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If you are interested in coming and volunteering with us, please e-mail Natasha: [email protected] and Jed: [email protected] We would love people who could help teach English (you don't have to be a teacher...Natasha is actually a nurse by profession!) we welcome anyone who is interested in working with us...gardeners, agriculture experts, someone who knows how to garden....make bread? Sew? etc...
For all of our projects whatever profit is made will go directly back into the community. We have a plan to also use the profits to subsidize community members purchasing of necessary basic needs items. In this way, our projects will be sustainable and we will be able to achieve greater independence and a brighter path for our future. We must build our community from within using our knowledge, and we believe these are positive steps.Thank you to Natasha for creating this site for us!
The Nsanga association is made up of the 47 household heads (and our orphan “familiesâ€) who are not attending school, and have been acting as the parental role for our younger sibblings since our parents deaths in the 1994 Genocide.Over the years, some of us have acheieved certain trade skills and a small few have attended some secondary school or university. Luckily, some of the younger children of the community do get the opportunity to attend primary and secondary school.We have seen many tragedies and horror in our lives, we have overcome loss and survived in times of little hope.We are now all equiped with the will, motivation and hope to change our future and succeed in gaining social, economic and nutritional independence.“Give someone a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach someone to fish and they will eat for a life timeâ€In the past we have received a few donations from charitable organizations or individuals who have heard our story and current situation. These donations are thoughtful and helpful, but they are not sustainable longer than a few days.Recently, we have taken matters into our own hands. We have started three sustainability projects with the assistance of our volunteer project coordinators Jed Oppenheim and Natasha Sniatowsky. We call our project and our commnunity of Child Headed Households of Genocide orphans the ‘Nsanga’ project.Our volunteer coordinator as agreed to assist us in learning English. She hosts the classes three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Saturday from 9-11am in Oreste and his brothers and sisters's house (he is one of the orphans of the community). The room is pretty cramped and we are hoping to received access to the community center er in the center of Kinyinya. We have a chalk board that has been donated by one of the local primary schools. Natasha has received some donations for notebooks, pens and chalk. Also some for photocopies for lesson plans and reading material. We are slowly building a library with donated books, many more are needed :)
We are writing you concerning the three projects we have planned and wish to implement. Our community has self divided into three different groups accoding to our interests and skills. We have initiated a Gardening project, planting vegetable gardens on small plots given to us by the government. We are in the midst of waiting a response on proposals submitted to attain a larger allotment situated on the edge of our community.The gardening project has been begun: the tools have been purchased, along with the seeds, and an agriculture/gardening specialist has come to work with us on how best to use the land. For this project to continue we are in need of fertilizer and plant feed.
The second project is an Art and Sewing group, comprised of young women of the community and genocide widows in neighboring houses. Currently the women are farbricating crochetted bags of plastic rope. They wish to continue their project into basket weaving, straw bags and a sewing blankets, clothes and decorective items. In order for this project to continue we are in need of straw materials, the tools for the crochetting, fabric and non-electrically powered sewing machines as the community does not have a source of electricity.The third project is a Bakery group. In working within our means and resources, we have decided to build a brick fire oven. One of our community members worked as a pastry chef briefly and we have sought the information and education to build the oven and make the bread. The first oven we wish to build is 2 x 3 x 2.5 metres. An alternative to renting a costly location, we have decided that it would be best to build on site using a metal roofed tent with supports, and deliver the bread locally, and expand from there once the project produces profits. For this to work, we are in need of brick, sand, cement etc.
We would love donations of books and learning materials!
PLEASE CLICK ON 'PICTURES' ABOVE BELOW OUR LOGO TO SEE SOME OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS WE'VE POSTED! :)