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!

You Did It! Funds Raised to Send all SIX Little Rock Scholars to Secondary School!

Thank you thank you thank you! 

The generosity of our donors and supporters never ceases to amaze us. You wonderful people have donated and pledged enough to send the first six Little Rock Scholars to secondary school. Their dream of continuing their education will come true, because of you.

There are 250 primary school kids enrolled in our after-school tutoring program at Little Rock ECD. We hope that next year even more kids will be inspired to work extra hard to qualify for secondary school, knowing that there is hope that some generous soul may be willing to help them on their journey.

Teacher Leonard, co-leader of the Little Rock after-school tutoring program

Teacher Kennedy, co-leader of the Little Rock after-school tutoring program

If you missed the opportunity to help one of these kids, we hope you'll be one of our angels next year. To help some other worthy young girl or boy achieve their dream, please click here to Donate, or send a check to:

Eliminate Poverty Now

P.O. Box 67

Mendham, NJ 07945

Thank you all again for your magnificent response, and your ongoing support. This work is so important, and would not be possible without you!

IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ: Give 2 Amazing Kids a Ticket Out of the Slum

The first graduates of Little Rock ECD in Nairobi's Kibera slum have taken their secondary school entrance exams, and six have passed with flying colors! Many of you were touched by our blog posts about  Jane and Vincent

(pictured below), and we are so pleased to tell you that both of them have qualified to go on to secondary school.

Eliminate Poverty Now can fund four 4-year scholarships, but we would love to send all six of these amazing, inspiring, hard-working kids to secondary school. This opportunity is their ticket out of the slum and the chance to realize their dreams.

Can you pledge a half or full scholarship? The funds required are not minimal, but they are not exorbitant: a full scholarship is $900/year for four years.

School starts in a couple of weeks so we need your response by 5pm EST on Sunday, February 10th. You can respond to this email, or go to our DONATE page by clicking here.

If you would like more information about the Little Rock Scholars program, please reply to this email or click here.

Thank you so much for your time and generosity. We hope you will join us in supporting these amazing kids.

Songhai Women's Capital Fund is Expanding

It's been a little while since we've had news from the Songahi Women's Capital Fund, but we are so pleased to share what's been going on lately!

You may remember the four women we profiled who had graduated and were working on starting their projects and businesses. You can get a glimpse of them here, and then click on their names if you'd like to read more about each one individually.

The four women graduates who were given the original disbursements.
From left: Alice, Rebecca, Elvire, and Reine

We are so happy that all four are going forward in working towards their goals. One of them, Reine, had a baby and has had a delayed start compared to the others as a result, but now that the baby has been born, she is ready to get to work!



The women who received the first four loans are on track to achieve their goals despite encountering a variety of real world challenges, such as floods, animal infections, etc. To help the women navigate the hurdles typically encountered in start-up ventures, and ensure success, the school is increasing its level of technical support for the women when they graduate and are getting started. An individual will be hired by Songhai, who will visit the farms twice a month at first, and then go down to once a month to make sure the women are getting the support they need. Songhai will pay the salary for this person, and EPN will cover field costs.

Rabbits being produced on Elvire's farm

Perhaps one of the most exciting bits of news we have concerning Songhai is that the program has been so successful that they want to expand to more campuses. They are very happy with the Women's Capital Fund program, and there has been a spike in the number of women in the program as it has become known that there is funding and support available to them when they graduate to help them get started. Plans are being started to expand to two more Songhai campuses, and we couldn't be happier that the program is being so well received even as some of the growing pains are worked out.

There's a new group of women graduating and being given disbursements. We'll be introducing you to them here on the blog, so make sure to check back soon!

Little Rock ECD Moves to New Building

We've had some fantastic news from Lilly Oyare. Over the past year, a new centre was built for Little Rock, and now they are moving into the new building! 

The new centre may be completed, but there is still a need for items such as desks and chairs. Lilly outlines the costs in her own blog here, but here's a list to give you an idea:

For individual students:

2 sets of school uniform-- $17.00 USD

1 pair of shoes-- $23.00 USD

1 school bag-- $12.00 USD

For the Centre:

1 Table: $100.00 USD

6 Chairs $105.00 USD

Lilly provides a more comprehensive list, and we encourage you to visit the link above. The prices listed are in Kenyan shillings; the exchange rate is about 87 shillings per $1.00 USD.

For more information, watch Lilly talk about the new centre in this video. 

Thank you so much!

Rotary Project Plans Taking Shape

Rotary is a wonderful organization with a goal of providing service to the community, the workplace and around the globe. It supports a wide range of projects that include education and job training, providing clean drinking water, combating hunger, improving health and sanitation, and eradicating polio. When a number of clubs get behind an initiative and get matching grants at the District and International level, the amount of funding can be significant.

Temporary tent camp for displaced flood victims.

Rotary has been active in Niger for many years. John met with Gaston Kaba and Halima Hamza from one of the Rotary clubs in the capital city of Niamey. Gaston has been involved with over 30 international grants.  During our visit we saw many water wells funded by Rotary, and many Shelter Box tents providing temporary housing for those displaced by the flooding in September, which were the worst floods the region has seen in 50 years.

Dov with Rotary Team members discussing plans
for the mothers tree nursery at Galbal.

John and Judy and have been working with members of their local club in Carbondale, Colorado to drum up support behind several projects. The first of these is to build tree nurseries at 2 of the Farmers of the Future pilot schools as part of the mother’s income-generating component of the program. The economics of the nurseries look very attractive. Participating mothers will keep half the proceeds for themselves, and half will go to offset nursery costs and support for their village school.

FOF tree nursery at the Gueriguindi school.

The second project is to connect the Ecole Centre primary school to the new government water pipe. The connection will provide water for 350 students at the school and for a mother’s for-profit vegetable garden. The garden will be created in vacant space inside the school yard and, like the tree nurseries, provide income for 15-20 participating mothers, cover garden operating costs and support the Ecole Centre school. In the process, EPN will prepare the school to be a potential fourth pilot site for the FOF program.

School buildings at Ecole Centre.
The water connection will provide water to 350 students.

During the week in Niger, John had several meetings to flesh out plans for these projects and begin developing the grant application information.

Typical ground without irrigation

The power of irrigation.
This bed of cabbage is yards away from the previous photo.

We are hoping to move forward with the tree nurseries this spring, and with the Ecole Centre project this summer, so keep checking back for updates!