Every little helps -- helping children of Ghana

Every little helps — helping children of Ghana

Dear Friends,I hope you are all well and happy. I wanted to let you all know about a project in Ghana that Lisa and I are leading for an organization called Orphans’ Heroes.

We are planning to build an environmentally friendly, low-energy, cost-efficient school for a village with 800 residents, 216 of which are children. The nearest school is an hour away and currently less than 20 of the older children attend school.

Andokope is in the Upper Volta region of Ghana, in an area where child slavery is a big problem. The people are incredibly poor and often have to make terrible choices — like whether to sell one child into slavery to feed three others or to watch them all starve to death.

The children who are sold are often sent to fish on Lake Volta and work long hours, often without being fed for days at a time. Having to climb out of a boat and into the crocodile-infested lake to untangle a fishing net is a terrifying thought for anyone. Consider most of the children cannot swim and you can only imagine their fear.

The plan is to make an environmentally friendly school using local materials. It will be low-cost, low maintenance and the goal is to make the school independent and self-sufficient within 5 years. We will use Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) to construct the building and will use solar panels to bring light to the village, where there is currently no electricity. We will provide students with two meals a day and the chance to have an education. If the children eat two meals a day at the school, the burden of feeding them will be lifted from their parents and more families will remain intact.

You can get more information on the Orphans’ Heroes website: http://www.orphansheroes.org/Orphans_Heroes/Donate__Andokope_School.html

In Ghana, $5 provides health care for a child for one year, $12 can buy a bag of cement and $50 can buy a window and screens for a classroom, $1600 will pay for a compressed earth block machine (similar to this one).

We know that times are hard. Please consider donating whatever you feel you can to the school, a little goes a long way and we appreciate any help you can give.

Donated land for the school

If you would like more information about our plans, the technology we will use, how we hope to make it self-sustaining, etc. please feel contact me or Lisa. All donations are tax deductible for people who live in the US.

Please forward this e-mail to anyone you think might be interested and willing to help these children from poverty and slavery.

Wishing you all a healthy, happy and prosperous new year.

Love,

Lisa, Farhad & Mawunya

More to read:

• Child Slavery in Ghana?
• Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery
• Reports on child trafficking in Africa
• Africa’s bitter cycle of child slavery

Unicef help request for Haiti: She thought she could fly

The world's kids need our help. Make your tax-deductible gift today. Dear Farhad, She never did tell me her name or her age. She just told me that when the earthquake struck her home in Haiti, she thought it was God teaching her to fly. In fact, her world had been shattered, and her family was gone. Hers was but one of the real lives I encountered this year on my travels to see UNICEF at work. There are thousands of others whose stories I'll not share. But I worry most about the lives cut short: 22,000 kids who died every day from a preventable cause. Every 6 seconds, a child died from malnutrition. Every day, 400 children died from measles. They aren't statistics. They're kids. Just like the kids you know – only born in desperate places, victims of grim circumstances. And they need our help. For the world's neediest kids - donate now to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF – and help us reach our goal of $2 million by December 31. Every donation is 100% tax-deductible. No matter where I go, kids are kids. Sit on the ground, and a kid will climb into your lap. Visit the aftermath of a natural disaster, and you'll find kids playing with sticks and balls. Too often, what makes these kids' futures so different from that of our own comes down to luck. Farhad, will you join thousands of others who will donate to change these kids' lives? Your 100% tax-deductible gift will support the best child survival and protection team on the planet: Education – In the aftermath of war or natural disaster, children often feel safest in a classroom. UNICEF developed the School-in-a-Box kit so that a classroom could be set up anywhere to restore a sense of normalcy and help break the cycle of poverty. Emergency relief – Children are often separated from their families in the chaos after a disaster. UNICEF sets up child protection centers to provide these kids with a safe environment, clean water, shelter and help in finding their lost loved ones. Safe drinking water – When children are thirsty, it doesn't matter if a river is clouded and polluted, they'll drink from it. UNICEF's simple solutions like clean water tablets make it safe for children to drink when they are thirsty – anywhere, anytime. Every day of every year, UNICEF uses these proven, low-cost methods to save kids living on the brink. And it's working. The annual number of under-five deaths dropped from 13 million in 1990 to 8 million in 2010. Still, 22,000 children die each day from preventable causes. We believe that number should be zero. There is no reason why a child should die from a cause that has long been solved in the developed world. Help UNICEF save kids – donate to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF now and help us reach our goal of raising $2 million by December 31. No other organization has saved more children's lives than UNICEF. This holiday season – join us as we save even more lives. Together we are getting to zero. Warm wishes, Caryl M. Stern President & CEO U.S. Fund for UNICEF     Copyright © 2010 U.S. Fund for UNICEF 125 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 All rights reserved. Privacy Policy Unsubscribe If this email was forwarded to you, please join us! Subscribe to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.