Pinching Pennies

The feeding program at Kiang’ombe is central to the broader community development work we’re doing there.  We provide two nutrition packed meals a day to every child in the program and however hard it is to believe, if they don’t get it from us, they just don’t eat.  Monday mornings are really hectic because the well fed, happy, energetic children who left Friday afternoon show up early tired, hungry and crying for the first meal.  Since getting started in January, we have been able to serve nearly 10,000 meals and it is having a huge impact on these little lives.  It costs under $0.20 per meal and we need your help.   We keep it simple and focused – making every penny count.   Take a look. 

Wambui – Megan’s Report

 Short clip of Wambui in class – she is so focused on teacher Mercy’s instructions.  

Collateral Impact

We had a wonderful evening debriefing with Megan Steele Friday night and it was so great to hear her report on the Kiang’ombe feeding / preschool program.  In short, things are going remarkably well and the children and community are deeply grateful for the huge impact they are seeing.  Megan is putting together some inspiring highlight stories that we will share with you in a bit.

The children are  literally coming alive with excitement, hope, and confidence as they experience full tummies and full minds with consistency. 

Meagan also shared a few amazing stories about what we call Collateral Benefit – the broader impact that occurs in very vulnerable communities when opportunity is brought to their children.  I’ll save those stories for later, but I assure you they are just as powerful and exciting as the direct benefits Kiang’ombe children are getting.  There is a growing hope in the community that is sparking change far beyond what we are directly doing at the project. 

Megan also shared a sobering story that reminded us of how incredibly important it is to intimately know each community we work in and to critically evaluate ALL interventions before moving forward.  It is so easy to let our relative power, affluence, and ego blind us into pushing forward too quickly and too strongly.  This happens so frequently and can undermine or destroy local solutions that are already working.  

At Ameena Project we strive to come along side our partner programs to empower  local solutions for local problems.

Megan discovered that a dear friend of ours who lives near Kiang’ombe (and happens to be physically handicapped) had been caring for 5-6 children from Kiang’ombe daily out of her home.  A small business for her, AND a local solution for a few very needy children.  When we opened our Feeding / Preschool program in January guess what happened?  The children left and she lost her income and personal involvement providing solutions in her community.  This is a terrible reality that is extremely common with foreign and even local interventions and one that is often unseen or unacknowledged.  This is not a problem unique to work in developing countries…..we see unintended consequences to legislation that seems so well thought out and intentioned, yet we find out later about the collateral impact. 

Good intentions, good funding, and good ideas are not enough. 

We must really get to know people and communities, and work hand in hand in true collaboration.  We are thankful for the personal relationships that helped to bring this situation to our awareness.  May we have wisdom when we meet in person in a couple of weeks … to come up with solutions that work for everyone!

Gratefully,  yet cautiously we move forward with our partners in Kiang’ombe.  Thank you Megan for your willingness to do all that you do.   

On the Mend

After two weeks in East Africa Megan Steele ended up catching something and has been so sick we’ve hardly heard from her.   Looks like she is doing a little better now because she posted some pics on FB and I was so excited to see them that I stole a few to share here.  I know she has lots more to share, not only pictures but some great feedback about how everything is going.  We’ll keep you posted hopefully after we meet with Megan later this week.  This is what I’ve got for now: 

Spotlight #1

At Ameena Project we strive to be volunteer run and sustained.  At times, this makes it more difficult to get things done, but, we have also found that allowing others to gift with their talents and finances is a blessing to us and them!   Today we want to take a moment to introduce you to one volunteer and show how she has chosen to be involved. 

We have known Caitlynn Lee since she was born a little over 10 years ago and have been privileged to be there and watch her:

• Crawl around in diapers and go through all those fun (and sometimes not so fun) early childhood stages
• Bring home her baby brother and learn what it is to be a great big sister
• Develop friendships and deep connections with other kids (mine included)
• Hula dance
• Get diagnosed with Type I Diabetes and learn to live with a chronic condition that impacts everything in her life
• Become a little obsessed with American Girl
• Volunteer and raise money for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

 Caitlynn has a wonderful family who have done their best to teach her their values and faith traditions.  One of their practices is called Tithing.  They literally give away 10% of their income no matter what their current financial circumstances are.  This is their way to live out their belief that everything they have is a gift from God and that they are dependent on God for everything.  Caitlynn’s little eyes have been watching. 

Today we learned of a remarkable thing she has done.  All on her own, Caitlynn formed a group called the Bracelet Bunch with some 4th & 5th grade girls to raise money for Ameena Project.   They have been making and selling bracelets and gave us their first donation with a note from the Bunch saying they hope to be able to send some money every month and hope to be able to support as many kids as possible.  In addition, Caity has also been tithing, or saving 10% of  her $3 allowance and other money that she receives.  She saved $15 doing this!  Caity, and the Bracelet Bunch, you inspire us!  Your donation will provide over 350 meals to kids in Kiang’ombe. 

Caitlynn, Isabelle, Madeleine, Isabella, and Claire – The Bracelet Bunch is a beautiful thing.   You girls clearly understand some very important things that many adults never learn.  I hope we can all learn from your example and become better because of it.  Asante Sana – many thanks. 

 

 

Today we announce that Ameena Project is now officially our own independent 501c3 non-profit organization. Because of our amazing volunteers, what usually takes a year and about $1000 was completed in 4 months for FREE. 6 months ago we sat down to discuss this project for the first time. Today we have a fully operating program with an average daily attendance of 54, we have served almost 4000 meals, and received glowing reports from the three volunteers who’ve already visited the Kiang’ombe site. Nice work all!  If you haven’t already, please consider getting involved.  We need your help, together we are doing wonderful things.  Take a look at our How You Can Help page and see where you can fit in. 

Giving up a latte (or two).

I wanted to take the time to update the faithful supporters of Ameena Project, and also those of you new to our work.

Megan Steele, one of the Ameena Project co-founders has finished with her visit of the school project in Kiang’ombe, and is on her way home from Burundi, where she was on a work trip for Medical Teams International.  Her reports, were so encouraging!  Here is a brief snippet of what she had to say about her experience:

 

“I’m really impressed with what the staff have done with their limited resources. The supplies are pretty sweet – wooden blocks, toy cars, small chalk boards, tires (of course!), soccer balls. It’s locally made, but nice.”

“The school building and kitchen is in bad shape, but we already knew that. I’m concerned what will happen once the rains come. I got a chance to meet the elders and some community members yesterday. Everyone made it known that they were truly grateful for the program. The elders are pretty sweet. You guys will like them a lot. One guy was missing an eye!!! It caught me off guard a bit.”

You have all been incredible in the past few weeks with your generous donations towards the teacher wish lists.  We have everything we asked for.

But here is where we really need you to partner with us.

We still have the remainder of a year’s operating funds to raise.

We NEED your help to continue to raise about $8,000 to fully fund operations (all expenses) through this next December.

There are many levels of ways you can be involved:

1. Commit to giving $20/month.  If you gave up 7 lattes you would have reached this goal!you can do it easily now through the paypal donate button on our main page.
2. You can give a one-time donation.  If  the cost of one i-tunes album ($10?) can school a child for the month–imagine what you can do with a donation of $100, $200 or even more?  How satisfying and rewarding is that?  Incredibly!
3. You can pledge to raise amongst your friends and circle of acquaintances the operations costs for a whole month-$1400.  If 12 people did this each year, we would be done with the task of fundraising for operating costs!
4. You can partner in some fun social fundraising events Shari has in the works…more to come about this!
   

What happens once we are done raising operating costs?

We get to dream & do the fun stuff!

a new cookhouse?   addressing medical needs?  starting animal husbandry projects?  building a playground?  addressing the deteriorating condition of the school house?  buying the guard some work boots?

Like we’ve said before, you, the supporter, have “the right to know exactly how we use donated funds and how we make financial decisions.”

We  want to be responsible and take care of the basics, and then we can have some real fun!

“To whom much is given, much is required.”

 

 

You got your shop on!

Wow!  We are overwhelmed and so thankful for your response to the Kenyan Teachers’ Wish List!

We still have a few remaining items that haven’t been purchased:

2 packs large plastic stringing beads (about $7 at Michae~taken by Rosie

10 bottles washable paint~taken by Rosie

6 Books of various themes (family, colors, shapes, time etc)

10 Books on various values (explaining emotions, sharing, stewardship, conservation etc)

2 Wooden Puzzles – Taken (and then some)  by the Goldman’s

Additionally, if someone wants to shop around on amazon etc., we would LOVE to take this to surprise the teachers and children:

Search for this!

Here is a picture of the children playing these last few weeks:

 

We will have more exciting updates on the program and the community of Kiang’ombe as Megan Steele, one of our founders, returns from her visit there!

 

 

A Kenyan Teachers’ Wishlist!

In anticipation of our travel to Kenya, we would love to have interested supporters help us to purchase these wish list items for the Kiang’ombe classroom.  Below you will find a basic list of the essentials the teachers would like to have to round out their materials.  Most of these items are too expensive to  purchase in Kenya, or are not easily available.

If you are interested in providing something on the wishlist, or have it already, please leave a note indicating such under comments—that way we don’t end up with 3,000 pipe cleaners and no baby dolls!

Here is the Kenyan Teachers’ wish list for the classroom:

• 2 sets–Building Blocks (perhaps Duplo?)-1 set Taken by Anne
  
• 5 packs–Colored Construction Paper (packs of about 240 pieces @ Michael’s for $7ish) – Taken by Eve
• 2 bags Beads (large bags @Michael’s for $7ish)

• 3 packs of Pipe Cleaners (package @Michaels of 350 pcs)~ Taken by Nina
• 6 Balls (preferably O balls, they will never pop or need blowing up!!!)~ Taken by Tara G.

 

• 4-Jump Ropes~Taken by Tara G.
• 10-Toy Cars/Vehicles (preferably lightweight plastic appropriate for 2-4 year olds, remembering all of this will be fit into suitcases!--we need about 5 still
  

• 4 Toy Babies (preferably black skin toned) -Got them! Thanks Carol & Sarah
  
• 3 packs Letters  (Dollar store has some great school resources)~Taken by Nina
• 3 packs Numbers (Dollar store has some great resources)~Taken by Nina
• 3 sets Animals (Goodwill etc. often has bags of small plastic animals)

• 25 Dice~Taken by Tara G.
• 10 Paints/2 packages simple brushes (powdered tempera paint would be amazing for ease of travel/smaller size, but Michael's does have some liquid paint packs if nothing else)
• Portable Tunnels~ taken by LouAnn C-G.
  

• 10 Books (themes--animals, geography, ocean, space, feelings, colors, size, body parts etc) ~Tara G (4 nature themed)
• 10 Values Books (kindness, patience, listening, taking care of surroundings, siblings etc)
• Abacus~Taken by Tara G.
• 5 Letter/Animal/Number Puzzles (easily found at 2nd hand stores for much cheaper than retail & in good shape, again looking for lightweight)
• Frisbee in various colors - Got em!

 

We can re-evaluate once we see what everyone comes up with in the hunt for awesome for free or very low price!!

I am excited to see what we can all pull together--the teachers did not say quantities on the items they requested, but this is my best guess and what we might be able to take over!

In mutual shopping/thrifting excitement,  

Anne (Mama Ameena)

Calling all thrifters!

At times it feels like the core group of 4 involved in starting Ameena Project live and breathe it.  Because of this, at times, we forget to let the rest of you know all of the things we ponder over, discuss and experience in our times together.  We also are working hard to slow down and invite you into the stories of how it is impacting each of us, but more importantly, the communities we are working with.

Here are some of the thoughts and ideas that we come back to, every time we meet here in the US to discuss the details of Ameena Project:

1.  We do this because it powerfully impacts very needy children and because we can.  For whatever reason we are in the position to be able to do this kind of work!  So, we either do, or do not.  A simple choice. 
2. This work is so important that all US-based operations can and should be 100% volunteer run.  All donated money should be used to benefit foreign partner programs and the children they serve. 
3. People desire to be involved in something simple and powerful.  Everyone  has something to give, and people want to know that their time, talents and donations make a difference. 

It has been an amazing process as we watch many ideas come to life and take shape.  None of us are rich by American standards.   We all work every day to support ourselves, and our families,  and we all still live our regular lives in our regular neighborhoods.   However, volunteers sacrificing a little time, a little money, and a little bit of our various talents has resulted in something remarkable and life changing for the community of Kiang’ombe. 

At the end of March, Ian and Anne will travel to Kenya to work directly with staff, solidify relationships within the community, and gather information on how to partner with this community in a lasting & empowering way.  If you were wondering, no donated funds will be used for any of their travel expenses, they and other volunteers pay their own way to keep donated dollars hard  at work.  

Whenever possible, we desire to buy and use the labor within the countries we work in. But, in communicating with Kenyan staff, there are supplies and materials that would benefit the school of Kiang’ombe that can not be obtained in Kenya, or are prohibitively expensive.  We know that shopping and looking for bargains is a talent for many of you—and want to enlist your help!  There simply is an abundance of  used and new objects that we can find Here that will be of immense value There. We hope to use four 50lb suitcases to take materials to Kenya with us.  In the next little while, we’ll have a wish list posted here on the blog.  We are excited to see what you all might come up with to bless these teachers and children.