Greg Fields, who served as our director of development for five years, for all his contributions to our organization.
Let me leave you with a snapshot of our current 16-person team: we represent 10 ethnicities; we have traveled to 121 of the world’s 194 countries; and we collectively speak 25 languages. Wow!
As the holiday season approaches, I want to thank all of you for your support of our work and vision.
My best,
Maya Ajmera
Our grantmaking program continues to grow, exceeding $1.1 million in the fall 2006 round of grants. This represents a 43 percent increase in value over our fall 2005 grants. We gave the most number of grants, 38, under the Learning investment portfolio. Grants were distributed to organizations in 47 countries, with Africa, Latin America, and South Asia getting the most. We also made our first grants to groups in Panama, Serbia, and Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor).
GFC Expands Portfolios
We have recently reclassified our grassroots grantmaking to cover four broader areas: Learning, Enterprise, Safety, and Healthy Minds and Bodies. The last time we reclassified our portfolios was in 2002.
[read more]
New Book Catalog Now Available
Windows to the World, our 2006–2007 book catalog, is now available online and in print. This colorful catalog highlights our newest book, My Family; paperback editions of To Be an Artist, Be My Neighbor, and Ser Vecinos; and the forthcoming books Global Babies and Children of the U.S.A. Our award-winning collection consists of 20 children’s books and resource guides.
Our first investment in film, Going to School in India, continues to win awards at various film festivals in North America. It won the Kids First! Best International Short for ages 8–12 and the Jury Award for the Best Family Film at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival. It has been showcased in nine international film festivals, including the recent South Asian Film Festival in New York City. In India, the film, based on the Global Fund for Children book Going to School in India, has been seen by over 22 million viewers. The book and the film celebrate Indian schoolchildren as they attend school in the desert, on train platforms, in buses, and on mountaintops.
In Guaraní, the indigenous language of Paraguay, the word kunu’u means tenderness, affection, or caring. But when Cynthia left her small town in Paraguay for the big city, she’d known little kunu’u in her life. [read more]
Avoid the holiday crowds and help us by buying children's clothes from Tea Collection (we get 100% of the sale) or books from Global Fund for Children Books. Or you can always give a donation in honor of a friend or loved one.
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Photo Credits (from top):
© Shawn Malone (Bolivia), © Going to School