Kathryn McQuade

FINCA International awarded Grant for BrightLife Program

The Foundation is pleased to announce a $30,000 grant to FINCA for their BrightLife Program.  This is the fourth year of our funding and involvement with the program since inception in 2014.

FINCA International (FINCA) is harnessing its 30 years of experience in providing access to finance to lowincome entrepreneurs to bring sustainable and scalable solutions in the energy, education, water & sanitation, agriculture and healthcare sectors to families living at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). BrightLife was founded in 2014 to address energy poverty. With Africans suffering from the world’s lowest electrification rates, people rely on indoor fires and kerosene lamps for cooking and lighting. The resulting air pollution leads to the premature death of up to 2 million people per year, and the widespread use of kerosene lamps has been linked directly to black carbon emissions which contribute directly to global warming. Through this new work, FINCA has a unique opportunity to accelerate the achievement of a broader range of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

FINCA has a unique opportunity to accelerate the achievement of a broader range of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), through its 30-years of microfinance work and its new work in social enterprises. Financial inclusion helps create the conditions that bring many of the SDGs within reach. A strategic priority of their work is to develop the pay-as-you-go financing for products sold through BrightLife as an on-ramp to financial inclusion to BoP clients to start savings accounts and have access to other financial products at FINCA Uganda and other financial institutions. Furthermore, durable, efficient and high quality clean energy alternatives—such as solar powered lanterns and clean cook stoves—provide improved health outcomes such as reduced incidence of respiratory disease and reduced black carbon emissions. Clean energy solutions also help reduce time poverty, providing children with increased study time, decreasing time spent on collecting firewood, and enabling businesses to stay open later in the evening.

Reaching women is a priority for FINCA’s mission and for BrightLife. Nearly half of FINCA’s clients are women, who often face the steepest climb out of poverty, particularly in Africa. Affordable access to high quality, affordable, life-transforming products like solar lamps, cooking stoves, and water filtration systems, available to BoP families has the power to substantially improve the health and well-being of women and children in Uganda, as they currently suffer the greatest exposure to pollution from traditional indoor fires and contaminates. A program that helps the Women of Uganda and the planet, is a win win for all.

 

Grant awarded to Syria Fund

The Syria Fund is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States that supports education programs and hands-on humanitarian efforts for Syrian refugees living in Jordan., has been awarded a $22,500 Grant.

The Syria Fund believes in making direct, specific contributions that have an immediate impact on families in need through partnerships with local organizations. So far, in addition to many humanitarian aid efforts, The Syria Fund has successfully built and implemented education programs that reach over 500 Syrian refugees and other vulnerable Jordanian children. The Syria Fund is seeking funding to expand its education efforts to help transform the prospects for the future for Syrian refugees living in Jordan.

The Syria Fund and its local partner the Middle East Children’s Institute (MECI) propose establishing a Remedial Education Program in three locations in Northern Jordan. This program will provide both Syrian refugee children and other vulnerable youth with sustained remedial academic and psychosocial support to catch up on missed years of education and to keep up with their counterparts in formal schools. Working closely with Jordan’s Ministry of Education, The Syria Fund and MECI will identify existing public schools in which to implement the program, using MECI’s carefully-designed curriculum and a highly qualified and fully-vetted staff specifically assigned to this project.. This  grant of $22,500 will  support one full class of 30 children including all salaries, supplies and extra programming for the year.

The beneficiaries of the Remedial Education Program will include 450 students, 15 full-time teachers, three school counsellors, one dedicated field officer and various other education staff members and hundreds of family and community members. This valuable education enhancement program will ensure Syrian refugees and other vulnerable youth can enter the appropriate grade level in formal schools and maintain and flourish in the classroom. The grant awarded  by the Foundation will support one full class of 30 children including all salaries, supplies and extra programming for the year.

The mission of The Syria Fund closely aligns with that of The Kathryn B. McQuade Foundation — striving to make sustainable improvements in women’s and children’s rights, education and welfare.

Roots & Wings awarded grant

The Foundation is again happy to support the work of Roots and Wings with a $25,000 grant.
Roots & Wings was established in 1999 in Morris County, New Jersey. Their mission is to provide young
adults who age out of the foster care system in New Jersey with safe housing, educational support, case
management, counseling, and life skills in order to empower them toward self-sufficiency.
Without an adequate system in place, studies show that aged out foster care youth are among the most
disconnected and statistically vulnerable segment in society. Ranging in ages of 18 to 24, these individuals
who have aged out of foster care face are at a great risk to face food insecurities, early pregnancies,
addictions, interpersonal violence, prostitution, and incarceration.
Roots & Wings works to provide holistic programs and services that are aimed to remediate the deficiencies
in education and socializations that result from the unstable and often abusive childhoods experienced by
their clients. One way Roots & Wings in working to do this is through their RISE program.
The RISE program is the agency’s residential program that presently includes four, two bedroom apartments
in Morris County, NJ, and three, three bedroom apartments in Union County, NJ. The goal of this program is
to meet the immediate needs their clients have regarding housing, food, and medical care, while also working
with the clients a long term plan on becoming self-sufficient, contributing members of a community. Each
client is assigned a case manager to help them along the way, establishing goals and strategies.
Roots & Wings is awarded $25,000 to help with expansion costs of their Union County Rise program.
Roots & Wings was able to open an additional apartment in May of this year and are currently working on
one more apartment to open in September. This apartment will provide safe housing for an additional two
aged out foster care youth for up to 2 years while they receive services and work towards becoming selfsufficient.
Funding will take place in 2017.

Grants for Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief

Early on Wednesday, September 20, Hurricane Maria, a powerful Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds, made direct landfall on Puerto Rico, bisecting the entire island and drenching it with feet of rain. What’s happened since has been catastrophic for Puerto Rico.

There’s still no power on the island, with the exception of generators powering only the highest-priority buildings like hospitals. That means in many places there’s no water to drink or bathe in or to flush toilets. There’s limited food, fuel, and cell service, and it’s taken several days for reporters and rescue workers to reach remote towns and villages.

“Make no mistake — this is a humanitarian disaster involving 3.4 million US citizens,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Monday.
Children are the most vulnerabe, and an American Island without Electricity, water and food….lacking basic necessities needs everyones help today.
The Foundation hopes that in some small way these grants will help.
$25,000 to The Foundation for Puerto Rico
$15,000 to Save the Children
$10,000 to Americares

NAWBO Institute for Entrepreneurial Development awarded a grant

NAWBO has been awarded a $30,000 grant to assist in funding the Institute’s Virtual Platform.
The NAWBO Institute is an educational foundation that provides
opportunities for capacity building and organizational development for emerging and established women
entrepreneurs. Through the Institute Virtual Platform, NAWBO strengthens the wealth-creating potential of
women business owners and promotes economic development within the entrepreneurial community,
building a legacy of success for the next generation. NAWBO is determined to bring education and mentoring
programs to women, regardless of their global location or social position.
For women business owners, the most glaring “need” stems from the lack of knowledge on how to scale a
business from point A to point B. Education brings the ability for women to build and sustain a business,
leverage capital, and develop a long-term strategic plan and performance management system, enabling
more women-owned businesses to realize growth.
Furthermore, statistics illustrate that new thinking and programming to support women seeking to grow
their businesses is needed. The study states that most of the programming offered through the public sector
and much of the private sector is dated and focused on individuals who want to start a business. However,
few solid programs exist to provide business expansion expertise and engage entrepreneurs – in particular
for women and minorities.
The Institute for Entrepreneurial Development is open to women business owners in any stage of business,
sponsors, and partners around the globe desiring access to the information, education, courses, and network
of support within the platform. The organization emphasizes the virtual support, tools, resources and
education to women of color and to socially and economically disadvantaged women who have additional
barriers to launching and sustaining a business. The accessibility of the Institute’s virtual programming will
allow for more participation of women who face additional obstacles to entry and will be a key resource in
providing them with solutions to the barriers that are currently preventing their growth.
The funds will be used for assisting with funding the NAWBO Institute Virtual Platform. The On24 platform
facilitates communication, virtual networking, best practice sharing, and education for women business
owners, partners and supporters around the world. The virtual platform’s cutting edge technology allows for
interactive and engaging virtual experiences for users.

Children & Families First (CFF) awarded grant

Children & Families First (CFF) is awarded a $27,000 grant for their Nurturing Parenting & their Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers Program.

CFF began helping families in greater Wilmington in 1884, serving 1,000 by
caring for orphaned children, feeding families, and operating a lumber yard to provide jobs.
The organization serves vulnerable, under-served infants, children, teens, and their caregivers who
experience a wide variety of significant challenges. These clients are three times more likely than the general
population to have childhood history of significant trauma – which, if left unaddressed, puts them at
significant risk of an array of diminished health, well-being, and self-sufficiency outcomes, including:
cognitive and emotional challenges, lower academic and professional achievement, troubled relationships,
and substance abuse, food and housing insecurity, and more.

The grant will be used to implement an intensive parenting training intervention for low-income pregnant and new mothers who are
recovering from serious addiction, and whose deficits in parenting skills put their children at risk of neglect
and abuse. Nurturing Parenting & their Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers (NPITP) is a skills-based familycentered
trauma-informed program designed to build effective, nurturing parenting skills as an alternative to
abusive and neglectful child-rearing practices. The Nurturing Parenting Program is proven to increase
parenting skills, self-worth, empathy, and bonding among a population with significant challenges, toward
improving stability, resiliency, and self-sufficiency for themselves and their children. Long term benefits also
include: reducing recidivism in families receiving social services, lowering multi-parent teenage pregnancy
rate, reducing juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, and stopping the intergenerational cycle of child
abuse. The intervention addresses a critical unmet need, and builds on CFF’s established, successful
parenting skills programs and nurse home visiting programs for at-risk pregnant women, new mothers, and
their young children.

Roanoke Children’s Theatre (RCT) awarded grant

The Foundation is pleased to again help sponsor RCT’s Kaleidoscope and RCT4TEENS programs with a $15,000 grant.

Kaleidoscope is the first class and camp of its kind in Southwest Virginia, offering
children with exceptional abilities a safe and creative community that expands awareness of others and
awareness of self.The project targets Roanoke Valley K-12 special needs students, who may have a multitude of
different developmental disabilities. Disabilities may include verbal or nonverbal, ambulatory/ in need to
assistive movement, ADD/ADHD, Autistic or Down syndrome. The project will serve a minimum of 25
students, along with their families, in collaboration with school personnel. Post camp evaluations and teacher
interviews will be used to measure the success of the program.

RCT4TEENS is a continuing theatre/health education project, produced in collaboration with local school
districts and a coalition of health care agencies and professiona. RCT annually reaches grade-wide
attendance of approximately 2,500 – 3,500 middle and high school students who participate in post-show
interactive prevention talkbacks with agency professionals, while identifying resources for ongoing support.
The overarching goal of the teen’s project is to utilize theater as teaching mechanisms to increase knowledge
and promote good health behavior. Teens who partake in the program gain an increased understanding in
health protective measures and risk reducing factors. RCT has found studies that show successful
interventions, such as RTC4TEENS, effectively promotes the understanding of risk reducing factors and
good health practices in teens. Past issues addressed include Substance Abuse (WRECKED, 2011),
Depression and Suicide (ERIC & ELLIOTT, 2012), the link between brain development and risk behaviors
(TEEN BRAIN, 2013/2014), eating disorders (EAT: IT’S NOT ABOUT FOOD, 2015), heroin addiction and
substance abuse (THE ICE CREAM MAN, 2016), and teen pregnancy (BABYLAND, 2017). The 2017-2018 play
DISTRACTED DRIVING will address the issue of driving while using social media and cell phones. Each teen
in the RTC4TEEN program also has access to youth education outreach workshops that connects teens with
health care professionals. During these workshops, teens are encouraged to ask questions and learn best
practices.

AfricAid, Inc is awarded a Grant for Kisa Project

The Foundation is happy to again partner with AfricAid. Their 2 year grant totalling $50,000 will continue to support their Kisa Project.
Since that time, the Kisa Project has grown from 22 Kisa Scholars in 2010 to 997 Kisa Scholars enrolled in
the program in 2016. 96% of Kisa graduates have gone on to university or other post secondary school
training.
AfricAid’s mission is to support girls’ education in Africa in order to provide them with the opportunity to
transform their own lives and the futures of their communities. The organization’s vision is to create a future
in which all African girls have access to high-quality educational opportunities that empower them to achieve
their goals and better their communities.
The Kisa Project builds girls’ leadership capacity, provides life-skills training, encourages critical thinking
and supports girls to complete secondary school and enroll in higher education through mentorship and a
tertiary scholarship program. AfricAid’s direct beneficiaries are Advanced Level (A Level or Forms 5 and 6)
girls at 20 Kisa Partner Schools who are between 17 and 21 years old. The girls come from families and
communities of lower socio-economic means.
Through these Kisa Scholars, the benefits of the Kisa Project reach far beyond the girls themselves. Kisa
Scholars develop a community service ethic; Kisa teachers them to “pay it forward” to their families, their
communities and Tanzanian society. Kisa is unique. The organization has been careful not to replicate work
already being done in Northern Tanzania. The Project differentiates itself through the frequency and
consistency of contact between staff and students, the quality of curriculum, and the number and quality of
the special events and programs girls are exposed to during the two years that a girl is a scholar. This
programming is much more intensive than any other similar program working with secondary school girls in
the area. The Kisa Project is a leadership and empowerment program. It does not directly support girls to
enroll in or continue in secondary education. The Project targets girls that are already enrolled and generally
have the means to complete A-Levels.
The sustainable effects of the Kisa Project are seen in the internal changes where the Kisa Scholars begin to
see themselves as more capable, confident, and resilient. Resilience is a key result area of the Kisa Project as
Kisa aims to build up young women’s confidence and leadership skills in order to increase their ability to
bounce back from adversity and succeed in an environment where they are often at a disadvantage as young
women. Confidence, leadership and public speaking were key themes amongst the changes mentioned by
each group of observers and participants.
The funds requested would be spent over 2 years from 2017-2018 to support the implementation of the Kisa
Project at 20 Partner Schools in the Arusha and Kilimanjaro Regions of Northern Tanzania in 2017. The
organization aims to add four more Partner Schools in 2018, bringing the total number of schools across
Northern Tanzania to 24.

Temple University, FBO The Inside-Out Center awarded grant

Temple University, FBO The Inside-Out Center awarded grant of $24,000.00.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an innovative higher education program that creates
opportunities for people inside and outside of prison to have transformative learning experiences together
that emphasize collaboration and dialogue and open up possibilities for creating wider, more systemic
change through civic agency and human connection.

Since the Program’s inception in 1997, The Inside-Out Center has provided 48 trainings for 727 instructors
from 34 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces (and seven instructors from the U.K., Denmark, Norway,
Australia and Mexico). These instructors have gone on to create 150+ partnerships between their
colleges/universities and local correctional institutions in order to offer Inside-Out courses.
One of the current goals of the organization is to enable Spanish-speaking professors in Mexico and other
Latin American countries to become part of Inside-Out.

This grant will expand the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program in Mexico and enable it
to reach other Latin American countries. The project will include the following:
 translating the Inside-Out curriculum, training materials and class handouts to Spanish,
 training the only current Inside-Out instructor in Latin Americamas a certified
Inside-Out trainer to reach Spanish-speaking professors,
 certifying another Mexican professor who teaches in the Jalisco women’s state
penitentiary as an Inside-Out instructor through a week-long training program in Philadelphia,
 implementing the first Inside-Out training in Mexico
The grant will initially benefit seven college professors in Mexico, who in turn will be able to teach InsideOut
college courses to approximately 20 students per semester. Thus, funding should enable at least 140
Mexican students (70 “inside” and 70 “outside”) to participate in Inside-Out in 2019.

The impact of this participation will be felt in Mexico and its southern neighbors. Each trained professor
will further promote the program at his or her university, in the prison system, and beyond. Having
program materials in Spanish and a Spanish-speaking certified trainer for Inside-Out will enable continued
growth and replication of the program long after the closure of this project (it will also enable expansion in
the U.S. with Spanish-speaking audiences).

YWCA Central Carolinas – Women in Transition (WIT) recieves a Grant

WIT, a program of the YWCA Central Carolinas has been awarded a $25,000 grant.
WIT is the primary comprehensive transitional housing program in the greater Charlotte area serving
single women who have suffered homelessness. They can house up to 66 women at a time on their Park
Road campus, where participants receive case management services, have access to their fitness center,
educational workshops and social activities. Women can participate for up to 18 months while they gain the
skills and resources necessary to attain and maintain permanent long-term housing. Last year, 84% of
women who participated for four months or longer exited the program into permanent housing,
successfully moving from a situation of instability to one of security.
WIT provides affordable housing and support services for up to 66 women at a time, who can participate in
the program for a maximum of 18 months. Eligible participants earn less than 50% of area median income
and have suffered homelessness. Last year roughly 75% of participants were African America, 21%
Caucasian and their ages ranged from 18 to 84 years in age.
YWCA feels these funds will especially make a sustainable difference due to the economic conditions in
Charlotte. From a studied conducted by UC Berkely/Harvard, Charlotte ranked dead last (50th out of 50)
among major cities in terms of economic stability. This means if you born to a low-income family in
Charlotte, your chances of escaping poverty are less likely in Charlotte than any other major city in
America. WIT specifically works to lessen this probability and gives women a chance obtain permanent
housing and jobs.
Funds from a grant from the McQuade Foundation will be used to fund the various operations of the WIT
program. Funds will be spent during their 2018 fiscal year.