So last April 5 the AACDP entered a kind of contest for entry into a world wide non profit fundraising group called GlobalGiving. I learned about this organization by chance talking to a friend of a friend, who also has a small non profit like the AACDP. She urged me to look at GlobalGiving, whose mission is to drive donor funding towards small grassroots projects.
We named our project "Delivering Food to Hungry Families in Zambia".
Everybody has heard about the waste of money and resources at the big charities. GlobalGiving is making visible to many levels of donors programs like ours, run by people who directly work with their communities, where all donations go to benefit those people. It takes time and thought to learn the skills and apply them. But skill building is part of their package, and, guess what? It worked.
The requirement for admission to GlobalGiving was to raise at least $4000 from at least 40 separate donors. I did not know if we could do it, but with a lot of suggestions from GG, we managed to bring in our target sum of $18,00! from 140 people! Out of almost 400 entries, we were 5th. I was surprised and thrilled.
The best part is how our ideas evolved for this appeal. At first we thought, well, we'll begin a food drive for our families that cannot afford food with the out-of-control inflation. Then we thought, we'll help provide seeds and fertilizer for home gardens. Then Sydney Mwamba, who runs the AACDP in Zambia, realized that our families have the right to buy nearby traditional land at very good price from their tribal chiefs. So Sydney suggested we start a communal farm. The women who make our dolls are so excited at this propect. These are people that come from agricultural backgrounds in their native villages, although they have moved to town. They know how to produce food and how to market it as well.
So this will be an ongoing labor which may take a few years. Besides the land, we'll need a solar water system, a few small traditional buildings, tools and seeds working towards the time when the farm sustains itself and all those who work on it.
You can see our project page for the contest here:
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/delivering-food-to-hungry-families-in-zambia/
Probably many of you have already contributed to us for this, but, if you missed it and want to part of an effort that will create food and income for a group that has especially had a hard time during then pandemic, please join us. We will keep you up to date with a report every three months on our progress.