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I’d like to announce that eight of our grantee partners received the 2007 Sustainability Awards. The awardees include the Foundation for Development of Needy Communities in Mbale, Uganda, which operates a highly acclaimed school band as part of its music education and vocational training for rural youth. At one point, the band contributed 60 percent of the foundation’s income.
Our Sustainability Award, first presented in 2005, has been given to 24 of our most innovative grantee partners. Our partners use the award in a variety of ways: to augment their reserves, to develop their staff, to expand or build their fundraising capacity, or to construct or buy their own building.
For example, Centro San Juan Bosco in Tela, Honduras, will use the $25,000 award to build its own training center. Prayas, a pioneer in inclusive education for disabled children in India, will use the Sustainability Award to augment its endowment and reserve funds. Horn Relief in Somalia, which promotes sustainable development and literacy through its monthlong camel caravans, will use the award to tap funds from the Somali diaspora and the Arab development community.
One of the joys of my work is reading the grantmaking team’s reports after they return from their two- to three-week trips to visit our grantee partners and scout for other innovative grassroots programs to support. However, with our new blog, On the Road, I—and supporters like you—no longer have to wait that long. The blogs give me the flavor of these trips, a sense of place, and a virtual taste of the difficulties and happiness our staff encounter in their travels.
Victoria Dunning and Ahna Machan traveled together early last month to visit grantee partners in Tanzania and Uganda. They were particularly touched by their visit to Nyaka School in remote southwestern Uganda. There, they were immediately taken into the hearts of the families of this unique community. These were not your usual families—many were headed by AIDS orphans or by grandmothers who had lost their sons or daughters to this disease. Nyaka is leading the way, showing how Africa can embrace and take care of its AIDS orphans.
Katy Love has been riding buses and flying in small planes while visiting grassroots organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Ukraine. She blogged about her comical bus ride from Sarajevo to Tuzla, the third-largest city in Bosnia. Katy would have arrived earlier had it not been for the bus’s frequent stops and detours as the conductor tried to deliver a package to a construction site. The problem was that there were many construction sites on the way—he finally found the right one on the tenth try!
In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Shawn Malone met with a man who could be called the Pied Piper of Port-au-Prince, trailed by dozens of street kids wherever he goes. Without anyone to protect them, street kids in Haiti can be (and are) beaten and even killed with impunity. This one man has organized street kids by giving each one a photo ID card, with a phone number on the back, attesting that the child is a member of his organization. The card, with its simple message that someone is watching out for that kid, has saved several from probable detention, and in at least one case, possible death.
I’d like to thank all of you who support us by buying Global Fund for Children clothes from Tea Collection. Sales from our line of clothes have been very good; Tea Collection recently sent us a check for $30,000. Tea Collection plans to introduce new designs in its spring and fall collections.
I’d like to welcome two new additions to our team: Anne Corbett, grants development officer for our Philanthropic Services team, and Ananya Bhattacharya, program officer for South Asia. Ananya joins Elsa Fan, who will now handle our work in Southeast and East Asia. We also welcome our 2007 international fellow, Nicholas Kaufmann, and Katherine Hendrix, our grantmaking intern.
Nicholas Kaufmann will spend his six-month fellowship focusing on the distinctive needs of vulnerable boys. His fellowship follows professional engagements with the Pan American Health Organization and Mexico’s Salud y Género A.C., where he focused on innovative community-based interventions targeting boys and young men. Nicholas holds a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and a bachelor’s in the same field from the University of Birmingham, UK.
Finally, I’m pleased to announce that Juliette Gimon succeeded Robert Stillman early this month as the chair of The Global Fund for Children. I want to thank Bob, who is a great mentor to everyone at The Global Fund for Children!
Our growth continues. We are poised to give away more than $1 million this spring to innovative grassroots groups, some of which we have blogged about. Your continuing support is crucial.
Thank you for believing in us. Together, we can create a world where all children can grow up to be productive, caring citizens of a global society.
My best,
Maya Ajmera
Ser Vecinos Now Available
Ser Vecinos is the Spanish version of our award-winning book Be My Neighbor. The book, with words of wisdom by Mr. Fred Rogers, celebrates the many different ways children live in a community with others. Kirkus Reviews described it as “a visually enticing tribute to diversity and the number of bonds that unite us in a common humanity.” [order a copy]
Nearly 30 percent of the 16,000 tribal members of the United Houma Nation in southeastern Louisiana were badly hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Our donation of Global Fund for Children books will boost the Houma Nation’s cultural heritage workshops and summer enrichment programs. Since 2005, we have given nearly 3,500 books to hurricane victims in the Gulf Coast. [read more]
GFC Supports Film on Sudanese Rap Star
Global Fund for Children Films is currently supporting a documentary, Emmanuel’s War, Emmanuel’s Peace, being produced by 18th Street Films of Washington, DC. The film chronicles the fate of the Lost Boys of Sudan through the eyes of one of them, Emmanuel Jal. He is a rising international hip-hop star who has won the BBC World Music Award and the MTV International Award. This is the second film supported by The Global Fund for Children. The first was the award-winning Going to School in India.
The Global Fund for Children’s 2007 Sustainability Awards were given to eight grantee partners from eight different countries. Four of the awardees are in Latin America and the Caribbean, and two each in Africa and Asia. Since the awards were started in 2005, 24 grantee partners have won these $25,000 awards. [read more]
Europe’s Roma people (often called Gypsies) face intense discrimination, and because of high family unemployment, Roma children often end up begging in the streets. It took a Roma boy, Alexandru, to motivate Leslie Hawke and Maria Georghiu to start Romania’s Asociatia Ovidiu Rom.
[read more]
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