start a ripple

Dear ,

During this time of giving thanks and giving gifts, we have an idea you might like: Give to SOTENI International, and your gift will be a shining stone dropped into a pool of healing water, the ripples spreading to help thousands improve their own lives. You will earn their thanks and ours.

The ripples have been spreading since 2003 as we have acted on the motto "It takes a village to prevent AIDS". Four SOTENI Villages of Hope in rural Kenya prevent HIV/AIDS and reduce its effects while providing love, guidance and resources to those affected by it. Each Village determines its own priorities to boost prevention.

Together, we have touched the lives of more than 10,000 orphans and their communities through programs such as:

Access to clean water and nutritious food
Improved health services to increase overall independence
Income-generating activities
Women's empowerment training and entrepreneurship
Home-based care for AIDS patients
Education about AIDS: testing, treatment, and prevention
Primary, secondary, and vocational education

We ask you to keep the ripples spreading. We continue to serve new populations, deliver more services, and widen our collaboration with Kenyan government health centers and other partners. These programs are financed by competitive grants from foundations and governments, which we could not have won without the support donors have provided for operations.

Your gift will help us to pay our small staff - 1 American and 44 (full- and part-time) Kenyans. Your gift will help us further develop partnerships, stretching our resources and enabling us to accomplish so much more.

We know that everyone - donors and nonprofits alike - must be careful about finances: SOTENI is consistently frugal with your money, spending less than 13% of the budget on administration and fundraising. Those are small expenses, but they are the lifeblood of our organization.

Please give to SOTENI International via this link to our secure website donation page. If you have a QR app, you may scan the code below. Your support will ripple around the world. Thank you for considering our request to sustain those life-giving ripples.

With much appreciation, Victoria Wulsin Randie Marsh

Founder and Chair Director

Vic Wulsin Randie headshot - pink

Ugenya is a small village in Nyanza Province, near Lake Victoria. HIV/AIDS has hit Nyanza the hardest of any area in the entire world -- up to one in three sexually-active adults there is HIV-positive. Ugenya is where SOTENI is most needed.

This is Milka Anyango Were. Five years ago her husband died, leaving her a widow with three children - ages 9, 7, and 5. Without a high school education, she began supporting her family as a small-scale farmer.

One year later, in 2007, Milka visited a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center where she learned she was HIV-positive. The stigma caused her to travel far from her home to get the drugs that she needed. Joining a support group, she slowly gained courage. By 2009 she had overcome her fear of stigma and discrimination and was getting treatment close to her home.

In 2010 SOTENI trained Milka as an AIDS Barefoot Doctor [ABD]. She now helps others with HIV/AIDS to get the medical treatment, clean water (by using PUR® water purification packets provided by Procter & Gamble), and SOTENI-supported "kitchen gardens" which provide them with nutritious crops. Most important, she inspires them to live positively.

"SOTENI has been a sister to me," says Milka. "I am an ABD thanks to SOTENI. I can give my children better food. I can help others who are suffering to find better ripple ways of living. And thanks to SOTENI I am sharing my joy."

Milka is just one ripple in the water.

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