Brief Updates
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LUA's Now on FaceBookLift Up Africa is now on FaceBook. Please join our
circle of friends.
You can also search on FaceBook for
Lift Up Africa and we are also a registered FaceBook Cause.
3rd World Stove Soot: Global Warming's #2 Contributor The New York Times
recently reported that third world stove soot (a/k/a/ black carbon) has emerged
as the No. 2 contributor to rising global temperatures, responsible for up to
18 percent of the planet's warming. For years medical professionals have
acknowledged the devastating health effects of black carbon in poor countries.
Now research shows this same soot might be responsible for half of Arctic
warming. Worldwide, glaciers are losing ice, much of this due to black carbon--tiny
black particles that warm the air and melt ice by absorbing the sun's heat when
they settle on glaciers. In Asia and Africa, cookstoves
produce most black carbon emissions. Decreasing these releases, scientists
think, is a relatively inexpensive and quick way to help reduce some of the
worst projected consequences of global warming. The combination of both environmental
and health benefits from reducing black carbon emissions gives a "big bang for
your buck." Recommendations include replacing
primitive cooking stoves with more modern versions that emit far less soot and using
solar for cooking. Solar cooking projects like those
LUA supports help reduce global warming, improve health consequences, and save
the environment. For more information on LUA's solar projects, check out the Lift Up Africa Solar Cooking Wiki Page.
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Greetings!
Here's the fourth issue of LUA News. In this issue we are focusing on how Lift Up Africa (LUA) helps vulnerable African children. As you'll see, a small amount can really help these children in meaningful ways.
Please consider helping LUA make these children's lives so much better. It's easy, secure and quick to make a contribution. And because our board covers all administrative expenses, 100% of your contribution goes to support our African projects.
If your friends or colleagues might appreciate learning about what we do to help African people, it's easy to forward this issue using the link at the bottom of the page.
Asante (thank you) and enjoy!
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Hamomi Children's Centre Starts
Cooking Solar |
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Last
year we told the inspirational story of two boys--11-year old Brian Alexander
Mays and 17-year old Dennis Dutton--who together gave LUA $200 (US) to help kids
in Kenya. With their approval, last summer LUA made a small grant to the Hamomi
Children's Centre to purchase solar cooking equipment for its feeding
program. Our hope was that this equipment would make the program more affordable.
Hamomi purchased
the equipment from Solar Cookers International's East Africa Regional Office (SCI-EA),
our partner organization, and then hosted a demonstration for the school's
staff, students and other Hamomi residents. The event was delayed for about 5
months because tight funds forced Hamomi to temporarily suspend its feeding
program.
Then on January
27th SCI-EA's Margaret Owino, Faustine Odaba and James Odaba picked up
Susie Marks, Hamomi's Executive Director, took her with them to purchase pots
for the hay baskets, and headed into the Kangemi Slum for the solar cooking
event. On that day, said Susie, Hamomi was "forever changed in ways I had
foreseen, but also in ways I hadn't even considered."
Hamomi
has no dining area or table for set up.
The SCI staff was not deterred. They unloaded and lined up an array of
solar cooking equipment on the dirt outside Hamomi's office. "A crowd
began gathering, staring, asking questions to the mzungu, (white
person), who they didn't believe was just as clueless as them," Susie said. "... once
it became quite clear that I was not in charge, the solar cookers were a far
bigger spectacle than me. They began addressing their questions to
Faustine and ... found it pretty amusing that I was helping clean vegetables."
The crowd
surrounding the demonstration included Hamomi's staff, students, and community
members. It was sometimes so big that people needed to take turns getting up to
where the cookers were to touch the panels, feeling how hot they were getting.
SCI made
rice, beans, hardboiled eggs, vegetable stew, an omelet, and even a cake.
Everyone learned that Hamomi could pasteurize water using the heat of the
sun. "We are still learning if the dirty river by the school can actually
get clean and we will be testing the water," Susie said. "If this will work, we
will suddenly have free clean water, not only for us but for the entire community. Parents and guardians can come get water for their households
and stop drinking from the river which leads to awful diseases."
Since
Hamomi received its solar cooking equipment, they're using only a single sack of
charcoal per month instead of 5--an 80% decrease in charcoal consumption. Each sack of
charcoal costs $10 (US), so they are saving $40 per month on charcoal expense. For a $200 investment, the solar cooking equipment will pay for itself within the first 5 months of use.
Thanks to this savings and increased donations, Hamomi
has been able to stretch its budget and expand the feeding program to 6 days a
week. This encourages the kids to come and study on Saturdays, school attendance
is near perfect, and they now have a much steadier stream of volunteer teachers
who at least get paid in meals.
"The
solar cookers did not make the whole feeding program so much cheaper that we
can now afford it when we couldn't before, it just made us bolder...pushed us to
take risks that we'd grown a bit weary of taking, and these leaps over
dangerous crevasses have led us to much higher, firmer ground," Susie concluded.
When we
called Brian to update him about how Hamomi had benefitted from his inspirational
gift, he said: "That's so great. I'm so
happy that I could help them have a better life."
And
that's what it's all about, isn't it?! Thank you Brian and Dennis for making
this possible.
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Project Spotlight: Peaceful Home For Children
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Worldwide, the plight
of poor children is heart wrenching. There are over 12 million orphans in Sub-Saharan
Africa alone. In Kenya the situation is critical with an estimated 1.1 million orphans today
and more and more children being orphaned as the result of accidents, disease
or abandonment, generally by a child-mother who cannot look after a baby.
Culturally, Kenyans do
not adopt orphans. Therefore, children who come to an orphanage in Kenya
usually stay until they become adults. As children, this is the only home they
will know. To help ease the plight of this growing contingent of Kenyan orphans,
LUA is supporting the Peaceful Home for Children, a new orphanage project.
Peaceful Home for
Children, located in the Kianyaga area near Mt Kenya, is a private institution that
will be sustainably run and funded under the umbrella of the Angels of Hope
Foundation, a Kenyan NGO. To give these children a true chance at a better
life, plans call for five orphan homes, a home for the on-site directors, and
land for food cultivation. Ultimately,
the project will house 40 orphans with each home providing a family atmosphere
where a mixture of 8 boys and girls will live with a housemother.
Peaceful
Home currently owns 1.5 acres of land on which a single 23x40 square meter
living unit was constructed in 2008. Water and electricity are onsite, the
septic system for the entire complex has been completed, and gardens and fruit
trees have been planted. With the recent addition of two new orphans, a brother
and a sister, 14 children now live warmly in the new house.
The
children and their housemother planted a vegetable patch and plan to sell
surplus vegetables to purchase basics like rice, maize meal and cooking oil. Recently,
Flora, a cow donated to the orphanage, gave birth to a young bull calf they named
Jimmy. The additional half acre Peaceful Home purchased in 2008 will provide
needed land to grow more fruits and vegetables, and provide more space for Flora, Jimmy and other farm
animals, too.
When LUA's Larry
Donahoo visited the site last April, he said "it was obvious that the children
were receiving excellent care with all but one of them participating in group
activities. The one not participating, a little girl named Pierina, was about
two years old and had been taken in a week earlier. It was good to see the
other children taking the time to help her," he said. (Recently we learned that Pierina is now fully
integrated and happily playing with the other kids.)
"Peaceful Home is well
managed and has an excellent chance of reaching its goal of self-sufficiency if
funds can be raised to complete the physical facilities," Larry concludes.
Four more orphan
homes and a home for the project's directors still must be funded and built. If
you are able, please consider helping Lift Up Africa help these vulnerable
African orphans. A contribution of any size will help. And please contact us
directly at [email protected] if
you'd like more information about the various construction projects or Peaceful Home's other needs.
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Please
support Lift Up Africa's critical efforts to help African people by making a secure on-line donation.
Because
LUA's Board pays for all administrative expenses, 100% of every dollar we raise
goes directly to help African people.
Asante (thank you)! Linda Lift Up Africa is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization. Our tax ID is 74-3116756.
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LIFT UP AFRICA DIRECTORS & STAFF Bill Longbrake (President) - Rick Levy (Secretary-Treasurer - Sam Muinde (Vice President) - Larry Donahoo - Anne V. Farrell - Kenneth G.Y. Grant Linda Alband, CFRE (Chief Administrative Officer)
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