A $10,000 Project Grant has been awarded to Education Across Borders for a WASH initiative in the Dominican Republic.  Education Across Borders’ mission is to create lasting solutions to extreme poverty in the most vulnerable communities in the Dominican Republic, including two bateyes, home to over 2,000 Haitian Dominicans living in deplorable conditions.  Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) initiatives are critical to the health of vulnerable communities. The need for latrines in the bateyes is significant (currently only 1 in 5 families has access to sanitation), and clean drinking water is expensive and scarce.  The lack of clean water and proper sanitation leads to dehydration, disease, unemployment, missed school, environmental contamination, and increased litter.  This project consists of the building of 5 new composting latrines for 10 families, purchase of water filtration systems for 55 families, and cost of staff to administer 12 months of training to families and data collection.

In 2020, we awarded the first of two $10,000 Project Grants to LifeNet International to improve healthcare for 50,000 Burundians.  This project seeks to create deep, permanent change in a health facility in Bugendana Clinic in Burundi.  Over the course of one year, LifeNet provided high-impact, capacity-building monthly trainings in medical and management best practices.  Health workers in the Bugendana Clinic acquired life-saving abilities to reduce infections, correctly diagnose and treat disease, perform interventions for maternal and neonatal complications, and more, thus improving the quality of care for patients in 8,822 healthcare visits.  In 2021, the second Project Grant continues to fund LifeNet’s work with Bugendana Clinic, which will successfully complete and graduate from the full LifeNet medical and management training program in January 2022.  The grant will also cover a portion of the costs for LifeNet’s partnership with Maternité Makamba Healthcare Facility in the Makamba Province, Burundi.  With this support from the AllPeopleBeHappy foundation, Maternité Makamba will also graduate from the LifeNet training program in July 2022.

A Project Grant has been awarded to Green Empowerment for construction of a clean water system in the community of San Marcos, Bolivia.  San Marcos is located 50 miles north of Rurrenabaque, Bolivia in the Amazonian lowlands, and is only accessible by boat via the Beni River.  The community currently collects water from the Beni River, which is contaminated by natural, and human caused contaminants.  The clean water system consists of a 50-meter deep well, an elevated concrete water tower, a chlorination system, and metered distribution systems with taps for each of the 28 houses (140 people).  The total projected budget is $80,815, with the Foundation contribution being $10,000.  This flood-safe project was developed by two former AllPeopleBeHappy Volunteer Service Award recipients (Steve Meicke and Lisa Hall) and it is being used as a prototype that will hopefully be deployed elsewhere in the area.

A Project Grant of $10,000 has been awarded to the Maji Safi Group for Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) Program expansion in Rorya District, Tanzania.  Maji Safi Group, ‘Clean Water Group’ in Swahili, was founded in 2013 to promote health and disease prevention in underserved and impoverished areas through holistic community empowerment and by working predominantly with local women and youth.  The program consists of utilizing school clubs to teach girls about MHM, distributing hygiene kits (disposable pads, washable pads, menstrual cups, soap, periodic panties), painting educational murals, broadcasting radio program, and conducting group discussions.  This project will expand the MHM program to 7 new secondary schools, reaching 350 girls.

A $10,000 Project Grant has been awarded to the Ugandan Water Project to provide 550 Ugandan primary school students at two schools with on-site rainwater collection systems, water filter stations, and handwashing stations, coupled with water and hygiene education.  This self-contained clean water system (2 Rainwater Collection Systems (10,000L PE-tank); 6 H2O-filter stations; 4 hand-washing stations) for each school will eliminate children’s need to leave class to collect water from far-off contaminated sources.  Ugandan Water Project will also train approximately 4-7 staff at each school in system maintenance and filter use, and train student leaders and students in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) best practices.  This solution has proven not only to eliminate water-related safety concerns and support students’ health, but also to redeem an average of 90 collective hours of increased time for instruction per school per week.

Sunflower Global’s PALE (Pathways to Alternative Learning and Education) program is an afterschool education program for upper primary school girls living in the Kibera Slums of Nairobi, Kenya.  During the Covid-19 lockdowns, even as schools and other non-profit organizations have been forced to shut down, Sunflower Global’s team was able to apply for a waiver to stay open and continue serving their students.  They have provided three handwashing and sanitation stations to serve their 300 PALE students and 100 SEED (Sunflower Early Education and Development) students, as well as their 10 employees and others in the neighborhood.  They have distributed over 400 masks and important food staples, such as Unga (for making the Kenyan staple food Ugali) rice, and sukuma wiki (a staple vegetable) to over 200 of their beneficiaries’ families.  Sunflower Global has distributed clothing for children and adults to over 200 of their beneficiaries’ families and distributed sanitary pads for over 300 students during the Covid-19 pandemic.  They have provided academic support, tutoring materials, and safe spaces for academic tutoring since schools closed in Kenya in March of 2020.  The AllPeopleBeHappy foundation is continuing its support of Sunflower Global’s many efforts.

The AllPeopleBeHappy foundation is a longtime supporter of the Friends of Nepal Pariwar Foundation, awarding it a Project Grant for the 11^th year this April.  Friends of Nepal Pariwar Foundation supports the salaries and in-service training of two nurse-midwives (plus one overall support position).  With Allpeoplebehappy foundation’s support, three additional nurse-midwives are available in two clinics (Mulkharka, Hinquwapati) to provide 24-hour services, and in the case of Mulkharka outreach to school and women’s savings & credit groups.  Last year, the two clinics assisted in 74 deliveries and provided 263 prenatal checkups.  In addition, they performed 4,499 general health services and 2,125 reproductive health services.

Amizade, a long-established service-learning organization, was put in extreme peril because of the curtailment of international travel due to the Pandemic.  Changing course, Amizade came up with a new program entitled “Virtual Service Learning (VSL) with Brazilian and Jamaican Youth.”  The program digitally teaches overseas youths how to do service-learning.  The participants first pick a topic, then do 1) survey, research and benchmarking, 2) digital strategy and planning, 3) social media advocacy, 4) on-line fundraising, 5) content creation, and 6) complete the service project.  The program, running for 6 consecutive weeks, began in the Spring of 2021 with 2 cohorts (15 each) of 15 to 20 year-olds in Petersfield, Jamaica with the theme of Climate Change and Santarem, Brazil with the theme of Public-Health and Covid-19 Misinformation.

Indego Africa, founded in 2007, is dedicated to empowering artisan women in Rwanda and Ghana through employment opportunities and education.  An AllPeopleBeHappy Project Grant awarded in late 2020 helps to support their Artisan Accelerator Program, which endeavors to teach the artisans how to accelerate the sustainable growth of their business and improve their saving capacity (both at the cooperative and individual level).  Sixty-five young women across 3 cooperatives in Rwanda participated in both Improved Access to Capital and Microfinance + Cooperative Specific Business Goals.  The Igiceri (“Coin”) Module to improve access to capital and knowledge of microfinance has been the most popular so far, with 39 women (60% of participants) joining Igiceri, bringing the total membership up to 111 members contributing a minimum of 3,000 Rwf per month, helping the credit union fund grow from $11,900 in June 2020 to $25,242 by April 30, 2021.

Clinica Verde is a health clinic located in Boaco, Nicaragua that opens its doors to patients in 2012 with a vision of health and hope for the rural poor.  Since 2020, the AllPeopleBeHappy foundation has primarily supported Clinica Verde’s sustainable agricultural initiatives.  We have just awarded it a $10,000 Project Grant to train 90 families in 3 rural communities in agro ecological best practices for protecting the soil and water management.  Using face-to-face meetings, 2 tutorial videos and agro ecological practices manual on contour lines, living and dead barriers, production of legumes, crop rotation, and use of organic pesticides, Clinica Verde is providing these rural Nicaraguan farmers an alternative for food safety and security.