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Grant awarded to Roanoke Children’s Theatre (RCT)

The Foundation is pleased to again support RCT to allow students access to the programs in the form of full scholarships for 20 special needs children (the goal is 25 for enrollment) for the Kaleidoscope program and the underwriting of student matinee performances  for the RCT4TEENS program. The 2018-2019 program is THE BOY AT THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING, this play was written by Finegan Kruckmeyer and tells the story of two boys in different universes who connect. The social and health themes explored in this production include teen stress, overscheduling, coping skills, and loneliness There are no other similar programs in the Roanoke Valley.

These programs have been targeted because of the special value they provide to students and the growth and success they have made since their initial launch. An important aspect to the success of RCT4TEENS is the strong partnership and coalition that works together to provide information about and examples of healthy behavior for young people. This program works with well-established health focused organizations such as Carilion Clinic, Prevention Council of Roanoke Valley, YOVASO, and Mental Health America. By partnering with these organizations, RCT is ensuring that the subject matter is current and relevant to teens and is presented in a format that they will accept, and provides tools teens can and will use in their daily lives. The grant to Roanoke Children’s Theatre will enable students to have access to services they need. Kaleidoscope camp is a program designed to include students of all abilities and needs in an opportunity to experience performing arts. RCT4TEENS addresses at-risk behaviors affecting our local youth and provides resources and ways to help that the students may not otherwise get.

Grant awarded to FINCA International, BrightLife

The foundation is pleased to continue its support FINCA’S BrightLife initiative, which helps bring people from poverty in an environmentally responsible way.

FINCA International (FINCA) is harnessing its 30 years of experience in providing access to finance to low income 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). FINCA’s social enterprise in Uganda, BrightLife, is designed to make life-enhancing products affordable for families that struggle to meet daily basic needs. BrightLife provides distribution and financing for products that save people time and money; make families resilient and empowered, and increases chances to participate in the local economy.

This grant will benefit FINCA’s target population of ‘impoverished’ men, women, and families in Uganda. FINCA’s average client in Uganda is a married woman with three to seven children living in a rural area of the country. She is typically self-employed and sells foodstuffs, cookware, charcoal, used clothing, or soft drinks in a local market near her home.

This grant will help to fund a portion of BrightLife’s capital expenditures (a portion of the total budget) and support the overall goals for BrightLife over the next 12 months. BrightLife’s Objectives for 2019: 1. Increase the sustainability and growth of BrightLife into a medium-sized social enterprise through retention and expansion of its customer base. 2. Expand BrightLife product offerings through field-testing solar-powered productive use assets (e.g., solar-powered ice makers, solar-powered maize grinders) and evaluate the ability of these products to create new income generation opportunities for customers. 3. Continue to work with BrightLife’s suppliers on informing product design and pipeline through customer feedback on current and desired products. 4. Create opportunities for increased resiliency by building a financial inclusion pathway for customers to move up the financial and energy ladders. 5. Through monitoring and evaluation, continue to demonstrate that improvements to family health (better eyesight, less burns, and fewer respiratory issues) and safety (fewer burns and increased household safety) are the primary social impacts of BrightLife products.

This grant will fund FINCA’s social enterprise program in Uganda, BrightLife, which is designed to make life-enhancing products affordable for families that struggle to meet daily basic needs. BrightLife provides distribution and financing for products that save people time and money; make families resilient and empowered, and increases chances to participate in the local economy.

Grant awarded to Women’s Global Empowerment Fund (WGEF)

The Foundation is pleased to continue their support of the WGEF programs.

The mission of Women’s Global Empowerment Fund is to provide women with the framework necessary to create viable opportunities for themselves and their families. Through grassroots strategies, marginalized women are given the tools necessary to alleviate poverty, thus facilitating sustainable development and empowerment. The Foundation will participate in:

-Credit Plus, loan program, providing loans and training to approximately 200 women.  Women’s Global Credit Plus program combines microcredit services with literacy, leadership development, health initiatives and basic business education into a single service, reaching women in underserved, rural and peri-rural areas.

-Healthy Periods Initiative:  for supplies and materials. To address the issues around menstrual health, and the challenges women and girls face with regards to access and education, WGEF is continuing and expanding the Healthy Periods Initiative, creating local manufacturing centers in vulnerable regions.

-Literacy: Women’s Global, in consult with the Ministry of Education, has developed a literacy program that is effective and responsive to the needs of their clients. The adult literacy program is not merely about basic skills of reading and writing, it is about providing women with the ability to understand their lives and social environment as well as equipping them with problem-solving skills, family planning, nutrition and parenting information and resources, this grant will support 650 women

-Conference and celebration: Each year at Gulu Women’s Resource Centre (GWRC), a WGEF project, they host meaningful and lively discussions and conferences around topics chosen by the leadership council. In 2018, they hosted a leadership conference focused on identifying and reporting human rights abuses; in addition, they held an event on World Population Day and a literacy graduation for 300 participants. In 2019, they would like to host a graduation again for literacy participants who complete their training and pass thru the examination process. Also, they are planning an event around reproductive health care, including reducing teen pregnancy, access and information.

 

 

 

Two year Grant awarded to AHALA/CODENI Life Projects

The Foundation is pleased to continue it’s support of CoDENI’s Life Projects program.

Founded in 2005, AHALA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of street children in Latin America through education and social services.

Participants of CODENI live and survive in the most marginalized neighborhoods of Guadalajara, Mexico. They are at a high risk of dropping out of school and lack the necessary skills to make improvements to their lives. Due to this problem, these individuals depend on the streets for their needs. A grant from the Foundation will benefit 50 teens and women ranging in ages from 13 to 50. The project will seek individuals who are eager to develop life skills through education and formal employment. Additionally, the project will benefit these individuals’ families, by the participants setting examples of what it takes to obtain a formal education and earn a stable income. By investing in these life projects, AHALA feels all 50 participants are making significant contributions to their efforts of overcoming their dependence on the street, thus making a sustainable difference on their and their family’s lives. The funds will be spent over the two-year funding period, from March, 2019 to February, 2021. This timeframe enables participants to make significant accomplishments in their life projects. They anticipate the graduation of five participants from the program over the next two years, meaning they will have fully overcome their dependence on the streets and are able to fully dedicate themselves to their life projects

Grant awarded to Community Relief & Development Action, (COREDA)

The Foundation is pleased to award a grant to Community Relief & Development Action. COREDA is a development driven, non-profit making and non-governmental organization started in 2009 .  The mission of the organization is empowering and sustainably improving the living conditions of children, women, vulnerable youths and disadvantaged rural and indigenous forest communities in the South West Region of Cameroon.

The organization began its mission in 2016 and has since acquired a piece of land for the permanent site of the educational and social centre for orphans and vulnerable children. The organization is continuing its efforts of raising funding for the construction of a permanent structure, the current home based centre has over 60 children and increasing demand. Many challenges have persisted including the lack of financial motivation of volunteer teachers, the need to feed and clothe the children, lack of furniture such as tables, chairs, teaching boards, Laptop/projector to better transmit both audio and video prerecorded teachings etc. It is from the above premise that COREDA intends to bring sustainable solution to the educational needs of children. Currently, they are working with over 80 children and have many more children that would like to enroll, but they cannot sufficiently accommodation them all at the moment. Tiko, with its relative stability, has continued to be a refuge for internally displaced children and educational refugees who flood the community every day. While many privileged children have been relocated to safe francophone zones, the education of underprivileged children is in serious jeopardy. COREDA believes even in the face of crisis, children’s right to education must be sustained. The belief is that if they build and run a school, they will be able to provide long term quality primary education to orphans and vulnerable children in Tiko semi-urban. COREDA’s plan is to build a school of 6 permanent classrooms. They will have an effective enhanced teaching-learning process through these new accommodations and facilities. This will allow at least 320 children a year to acquire adequate literacy and numeracy skills that will enable them to read with fluency, write with accuracy and express themselves with confidence, calculate and integrate themselves into society. These children will acquire a solid academic foundation rooted in STEM that will propel them for further academic pursuit and guarantee a better future for them.

 

Grant awarded to Circle of Health – Hospital Operations

Circle of Health International is an international humanitarian organization founded in 2004 with the mission to work with women and their communities in times of crisis and disaster to ensure access to quality reproductive, maternal and newborn care.

The internal conflict and violence of the past seven years have brought sustained devastation to the people of Syria. With more than 400,000 civilian deaths, 5.6 million displaced peoples (UNHCR), and 13.1 million people in need of emergency assistance (UNHCR), access to sustainable health services is a top priority. Due in part to donor fatigue because of the prolonged violence, medical needs in this emergency situation are at best 40% funded (WHO). Aleppo stands as Syria’s second largest city and one of the worst hit by violence and airstrikes. Providing for a community of over 300,000, the Iman Hospital is the last fully functional health facility in the city. With a focus on women’s and children’s health, Iman offers 24-hour emergency services, free care, and medication, and specialized surgical and female reproductive health procedures. Equipped with one inpatient ward, three child patient wards, and a full pediatric and OBGYN department, the hospital is capable of sustaining the 250 deliveries (65% of which are C-sections) and 120 surgical operations it averages per month. The Iman Hospital is the only center where people in the region can receive such care and is in dire need of the supplies and funding if it is to continue its current operations. In crisis situations women and girls are at a higher risk of experiencing gender-based violence. According to a report released by the UN Human Rights Council in March of 2018, women and girls in Syria have experienced consistent sexual and gender-based violence from all parties involved in the conflict – whether it is male government officers, at a reported 20 detention centers country-wide, perpetrating violence as a humiliation and fear tactic, or terrorist groups doing the same as a means of enforcing an extremist social order. The presence and perpetration of these crimes result in health risks and issues that healthcare staff must be trained in identifying and addressing, both through clinical work and education. COHI’s approach works to support healthcare staff in both areas, as well as to create educational environments that lead to critical awareness of the social determinants of health. In doing so, they are able to work towards having informed communities that recognize and address social issues.

The grant will be used for  Medical Supplies and salaries of  OB/GYNs and Pediatricians

 

 

Grant awarded to International Rescue Committee (IRC) “She Leads” Project

The Foundation is again pleased to partner with the IRC for their “She Leads” project.

TheIRC was founded in 1933 by Albert Einstein to aid Germans suffering under Hitler. More than 80 years later, they are working in over 40 countries helping people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict or disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their future.

Adolescent girls in Liberia are vulnerable to all forms of violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA). Men in positions of power frequently use their resources and influence to control decisions made by adolescent girls and their parents, which in turn contribute to early sexual relationships, early pregnancy, and school dropout. Having access to opportunities and resources can enable adolescent girls to achieve their goals and reduce vulnerability to sexual exploitation and abuse. With a grant from the Kathryn B. McQuade Foundation, the IRC proposes to work with the 150 girls from the current and previous cohorts of the Irish Aid-funded She Leads1 project to develop adolescent girls’ social networks and reduce their vulnerability to violence. The IRC will expand on the She Leads Project by providing mentorship to five cohorts of girl groups using its Girls Shine curriculum. The Girls Shine Curriculum is a mentorship model designed to: • Build girls’ knowledge of their own health and wellbeing • Facilitate discussion and reflection on cultural norms that serve as barriers to girls reaching their goals • Help girls develop skills to build self-esteem and self-efficacy.

The IRC Liberia team proposes to utilize funding from the Foundation to build upon the gains made through the She Leads and Girl Empower projects in three specific ways: • Provide ten recent project graduates with academic scholarships and unconditional cash transfers. The scholarships will enable these girls to continue their education at primary and secondary levels. The unconditional cash transfers will allow girls to cover basic living expenses while in school. • Provide conditional cash transfers based on attendance to 150 participants in the next cohort of life skills trainees through the She Leads program, which begins December 2018. • Provide mentorship to five groups of graduates (150 total) from the 2017-2018 Girls Shine cohort to facilitate and lead a Girls Social Network. This will provide an opportunity for them to reach out into their communities to further expand their networks and share their learning with other girls in their communities.

The proposed program will provide mentorship to 150 recent Girls Shine graduates to equip them to serve as mentors to other adolescent girls in their communities under a new Girls Social Network. Participation in the networks will motivate the new mentors to continue applying knowledge gained through Girl Shine and growing their social networks. As prior participants of the program, their experiences and reflections of the Girl Shine curriculum and implementation will add value to IRC as well as to the next generation of girl groups.

Grant awarded to Blink Now

The Foundation is pleased to partner with Bink Now with a grant to provide scholarships to children in Nepal.  BlinkNow’s vision is a world where every child is safe, educated and loved. Their mission is to change the world by empowering Nepal’s children. The organization does so by providing quality education, a safe environment and through inspiring others. Their students are the most vulnerable children in Nepal who otherwise would not have access to a quality education. Furthermore, the students’ enrollment impacts their entire family not only by having educated children, but families are also provided resources like medical care, educational workshops, and first priority access for mothers to be enrolled in the Kopila Valley Women’s Center. Their approach is community–based and holistic. The nucleus of the community impact is the school, with additional programs such as their Women’s Center, Girl’s Hostel, Health Clinic, Children’s Home and Futures which collaborate in a symbiotic relationship with the school. Scholarship support and student enrollment is the foundation to our larger community impact. By supporting a student at the school, you are truly impacting the individual, family and community in Surhket.

Upon entrance, the organization strives to teach each of the children the importance of becoming a change maker. From sharing hygiene and basic nutrition best practices with their families at home to becoming critical thinkers instead of learning through repetition, the ways students are growing highlight the big and small changes across their lives. In most cases, this will be the first time students will have access to uniformed clothing, furniture like chairs and desks, and healthcare. They look at their graduating students pursuing their next steps, while simultaneously thinking how they plan to return to Surkhet and leave an impact for the next generation. With these students often being the first in their families to receive formal education, are goal is challenging and motivating them to be leaders within KVS and even more importantly, beyond.

BlinkNow envisions a world where every child is safe, educated and loved. They also know investing in women is one of the fastest ways to break the cycle of poverty and make positive community change happen. They realize that talent is distributed evenly, but opportunity is not. They are providing opportunity to the future change makers in Nepal through a quality and free education. They are also providing opportunity for many women in the community to shine bright and have their voices be heard today. The Kopila Valley School is the foundation of their work—-where all of the other programs stem—- and support for students at the school is the best way to also impact the entire community.

Grant awarded to TechnoServe

The Foundation is pleased to again support TechnoServe with a 2 year grant.  TechnoServe’s mission is to work with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries. Their success is measured by increased financial benefits for the people whom they engage. These benefits enable them to improve their resilience and reduce their poverty.  To guide their efforts TechnoServe released a Gender Policy in 2015 which commits them to ensuring that their work engages, empowers and benefits both females and males with the aim of transforming gender relations to achieve gender equality.

The effectiveness of the current Gender Practice is exemplified by the growing internal and external requests for the Global Gender Director’s time to support program development and implementation. Programs throughout their portfolio are requesting technical assistance from their practice and their donors are, in part, funding the practice lead function for institutional capacity building activities, staff training, and strategy and design workshops. The goal is for TechnoServe to become a distinctively effective catalyst of gender transformative development. Both through optimizing their own programming and enabling impact at scale through adoption and replication by third parties. To this end, the gender practice is responsible for achieving the following objectives: 1) Improve gender practices across TechnoServe’s programming. 2) Increase TechnoServe’s influence on gender transformative development. 3) Increase and diversify funding for TechnoServe’s gender initiatives. 4) Establish a sustainable funding model for the gender practice’s leadership.

With the Foundation’s support TechnoServe can continue to make substantial improvements in gender practice and the development of more effective interventions to lift women out of poverty.

Grant awarded to Butterfly Effect Center, under Lighthouse Peace Initiative

Butterfly Effect Center is addressing the problem of providing education and supplemental food to Syrian children in refugee camps in Lebanon. This grant will benefit the Syrian refugee children in the Siknaf and Khalaf camps in the Bekaa Valley. These children have a huge gap in their education and have nothing to do in these refugee camps. These funds pay for transportation to the building where educational classes are held and supplemental food is provided for them. This grant will cover this year’s spending costs. The impact that it will make on the community is allowing the children to learn computer programming as well as reading, writing, math and other skills that will allow them to pursue a better life when they get out of these camps. Progress is measured through how the kids progress in their basic skills, motivation and behavior. Education and supplemental food allows for these children to grow physically, emotionally and intellectually so that their future is better and they can assist their families.