New Year 2022 Newsletter
Welcome to our New Year 2022 newsletter edition. For the latest blog updates and descriptions of all of our active projects, go to our website at http://www.journeysofsolutions.org.
As we begin the new year let's look forward with hope that the worst of the pandemic will be permanently behind all of us in the world. For now the pandemic continues to challenge the lives of the people and communities we support in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Jobs have been lost, education disrupted, and food insecurity has increased. The countries we serve have limited resources to help mitigate the situation which makes our support even more necessary and welcome.
Consider supporting a JOS project that inspires you at https://journeysofsolutions.org/make-a-donation/ . Or donate to our general fund and we will make sure the money goes to a project in need. As an all volunteer organization, virtually all of your donations directly support projects. All checks should be made out to Journeys of Solutions, Inc. The bank won't accept checks made out to individual projects. Designate the project in the memo line.
There are other ways you can help:
Does your employer offer a matching gift program? Designate JOS.
Shop on Amazon? Simply go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and designate Journeys of Solutions. Amazon will donate a percentage of the purchase to JOS. The shopping experience is the same.
Did you know that you can set up a Facebook fundraiser for your project? Go to https://www.facebook.com/fund/journeysofsolutions/ . Please make sure to identify your JOS project.
You can now create a GoFundMe campaign to support a JOS project. Just designate Journeys of Solutions as the charity to support and include the JOS project name in the campaign title.
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Child Sponsorship Program (CSP) - Tanzania
CSP - 3 years and counting!
We experienced some fantastic milestones in 2021: our eldest student graduated college (a CSP first!), our youngest student graduated high school and we entered year 13 of our journey together! For more details, please see Elizabeth's recent blog post!
As we continue in our sunsetting phase - our focus is on our three remaining students and their advanced educational pursuits: Baraka and Naomi have just begun year 2 of their 3-year college journeys and Shedrack will shortly begin interim studies as he awaits his 2022 school placement.
Thank you for continuing to journey with us - we're excited for all that's ahead!!
Onward, twendeni*! (*Twendeni: "Let's Go" in Swahili)
Elizabeth - Project Lead
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Eco Moyo Education Center - Kenya
Highlights for this year from Eco Moyo include:
- School re-opened in January after being closed for 9 months due to COVID
- 60 new students enrolled (talking total enrollees to 203 students)
- 40 students supported in a neighborhood school
- Taikwondo lessons started twice per week
- Launched girls' football team
- Started a collaboration with MTG (Moving The Goalposts,) a local NGO working to promote sexual education through sports for girls
- Started collaboration with Engineers without Borders to work with Masters degree students as they write their theses with Eco Moyo (concept called Meaningful Masters).
- Lunch program introduced for all students in December - children now receive both porridge for breakfast as well as warm lunch 5 days per week. The lunch program started in December so very exciting to see how performances might improve the upcoming term.
- Expanded Eco Moyo's administration to include with a finance administrator and a new head teacher
- Increased focus on learner-centered teaching methods emphasizing practical and creative work.
-Lindsay Sanner, Eco Moyo Lead
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Lightness's Women's Project - Lake Eyasi, Tanzania
A group of 6 travelers including a mother, daughter and grandma will travel to Lake Eyasi in February 2022 to help - among other things - with painting a new home that we recently built for a local family. This latest house is the 12th built by us in the village: each new home is secure and fully equipped with solar power, toilets and furniture. In addition to another new home, the village now has employment opportunities thanks to a micro-loan venture - a new store containing three businesses. It is a real oasis, with water supplied from a new-built well! The volunteer group will also be working on the new childcare center at the vocational school from which four girls graduated in December 2021. Our volunteer group will be involved in working with new students - several of whom are sponsored by our supporters - in their English and Computer classes. Thanks to our support, teachers at the school also receive a consistent salary. The Vocational School is an ongoing project with long term friendships developed among the women - who are also supported in medical care and mental health issues. As we arrive at the school there is always a celebration of dancing and singing! The week ends with several hundred local people attending an outdoor movie at an impromptu theater we create and the women cooking us a great goat soup!
Rick and Lightness - Project Leads
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Widows of India - Tiruvanamalai, India
In the Fall of 2021, the Om Shanthi Old Age Home was presented with the award for the "Best Old Age Home in the District of Tiruvannamalai" (note: Tiruvannamalai is an area 200 kilometers wide where over 3 million people currently live.) Mary, Rhada and Jyothi, residents of Om Shanthi, accepted the award from district officials at the end of a challenging year of restrictions, regulations, travel bans, closures, lockdowns and deep losses. Om Shanti's model - in providing a true home where homeless elderly women can live until the end of their natural lives - is unique and contrasts with other Old Age Homes in the district that are typically funded by churches or privately financed by the overseas Indian community.
The pandemic and associated restrictions continues to pummel Tiruvanamalai's poor. The children of Om Shanti's younger widows have been hit hard by ongoing school closures and lack of access to remote schooling options - with grave implications for their future economic or social prospects. Widows of India continues to work in tandem with Mangalam welfare society and Premalya handicrafts to provide employment opportunities for its younger widows and generate revenue to support existing programs at Om Shanti. So far, thanks to unprecedented support from donors - many of whom have themselves been struggling to remain afloat through this devastating time - Widows of India has been able to continue materially and financially supporting all the women who depend on it. As the world enters 2022, however, and the impact of pandemic-related restrictions on India's most vulnerable people continues to mount, Widows of India both needs - and deeply appreciates - the ongoing support of its overseas donors.
For more information on recent progress, see Widows of India's latest blog entry.
Paulette - Project Lead
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Four Walls - El Sauce, Nicaragua
Despite the incredible challenges of 2021, 4 Walls continues to build steadily. There is still a great need for safe and sturdy homes in the El Sauce, Nicaragua area, so we’re doing all we can to meet it with the unwavering support of our amazing donors. As basic living expenses have increased, people have even less savings for a stack of bricks or a bag of cement. $10 or $50 goes a long way, and we can see the lifelong impact of every dollar each day. Especially on that first day of construction. It's the day that changes everything for a poor family in Nicaragua -- a feeling of safety, a little less disruption, a taste of self-worth. Sixteen 4-Walls houses were completed this year, including several in rural areas (el Campo.) Building in el Campo comes with its own set of challenges. Rural Nicaragua often means roads that are unpaved and difficult access to the hundreds of galloons of water that we need for mixing cement. Thanks to the most caring and unselfish donors in the world, who dig deep whenever we need them to, we see house number 200 in our future!
Bonnie and Colleen - Project Leads
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Sponsorship spotlight - Lightness's Women's Project
Lightness was recently visited by a local widow, Uda Malanta. Long-time resident of Lake Eyasi, Uda was widowed almost two decades ago when her first-born daughter, Uda Kodogo was very young. In 2019, at 16, having passed her Primary National Exams, Uda Kodogo entered Secondary School, but after becoming pregnant at 17 was forced to abandon her education. Lightness has since learned that elder males from the family are now insisting that Uda Kodogo, currently 18 years old, marry an 86 year old male from the village. Lightness shared that Uda Kodogo dearly wants to study at the Lake Eyasi Girls' Vocational Training School and dreams of gaining skills that will equip her and her son - as well as her mother and siblings - with tools and skills for a healthy and empowered future. Potential sponsors are warmly invited to consider supporting Uda Kodogo and her son on their journey to independence. This young family's needs are complex but include support for medical care, clothing, food and college tuition. For information about sponsoring Uda Kodogo contact ricksthere@yahoo.com.
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Amigos en Acción - Nicaragua
Happy New Year to everyone! This past year certainly flew by, and I would like to take a minute to thank all of you for always thinking of JOS and the projects that are doing so much good in many corners of the world. As I sit here reflecting on the past year in Amigos en Acción, I am amazed by how much our students were able to grow and learn, even in the middle of a pandemic that has turned the world upside down. During 2021, we were able to have in-person classes with out students to provide educational support, English classes, extracurricular activities, and a healthy snack. Even though there is no official mask mandate in Nicaragua, we required masks to ensure everyone's health and safety, and also implemented more frequent hand washing (we have always had students wash their hands before snack, but have included more hand-washing and the use of hand sanitizer, plus more in-depth daily cleaning of the facilities). This year, we continued providing a daily snack to our students, ensuring that both their bodies and their minds are fueled during their participation in Amigos en Acción. In addition to the typical milk or fruit based drinks and bread, we included more filling and varied snacks in our menu for this year to ensure that our students received a more balanced snack. Thank you to all who donated which allowed us to provide this snack every day to our students!
As always, the educational support portion of our program is very important for our students, providing them a safe space to complete their homework and projects with all of the materials they need to complete these assignments. Not only do they complete their homework, but they receive extra practice and support to help them to develop skills to become more independent in their schoolwork and to learn better study skills that will help them as they move up to the secondary school. This has proven to be very important and helpful for our students as their education has been impacted by the pandemic. The English class is also a key aspect of our program as it gives our students an introduction to English in a fun, interactive class that focuses on conversation and lots of activities to help them naturally develop the language. This year, we incorporated more activities to help our students to develop their team-building and problem-solving skills, and to work on their self-esteem and recognizing and managing their emotions. In addition to being fun, these activities helped our students to better reflect on what is happening in their world and to better be able to respond to the things that happen to them and around them.
We are so proud of the 14 students that successfully graduated from 6th grade in December 2021, and who will be moving on to the secondary school. We will certainly miss them in 2022, but are very excited to see what they will accomplish, and also to meet the new students that will join the program this year! Thank you to everyone who has supported Amigos en Acción!
Ashley - Project Lead
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Yusuf's Guide and Porter Scholarships - Tanzania
This project continues to support the tuition for six children of the guides and porters who work on Kilimanjaro. The total 2021 tuition required was $8,300. Through the continued generosity of our donors this project makes a big difference in the lives of the children and their families. Of the six children we currently support, three will graduate in 2024 and two will graduate in 2027. Another is waiting to be accepted into pharmacy school. He will add $2,000 to the total annual need. As you can see this is a long term project that relies on the continued support of our donors.
Three children successfully completed their studies in the past couple years.
Harry and Rick - Project leads
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