Celebrating Emmanuella Okyere

Reforestation is Part of the Curriculum

Emmanuella Oykere is in her second year at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, studying community development. She is committed to working with communities in rural areas of Ghana to improve economic and agricultural practices and is studying hard to gain skills to implement these goals.

She has just sent me her grades for last semester, and they are even better than last term: five As and one B!

She is just one of our students in Ghana and Zambia who have American sponsors supporting their efforts to improve their own and others' lives.

Three new students form Zambia seeking sponsorship to study agriculture, electrical engineering and education. We will be showcasing these eager prospective students and hoping to find good people who will help them also receive an education that can dramatically increase their economic opportunities.

Stay tuned.

The Rains Are Coming. We Want to Plant!

Last year in Zambia, the price of food skyrocketed. Hunger was a reality, with many eating just one meal a day. The women of the AACDP community, who have children with disabilities at the Mama Bakhita Cheshire Home, dreamed of having a communal farm to raise their own food.

Thanks to your generosity, we were able to purchase 20 acres of farmland, sink a well and buy a pump. To complete this totally sustainable system, the farm needs a solar-powered irrigation system.

Sydney Mwamba, our general manager in Livingstone, has organized everything so far and estimates that we can get the system built for a total of $4,500. That will cover the cost of a cistern, pipes, electric cables, a control box, and solar panel stands, as well as two experts to assemble it all. When it’s completed, the planting can begin.

Growing food is a fundamental of village culture, from which they all come. Families will till and fertilize their own plots and construct fences of local materials. Eventually they will build traditional huts for tools and storage, but right now the time has come to plant. If we can raise the sum for the irrigation system quickly, there will be time to get it installed before the rainy season. To take advantage of the natural growing cycle they must get seedlings in the ground by then; to prepare the soil and start the seeds beforehand, they must have water.

These women, like many people in the world today, believe that starting communal farms is one of the most sensible solutions for worldwide hunger. Please help this community create the infrastructure they need for sustainable food security, and end their fear of being unable to feed their families. They are so ready.

“We want to start planting. It’s almost the rainy season and we can’t wait to start growing food so we can feed our families.” - Exhilda Kamonyo, Zambezi Doll Co. Chairwoman

Phase Two: Water!

By last July, the disastrous economic effects of Covid19 had tripled the cost of food in Zambia. This led Sydney Mwamba, my dedicated colleague in Livingstone, to the groundbreaking suggestion that we establish a communal farm, to be owned and run by the AACDP community of marginalized families who have children with disabilities. This will solve so many of the issues these people are facing.

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/delivering-food-to-hungry-families-in-zambia/

In July we raised enough money through GlobalGiving to purchase 20 acres of land for the farm. The next step is to install a well and a solar irrigation system. To fund this, we have joined another GlobalGiving campaign called Little by Little, in which all donations up to $50 are matched 50%. This allows many more people to participate in an action to end hunger for these families, who will then also be able to help surrounding friends and neighbors with access to water and reasonably priced vegetables.

We have dared to dream big and, thanks to generous people out there, our prayers are being answered.

Many thanks and blessings.

Food for Families in Zambia