All the proposals are in and now it’s your turn to show your support for all the incredible, innovative ideas our alumni have brought to the table! From the Middle East to Ghana, from Haiti to Thailand, we’ve got project ideas that aim to create positive change in communities all around the globe. And this is your chance to help these ideas come into fruition!
Take a look at a recap of all the Alumni Project Fund proposals below and if there’s one that strongly resonates with you and that you support, click on the link of the proposal and leave a comment. Whichever project receives the most votes and comments by March 14th will automatically advance to the final round of grant selection. Our jury will then select and announce the final winners by late March.
Good luck to all!
Femme International’s Feminine Health Management Program
Femme International’s Feminine Health Management (FHM) program seeks to provide school girls in the Mathare slum with the education and tools necessary to stay safe, healthy and in school, every day of the month. FHM seeks to provide menstrual health education to school girls in the Mathare Valley slum, in order to tackle one of the root causes of gender disparity. The program has two essential components: education and distribution.
First, program facilitators lead participants through three comprehensive, interactive workshops aimed to teach girls about their reproductive system, how their bodies work, and the reasons why women menstruate each month. While these subjects are a part of the Kenyan school curriculum, there is a lack of focus on feminine health and hygiene education. The final workshop introduces the menstrual cup as an alternative form of menstrual management, and includes a detailed tutorial on how to properly and effectively use it. The second component is the distribution of Femme Kits – designed to contain everything a girl needs to manage her period including the menstrual cup, a tin bowl for washing the menstrual cup, a small towel, a bar of soap in a protective container, and a log book for the girls to track they cycle.
Menstrual cups are provided as an affordable and sustainable solution to menstrual health management. Introducing this affordable health management method helps reduce the risk of reproductive health infections, disease and poor menstruation-related school attendance and performance.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Solar-Powered Drip Irrigation System with G-Roots
G-Roots’ idea is to initiate the pilot implementation of a solar-powered drip irrigation system in the Builsa District of northern Ghana.
In an area where agriculture is the primary means of sustenance, the rainy season poses serious issues – for example, what if it doesn’t rain? The solar-powered drip irrigation system allows farmers water control, which is important for two reasons: a) it allows farmers to have power over this crucial agricultural input, and b) it allows farmers to remove their dependency to rain water, allowing for significantly higher harvest potential. Year-round irrigation allows families to farm during the dry season, which is the season where employment opportunities are particularly scarce.
Project Builsa is a unique and innovative idea bringing together the old and the new. It builds on the strength and knowledge of community members by improving their access to solar and drip technology that can assist them in many aspects of life. This radically changes centuries of dependence of rain water for sustenance.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Ubuntu Blocks Project: The Haitian Renovation Innovation that’s Sweeping the Nation!
Ubuntu Blocks are currently created by recycling polystyrene, which is excessively abundant in Haiti. The recycled polystyrene is cleaned and compressed, thus creating blocks analogous to cinder blocks that can be used in housing construction.
The effectiveness of this technology has been proven through the efforts of Haiti Communitaire and the women of Cite Soleil. The actual production facility for these blocks, known as the Ubuntu Block Factory Project, is nearing its final phases. The remaining steps are:
Conduct a long term trial run and establishment of a permanent price per block
Establish a full time self-sufficient operation
The purpose of this proposal is to fund the long term operational trial and finalize the price per Ubuntu Block. Taking the time to properly develop the pricing and assess the capability of the production facility will make this business one that will employ people in the Haitian community for years to come.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Preserving the Karen Culture through the Mae Lid Project
Build a cultural learning and job training centre for the Karen to preserve their culture and empower them by expanding their income opportunities.
The objective of the Mae Lid Project is to develop and foster a sustainable community development program in Mae Lid, Mae Hong Son, Thailand. We aim to provide occupational training and opportunities, academic scholarships for high school and university students, and a community fund to support the needs of the many subsistence farmers across the Mae Lid area through a sustainable, community-focused volunteer and homestay program. Empowering locally-driven, grassroots development to foster at the village level ensures the communities more closely experience the type of development that is in line with their cultural beliefs and community desires. This allows their rich culture to remain a strong component of their lives and not eroded by adverse development practices from external programs.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Primary Healthcare for the Mountain Village of Wli Todzi
The goal of Ghana Clinic Project (GCP) is to collaborate with residents of the village of Wli Todzi to construct a local primary health care clinic, as defined by the World Health Organization. Services provided will include maternity related interventions, childhood disease prevention and treatment, malaria prevention and treatment and others. Maternity related interventions are a focus of this project because of high fatality rates amongst women due to complications at birth, a situation exacerbated by economic and geographic restraints to their mobility. We work with local health professionals and the Wli Todzi community to ensure that services provided are driven by local needs. Through this collaborative construction process we ensure that the clinic is tailored to the needs of the people. The Ghana Clinic project will construct, equip, and arrange for continuous staffing of the Wli Todzi Health Clinic.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Childcare Assistance for the Women in Hebron
This proposal seeks to collaborate with the Women of Hebron’s Cooperative Association to establish a daycare facility enabling the women involved in the cooperative to maximize production of merchandise in support of their families.
Future ideas of the cooperative are to provide training, improve efficiency, and to increase the amount of women involved. Nawal Slemiah, the founder of the association, passionately believes that more women would be involved with the cooperative if they had some sort of childcare available to them.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Economic Empowerment for Women with the Palm Oil Project
The Palm Oil Project was first started by Ghana. Health Protection and Environmental Sanitation (HEPENS) in January 2009 in Kwamoano, Cape Coast, Ghana. Many women in this community, often in female-headed households, are unemployed, economically marginalized, and unable to provide for their families.
Palm oil production provides a unique opportunity for these women as a source of income for a variety of reasons. First, Ghana is considered to be a major producer of palm oil in West Africa due to the abundance of palm species along the Southern coast. The Central Region of Ghana offers the prime growth conditions for palm fruit trees as well. Palm fruits are roasted, then squeezed and processed to produce palm oil, which is a staple in Ghanaian cooking but is also heavily exported due to its health-benefits (high in beta-carotene). Heavily in demand, one drum of processed palm oil is sold at a moderately high price, at approximately 100 Ghana Cedi (GHc) or about 50 USD.
HEPENS is looking to expand its current Palm Oil Project in order to fund health projects and improve health outcomes in the village.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Patient Monitoring Project with Ghana Medical Help
One of the motivating factors for starting Ghana Medical Help (GMH) was how mortality rates are unnecessarily high in hospital patient wards. This is due to the inability to monitor critically ill patients and respond quickly to worsening conditions, which makes the difference between life and death. To this day, there is not a single district hospital in northern Ghana that has an electronic patient monitoring device to monitor the vital signs of vulnerable patients. This year, GMH now has the volunteer framework and administrative infrastructure to specifically focus on this issue.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
Technology in Mind with Haiti’s EIM Institute
Let’s bring the English in Mind (EIM) Institute into the 21st century and give its teachers the modern technology they need to enhance their teaching methods and connect their adult students to the larger world. Equipping each of EIM’s teachers with a projector and a tablet device to connect it to will drastically enhance EIM’s curriculum and improve exam results.
Support this project by commenting on this blog proposal.
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