GLOBAL GIVING

From one of my students: Keara Cormier-Hill
I'm working with the African Development Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works primarily in Ghana. Its two main foci are Project ACWA (Access to Clean Water for Agyementi) and Project RISE (Rural Irrigation System for Ekumdipe). ACWA worked with Agyementi to build a borehole (aka a well for clean water), an iron filtration unit, and 27 latrines (with 20 more being built now). Clean water and sanitation has helped reduce diarrheal disease in the community as well as had helped with reducing time spent on gathering water at the stream and with women's menstrual health. RISE enabled Ekumdipe to take advantage of their local river with an irrigation system that allows them to farm even in the dry season. Before, the farmers there were not equipped to be able to farm during the futile dry season, which is 6 months of lost profit. Now they are able to profit all year round. In early March, the first batch of dry-season onions was successfully harvested there using the implemented technology! Pretty cool huh?

I wanted to ask you as my family to support me as ADI competes in the Global Giving Campaign. This Campaign is a competition amongst nonprofits to raise $4,000 during the month of April by at least 50 unique donors. Reaching this goal gives us a permanent slot on their website which is a pretty popular site for people interested in donating to causes they support. Whoever raises the most money OR has the most donors will get an additional monetary prize from Global Giving.

It would be wonderful if you all could forward this to friends/family/colleagues/lists and most importantly consider donating yourselves. I know that personal finances and other charitable obligations could cause some hesitation, but even if you can only give a few bucks, that will raise the amount of unique donors we have and thus help with one of the competitions. Anything helps. If you want to know what your money would specifically be helping, $25 is a whole sack of dry-season crops, $50 pays for 1/3 of the pipes needed for the irrigation system, $200 can cover the fencing for 10 farms, and $500 pays for 3 months of the living expenses of the nearby farmer Bawku who moved to Ekumdipe and helps the community members demonstrate the dry-season farming techniques.

Helping this cause can literally be done with a click of a button: Here is the site.