UEnd Blog

Project Snapshot

Total Cost: $5000

Lives Affected: 440

Dollars Raised: $2,802           

Dollars Needed: $2,198

Women. They are one the most powerful and effective tools out there in the battle against extreme poverty. We are all becoming familiar with the concept that if a woman in one of the poorest places in the world is empowered with an education, there is an immediate impact on the well-being of her family: everyone gets healthier, more money gets saved, and the kids go to school. A community full of families like this – families that are employed, healthy, and educated - well, that is a community that is on it’s way to thriving.

This project, implemented by CAUSE Canada,  is designed to improve the quality of life and standard of living for those families living in both the largest and the poorest district in Sierra Leone, the Koinadugu district.  25 women will have the opportunity to attend weekly literacy classes for an entire year. The classes focus on much more than just basic reading and writing skills, but also educate students about human rights,  financial management and health matters. Additionally, the participating women each decide on a household investment to save for, and are given the incentive of having their savings matched one to one.

If you want to donate to this project, or simply learn more about it, click here.

Project Snapshot

Lives affected: 80

Project cost: $12,447

Dollars raised: $55

Dollars needed: $12,392

Project Description:Classes are offered in family planning, pre/post natal care, exclusive breastfeeding, menopause, nutrition and first aid, as well as financial planning, budgeting, and saving. Students have the opportunity to save money while enrolled in classes. Once they graduate, these savings are matched one to one for up to $100 per student. This money is applied toward a project or item benefiting families or community.

Lives changed
Sierra Leone: Of 89 women participating in the Koinadugu district,Mary stands out. Through this program, she learned about household sanitation and new ways to care for the health of her children. Through the savings match program, she saved money to invest in her palm oil business. She has seven children and a small business to run, but still finds energy to be involved in rebuilding the village’s water system by restoring the dilapidated dam and pipelines.

Guatemala: Cleofa Tomas Perez lives with her husband and ten children in Tulilen,the poorest municipality of Guatemala. Cleofa’s participation in classes has not only affected her life and given her hope, but has uplifted the lives of those around her. “When I go home, I share what I learn in class with my whole family and my neighbours. I don’t want to just listen, I want to do it.”

What you can do? Check out this project’s Page on our website to learn more about it. You can also give a gift card to someone on behalf of this project (say, for Valentine’s Day?) or you can give directly.

Cheers!

Can you believe it… it is just three weeks away!

OneYoga is joining forces with the Yoga in the Park event this year moving to a summer and outdoor location.

Event details this year:
August 8, 2010
Stanley Park, Calgary, AB
9:30 registration, 10:08 practice start, 108 minutes of yoga
fee: by donation
proceeds to go to the project called Cleaner Hands Healthier Children by Cause Canada.

So tell all your friends. Join the tribe of people helping to end poverty by giving your time and attention to this great karma yoga event.

Please not that parking is somewhat limited so we encourage you to either bicycle, walk, take transit or walk from the 4th St Lululemon store as part of the Peace Walk. Go to our OneYoga in the Park page for more information.

Always as a part of any series there are one or two projects that are highlighted to show you how a theme or cause area can be addressed on the ground in real time. That is what we are looking at in this blog.

This project is delivered by Cause Canada. It is based in Guatemala.
It provided weekly leadership and literacy classes to women in the marginalized community of Comitancillo. The women took classes to train them in financial management (including budgeting and savings), family health matters, basic reading and math skills and also promoted asset accumulation among needy women through one to one savings matches (incentives).

Students were given the opportunity to accumulate savings in a formal financial institution during their participation as part of financial training. These savings were matched, one to one, up to a maximum of $100 per student, upon their successful graduation from the Program. This was then applied toward a project or item benefiting their family or community. Further to this program was a microcredit and business development program that allowed these newly educated women to start their own businesses, but that is a story for another blog.

Outcomes of this project are listed as follows:
•Increased sense of dignity and self-efficacy of women.
•Higher literacy rate for women and girls due to role modelling and mutual tutoring.
•Community decisions take women’s viewpoints and concerns into account; more respect for women’s rights.
•Improved health among women and families; less preventable illness, incapacity and death.
•Increased household savings and asset accumulation by women.

Now couple this information with that of the previous two blogs where looked at gender equality as it relates to poverty… you can see that this program addressed many of the focus areas that have been shown to lead women and their dependents out of poverty; community leadership, family health, literacy and the importance of education, financial management skills.

Really, what women need in many cases is the education, community understanding and the opportunity to move forward with project support and they hit the ground running.

This is the third installment of our blogs to give you the tools to help change the world. In this installment, we thought would offer some suggestions and links to start gathering information about ways to get involved.

There are so many ways that you as an everyday person can help with the fight to end extreme poverty so this list is just that, a place to start. We hope you find it useful. If you have other suggestions, join us on Facebook to discuss or feel free to comment here.

For those with lots of time-
- volunteer for one of our partners in the country of your choosing. Check out two of our partners: CAUSE Canada, True Vision Ghana, to start. Other sites to investigate are: Voluntourism, Projects Abroad, and Cross Cultural Solutions.

For those with less time-
- You can adopt a cause and help raise funds for it by giving gifts to your friends that support your cause, or
- host a party and ask for cash donations then put the funds toward your cause or you could let your guests use your computer to do it themselves
- ask your boss to do a different kind of gifting next year for the holidays- ask for a UEnd gift card instead of that gifts basket or coffee card
- encourage your child’s school to adopt our school program and download the curriculum that we have on our site. It covers grades 1-9 in Global Citizenship.
- add UEnd to your work place employee matching programs in US and Canada
- volunteer with your cause to help the organization itself
- ask your boss if your workplace can adopt our corporate program

For those not ready to proceed or with minimal time-
- join our facebook page uend foundation to get more information. We update it several times weekly with interesting links, thoughts, events and news from UEnd.
- join us on twitter @UEnd_org
- get the rss feed for this blog
- buy your gifts on our website for a giving opportunities such as birthdays, weddings, graduation, retirement, christmas, hannukah, bar mitzvahs, etc… you give gifts AND you get a tax receipt (in Canada though we should have our US status by fall 2010).
- spread the word, tell your friends about what you are doing and encourage them to do the same
- sign up for our newsletter
- join u:powered and have a monthly donation of your choosing from $5.00 (and up) taken from your credit card

Thanks for reading! Have a great day.