John and Judy Head to Africa Next Week

John and Judy are leaving for Africa soon, but they aren't going alone! Before we give you a quick peek at what they'll be up to on this trip, we are so pleased to introduce the newest member of the Eliminate Poverty Now team, Helen Greenberg, who will be accompanying John and Judy on this trip to Africa.

Helen

Helen has worked as a successful administrative professional, HR project coordinator, and community outreach person in her "corporate life." She met John while working for Warner Lambert, and they have known each other for over 15 years. Helen says, "I always enjoyed my professional relationship with him and am happy to join the Craigs - contributing to the important work that Eliminate Poverty Now does." 

Little Rock Scholar, Jane

Helen will join John and Judy next week as they head to Africa. Highlights of their trip will include meeting next year's Little Rock Scholars candidates, as well as visiting this year's scholars, Jane and Joseph, at their schools. They will also be present for the first day of distribution of the amazing Lunapads gift we told you about recently. The kits will be distributed at the new Little Rock ECD site, where both the land and building are owned by Little Rock, and the capacity for students has been quadrupled. If it works out, they are hoping to visit AFRIpads, the producers of the kits for the Lunapads grant.

They will check up on the Table Banking project, which was introduced last April, and also visit the Millennium Villages Cluster of Ruhiira, where EPN has helped fund a grain warehouse and a women's cooperative. Not only will they get to check on the progress of these projects, but they are looking forward to gleaning new ideas from what they see there.

Two women John and Judy met at the
 Table Banking project last year

John, Judy, and Helen will be traveling from July 3rd-17th. You can expect more detailed blog posts with the latest on these projects when they return.

In the meantime, please give Helen a warm welcome in the comments!

Olive Tree Pictures Produces Farmers of the Future Video

We were thrilled when we were contacted by Olive Tree Productions to do a short documentary about Farmers of the Future.  Olive Tree Productions is a "non-profit organization empowering other non-profits and ministries to tell their stories through documentaries and short films in order to reach the hearts of viewers and ultimately provide more resources for each organization as they work to see lives transformed." 

Empower, indeed! The final product has far surpassed our expectations or what we could have imagined when we first started out. 

They have produced a WONDERFUL short documentary about Farmers of the Future that really captures the spirit and essence of the project. We hope you will take 5 minutes to watch-- we are delighted to share this video with you! Please help us thank the awesome people at Olive Tree Productions for their amazing work and support. We are so grateful to have this beautiful video as a resource and tool that we can use.

You can check out more amazing short films and documentaries on the Olive Tree Productions website.

Amazing News: Lunapads Donates 2,000 Kits of Washable Sanitary Pads to Pads4Peace!

We have some amazing news that we have been itching to share with you, our amazing supporters, for some time. We had to wait until details were finalized, but the moment is finally here!

Lunapads is donating 2,000 kits of washable sanitary pads to 2,000 girls in the Kibera slum! These girls are all enrolled in programs covering sex education and gender empowerment in addition to their regular school work. The generosity of Lunapads even extends to covering the shipping costs for the pads, which are being made from environmentally friendly fabrics.

Schoolgirls like those pictured (at this Pads For Peace kit distribution) 
will be the recipients of this amazing Lunapads gift.

This means that 2,000 girls will be able to stay in school, something that will give them so many more opportunities for the future. A donation of this magnitude changes many lives--not just those of the girls receiving the kits, but also the lives of their family members. 

If you're not already familiar with Lunapads, check out what they are all about here. You will see how EPN has been inspired by them with our Pads for Peace project. The founder of Lunapads, Madeleine Shaw, has been extremely supportive and generous, acting as a mentor to Judy and sharing her intellectual property as EPN worked on Pads for Peace.

Contents of original washable sanitary pads kits.
The Lunapads gift will be something similar.

We cannot thank Madeleine and her team enough for their amazing support. 

Distribution of the kits will take place through AFRIPads in July, when John and Judy are visiting Kenya. We will have more news and pictures to share at that time.

We hope you will consider joining Madeleine and Lunapads in helping us change lives for these girls. A gift as small as $10 can make a difference. 

Thank you so much, and please join us in thanking Lunapads by leaving comments here!

EPN to Receive 2nd Grant from Henry Ford Community College

We are so pleased to announce that Professor Jared Boyd's economics class at Henry Ford Community College will be funding Eliminate Poverty Now's work in Niger with another $2,000 grant!

This is the second grant we are receiving from Professor Boyd's students. (Read about the first grant here!) The class has decided to split the gift between two projects. $1000 will be used to purchase all the root stock at one of the three school nurseries in Farmers of the Future, and $1000 will go to Elevage so that 5 more women will be able to participate in that program.

Please join us in thanking Professor Boyd and his students for their repeated generosity and support!

EPN Featured by New Jersey Hills Newspapers

Eliminate Poverty Now is thrilled to have received extensive publicity by the New Jersey Hills Media Group - first as a FRONT PAGE article in the Mendham, NJ Observer-Tribune, and more recently in ALL the local newspapers that this chain publishes! Our tremendous thanks to Liz Parker, a fellow Rotarian.

We are so grateful for the support, and are pleased to share the article here. 

We should note a couple of typos. Judy is quoted as saying that "you can change someone's life for $2,000." The truth is, any donation will do good, but Judy meant that even $200 can change a person's life!

Also, John is quoted as saying that EPN would like to expand the Farmers of the Future project to "hundreds of thousands" of schools rather than "hundreds or thousands" of schools. We don't want to promise too much!

We are so happy to have this support in what is turning out to be a wonderful year, and we hope that you will take a few minutes to check the article out!

Very Exciting News: Carbondale Rotary Club Grants $10,000 to Create Women’s Tree Nursery!

We are so excited to share the news with all of you that the Carbondale Rotary Club has granted Eliminate Poverty Now $10,000 to create a women's tree nursery in Galbal, Niger! The Carbondale club has been amazingly supportive of EPN's work, and we are so grateful; you may remember that over the summer, they gave us a $1,000 grant for the RockPads project that supplied 40 girls with sanitary pads.

This latest grant allows us to complete the Farmers of the Future site at Galbal, combining the income-generating project for mothers with the children's programs already in place. The women in the village of Galbal will graft fruit trees for sale in the local market, which is a very profitable business. The revenues from the business will generate about $500 per mother, a substantial increase in income for people who live on less than $1/day. The revenues will also cover all operating expenses for the tree nursery, and pay school fees for all 600 children in the village.

The above photos are from a tree-grafting training session in Niger

We don’t often tally up how many lives are changed by our work. To change even one life is to change the entire world, right? But from now on, we’re going to quantify how many lives will be changed. So here are some numbers for your consideration. As a result of this generous grant: 

• one sustainable business will be created; 
• 20 women will be lifted out of extreme poverty and be able to feed and clothe their families; 
• and primary school will become free for all 600 children in the village.

Think of the change this will make in the lives of everyone in Galbal. The ripple effect is mind-boggling – thousands of lives will be improved! When we look at numbers like this, we cannot help but be humbled by the difference we can make with the help of others.

THANK YOU ROTARY!

And as always, we are looking ahead. John and Judy are working on an even larger grant from Rotary.  By combining contributions from Rotary Clubs in Colorado, New Jersey and Canada, and adding matching funds from Rotary International, we hope to fund a tree nursery for mothers at Gonzare (our third pilot school in the Farmers of the Future program) and a vegetable garden for mothers of students at Ecole Centre, which will likely become our fourth pilot site. The project will create two more sustainable businesses, generate much needed income for another 40 women, and provide free education for over 1,000 additional students. We'll have more news on this exciting new grant this summer, so stay tuned.

News from Niger

We are very pleased to let you all know that our sheep-raising program in Gonzare, Niger ("Elevage") is expanding on its own! The first group of 20 women we funded will continue with their training, and have even made enough profit to help Eliminate Poverty Now fund sheep for some of the second group of 20 women.

EPN will also provide funding for vet costs, training, and medication for the full group of 40. Our hope is that after this year, the first group will be completely self-sustaining, and that the women involved in the project will continue to be able to help each other and expand the program further.

Our sewing/literacy center in Galbal ("Kuluje") is continuing to operate with the first 23 women. There's lots of brainstorming going on; we are looking for ways to improve the project by expanding income-generating activities and opportunities for women in the village. We want to do the absolute best we can for them as we help give them the tools so that they can do the best for themselves, and we are excited about some of the possibilities being discussed. Make sure to check back here for updates! We'll certainly share news when we have it.

EPN Receives Grant for Women's Tree Nursery

Eliminate Poverty Now is proud to announce that we are the recipient of a $2,000 grant, given to us by Jared Boyd's Macroeconomics class at Henry Ford Community College! 

Boyd's BEC 151: Macroeconomics class

Here's an excerpt from an article written about the grant:

"HFCC Business and Economics Instructor Jared Boyd received an HFCC Presidential Mini-Grant of $2,500 from the College in 2012 to fund his “Learning Through Giving,” a project that helps students learn about the importance of supporting global charitable organizations that assist people in need.

“Learning Through Giving” required students in Boyd’s BEC 151: Macroeconomics class to act as a charity board responsible for deciding how to allocate a donation of $2,500. Students researched international statistics to find nations with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of $2,500 or less. They researched the institutions, cultures and local issues in the impoverished nations, evaluated the nations based on the developed criteria, and decided on a justifiable nation to direct the funds." Click here to read the rest of the article.

After their research, the students decided to award $2,000 of their grant money to EPN! The money will go towards Farmers of the Future, specifically one of the new Women's Tree Nurseries. The nurseries are sized to hold 12,000 trees each.  

Participating women learn how to graft trees in sessions like the ones held this past August for members of the nursery at the Gueriguindi school.  This nursery began operation last fall, and will begin selling its trees this June. Half the proceeds are shared among the women, while the other half covers operating costs and pays school fees for the entire community.



For more photos of women learning how to graft trees, visit our Flickr page!

We are so grateful to Boyd and his class for their generosity and support. We are blown away by all of the good news coming our way lately, and we offer our humble thanks to Jared Boyd, all the members of his BEC 151: Macroeconomics class, and to each and every one of you!

If you'd like to contribute to funding the Women's Tree Nurseries, just click here to donate now. 

EPN Featured in Report from Gonzaga University!

Elvire

We recently were contacted by Dr. Mark Alfino, a professor at Gonzaga University and co-director with Dr. Susan Norwood of a study-abroad program that brings Gonzaga students to Benin in August each year to study the culture of Benin and sustainable development. They are experts in the field, having done a variety of work over the 7 years of the program, including a successful water filtration program, health education, and community support for a village palm oil project. Last year, they began documenting outcomes for farm interns from the Songhai Centre in Porto Novo, and last summer, they visited two farms of EPN loan recipients, Elvire and Rebecca! 

Rebecca

We were thrilled when Dr. Alfino sent us a report they had written about Elvire and Rebecca's farms. He wrote, "With training and knowledge from Songhai and financial support from Eliminate Poverty Now, Elvie and [her husband] Abeguedo have a chance that only a few farmers in Benin have-- to become rural entrepreneurs." 

The entire report really captures the project so well, and we decided to share it so that you can really get an idea of exactly how Elvire, Rebecca, and other women like them who receive loans from EPN through Songhai are being helped by YOU, our amazing and generous donors! We hope you enjoy it, as well as the amazing photos Dr. Alfino also gave us from his visit.

Elvie and Rebecca by Dr. Mark Alfino

Four more women start businesses, thanks to our Songhai Women's Capital Fund

A second group of four young women who graduated from Songhai in June 2012 have had their business plans approved! They will be able to start these businesses thanks to funding from Eliminate Poverty Now. As promised, we are so pleased to take this opportunity to introduce you to four women who are benefiting directly from your support and generosity: Geneviève Aniwanou, Rudiana Djossou, Alice Agonse, and Rebecca Agossou.

Geneviève

Geneviève is 23 years old and is starting her own business farm. Her project has two main parts: crop production with a focus on vegetables, and food processing with a focus on pastry. Her farm is located at Lokossa, in the southwest part of Benin.

Rudiana

21 year old Rudiana spent her 18 months of training in the various areas of the integrated system of production, and has now decided to set up her own farm. The major activities she would like to start with are aquaculture (tilapias) and crops (market gardening). Her farm is located at Djeregbe, in the surrounding areas of Porto-Novo.

Alice

Alice is 26 years old. As soon as she ended her training at Songhai, she submitted her project to enable her to start with commercial soap manufacturing and a vegetable garden. Her farm is located at Bohicon, in the center part of the Benin Republic.

Rebecca

The youngest loan recipient is 18 year-old Rebecca, who learned all of the techniques in agricultural activities during her time at Songhai, and is now able to run a farm. She has chosen to focus on gardening and soap making. Her farm is established at Pahou, about 30 km from Cotonou.

We believe that all of these young women have remarkable potential, and wish them all the success in the world as they start their businesses and work to apply all that they learned in their time at Songhai. We are so proud that, with your help, we are able to support them as they pursue their dreams!