Hand-in-Hand / Main dans la main
“Money is like water. Money flows through all our lives, sometimes like a rushing river, and sometimes like a trickle. When it is flowing, it can purify, cleanse, create growth and nourish. But when it is blocked or held too long, it can grow stagnant and toxic to those withholding or hoarding it. “
Lynn Twist
Thanks to your generous moral and financial support, we celebrated our second anniversary in December 2022 with changes to each of the communities with whom we work. Hand-in-Hand with African Women does not believe charity works when it creates dependency. So, we chose to unleash the power of opportunity to transform lives. Your donation will support vulnerable children and African women entrepreneurs who continue to pursue their effort to create sustainable structures to become more self-reliant. As a wise Buddhist so succinctly expressed it, ‘This is not charity: it is an investment in humanity.’
In December of 2021, we had a hugely successful fundraiser and were able to fund the Hatchery building for Sister Agnes and the children in Western Kenya. In the spring of 2022, we funded the rest of the equipment and utilities needed for the Hatchery to become operational. In addition, Sister Agnes has started pig farming and is finding this to be a way of raising funds for children’s advanced education and professional training with minimal overhead as the pigs eat scraps from a local boarding school and produce piglets frequently. In 2023 Sister was given use of 7 acres of land and has planted maize which she can use and sell at harvest.
In the spring of 2021, we raised money for Mama Charity in Togo, to purchase farmland to plant trees and vegetables to feed the 120 orphans under her roof. Part of the money raised was used to start a school to educate relocated children from Lomé just across the border in Ghana. The school doubled its’ students at the start of the fall 2022 and added 100 more in the fall of 2023. This leaves a need for funding to pay additional teachers and build additional benches and tables, and classrooms for the children. Money is needed to develop water solutions at the farmland so Mama Charity can maximize the trees and crops she can grow there.
In October 2021, we held our first Global Walk to raise awareness of the unacceptable challenges faced by people who have very little water. Mama Dinah’s community of Oloonkerine in the Maasai Mara area of Kenya has struggled through the severe drought earlier in 2022, losing over half their livestock (losing 103 cows out of 183) due to lack of food and water. We raised enough money to help support the drilling of a new bore hole for the community in October 2022 and the community is overjoyed to see the fresh water that will be available to them once they have a solar powered pump and water storage tanks and a gravel pack filtration system to filter out the saline/alkalinity from the water. Until the pump and storage tanks are installed, the women will continue to carry 20-liter containers for several kilometers to a stagnant water dugout used by livestock as well as households. This project will impact up to 3,000 people in the Oloonkerine community. In April of 2023, the water storage tanks are being installed and then the solar panels and pump will be added along with a small distribution system.
The greatest need right now is for Mama Charity’s Ghana National School, just across the border from Lomé. With an enrollment of over 300 children, new teachers have been added and new classes and classrooms are added each year. Mama Charity’s long-term goal is to provide education at all grade levels and then build a technical school for job skill training that gives young adults skills to be gainfully employed.
For those who have been wanting to support more education projects, we have a specific landing page link for donations for Mama Charity’s school in Ghana to support the education of children who would not be attending school without this support: Hand-in-Hand Education Program.