May 2011 AIDS Patient Family Support Program Update
Please support GlobalGiving’s Recurring Donation Program and the FSP
Mark visited Cambodia in February 2011 where he met with our Home Care Coordinator and Team to review the status of each family in the FSP. All operational aspects of the FSP remain as described in the program description .The educational progress of the children was discussed along with other issues that need attention, such as the recent imposition of costs for previously fee medical services.
In December, Mark had learned of a significant development that will seriously impact the FSP families and program. Due to recent policy changes by Cambodia/s NPO medical providers, all patients, including the very poorest will now be required to pay fees for medical services which were previously free, such as blood tests and doctor visits. For families living on a razor’s edge of survival, an additional expenditure of $ 5 to $ 10 per month may create life threatening choices for patients. Unless the FSP provides additional funding, it is likely that previously stable patients may skip visits and medication leading to a decline in health and a possibility of developing drug resistant strains of HIV and TB.
For FSP families medicals fees will confront them with a choice of seeking the medical care essential to their continuing survival or of feeding their children.
Food and energy price inflation already threatens the stability of many families and their ability to maintain a level nutrition necessary for survival. At a time when our FSP budget is already gravely strained by a difficult fundraising environment, we must project a possible increase in the allocation to our FSP families of an additional $10,000 for 2011 to our current on site expenditure budget to pay these medical fees or face the simple fact that hungry poor families will choose food over medical care. At the present time we projected the 2011 FSP budget at $ 107,240 and have raised $49,000 from various donors leaving us with substantial funding needs for the second half of 2011.
We urge you to consider making a recurring donation to support our FSP. Just $ 27.50 will support one family for one week. Stable funding is essential for our continued effort to help the FSP families and to give the children in these families the opportunity to break the cycle of inherited poverty.
We are very grateful for your continued support of the AIDS Patient Family Support Program.
Barbara and Mark Rosasco
2011 First Quarter Update
Mark visited Cambodia in November 2010 where he met with our Home Care Coordinator and Team to review the status of each family in the FSP. All operational aspects of the FSP remain as described in the program description . As a part of his visit, Mark also visited almost all of the families currently enrolled in the FSP. This quarterly visit by Mark is a standard practice and it is done in addition to the weekly visits that the Home Care Team makes to each family. Each family’s status is reviewed and the educational progress of the children is discussed along with any other issues that may need additional attention.
In December, after the completion of this trip, Mark learned of a significant development that will seriously impact the FSP families and program.
Due to a recent policy change by the UN’s Global Fund ( for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) and the large medical NGOs which administer Global Fund services in Cambodia , patients, including the poorest, will now be required to pay small fees for services which were previously free, such as required blood tests and doctor visits. This a serious development for patients for whom an additional unplanned expense of even $ 5 to $ 10 per month could prevent their continued participation in the Global Fund’s program to obtain life saving anti-retroviral medications.
For FSP families, living on the very edge of survival, without increased financial support from our program, these small fees will confront them with a choice of seeking the medical care essential to their continuing survival or of feeding their children.
This alarming development could not have come at a worse time. Food price inflation in the developing world already threatens the ability of many families to maintain a level adequate nutrition necessary for survival.
At a time when our FSP budget is already strained by rising inflation and the difficult fundraising environment, we will need to increase the monthly allocation to our FSP families to pay these medical fees or face the simple fact that hungry poor families will choose food over medical care, an action which will inevitably lead to a rise in mortality and orphaned children. Consequently, you will note that our program support amounts have increased.
The FSP 2010 budget year has been completed, but the GlobalGiving site does not offer an easy way for us to distinguish from 2010 budget needs vs 2011 unless we repost our project.
The 2011 annual budget for the FSP is now projected at $ 106,000 ( $118 per patient family.) At the present time we have raised $32,000 from various donors, leaving us with substantial funding needs.
When including a portion of the costs of fundraising via the GlobalGiving site, this means we will now assume a monthly cost of $ 125 per patient family.
We are most grateful for your continued support of the AIDS Patient Family Support Program.
Check out our most recent press report Dated Sept 2, 2010 online at:
http://inmenlo.com/2010/09/04/barbara-and-mark-rosasco-working-to-better-the-lives-of-southeast-asia-women-and-children/
Mark visited Cambodia in late September where according to plan he met with our Home Care Coordinator and Team to review the quarterly status of each family in the FSP. As a part of his visit, Mark also visited almost all of the families currently enrolled in the FSP. During Mark's visits with each family, family status is reviewed and the educational progress of the children is discussed along with any other issues that may need additional attention. At present we now 95 children enrolled in school, up from our previous total of 85.
All operational aspects of the FSP continue as described in the program description without any significant exceptions. The one exception is that our program funding continues to be available unpredictably and only on a month by month basis, causing considerable worries about our ability to maintain non-stop continuation of this program.
Despite these grave funding concerns, we continue to focus on the importance of education in our efforts to encourage children to strive for academic excellence. As many of the parents in the FSP are illiterate, this additional social support which stresses the importance of education is of great importance.
Funding update October 2010
We are grateful to GlobalGiving for its recent Matching Funds event on October 12. Three donors gave a total of $ 6,000 which should earned a 50% funds match of $3,000 . The grand total after paying fees of $900 to Global, this campaign will net a total result of $8,100.
Donations to the FSP from all other sources, excluding GlobalGiving, now total $66,385, leaving a balance of approximately $ 18,000 yet to fund in order to achieve essential minimal program funding for the FSP's 75 families. Total of projected essential program costs remain at $ 88,000 per year, or a cost of $ 1118 per family, but owing to increased local costs this will rise moderately in the near future .
Kasumisou Foundation FSP operates and funds itself month-to-month. The continuing economic climate continues to impact all charities with total donations recently reported to have declined by approximately 11% for 2009. Kasumisou Foundation continues to seek funding to continue essential programs without interruption and to try to restore emergency reserve funds expended in 2008 and 2009 to make up for donor shortfalls. Many donors are experiencing donor fatigue and it is increasingly difficult to secure funding commitments and donations.
Although we are blessed to receive continued support for our projects, at the present time, we are keenly aware that any significant shortfall in funding would mean that we would immediately be forced to stop our support of these 75 families and causing these mothers and their children become homeless within the month. Our top priority continues to be to raise funds to support of our existing program commitments and to try to restore our reserve funds once immediate funding commitments are met.
Thank you all very much for your generous and continued support! We cannot do this without you !
Barbara Rosasco
Kasumisou Foundation
Links:
Local Block Party Creates Support Opportunities to Kasumisou Foundation
On Wednesday, June 24, Mark and I rented a table space for $50 at our town’s Annual Block Party, sponsored by the Menlo Park, CA Chamber of Commerce. Although Kasumisou Foundation has been a California registered charity since 1999 , Mark and I have spent most of those years living in Japan, where we have built a loyal group of supporters. Now that we are in the US more often, we thought it would be a good idea to introduce Kasumisou Foundation’s programs to our hometown’s local community with a goal of increasing our support base.
We had the good fortune to have a visit to our table by Ms. LJ Anderson, a feature writer for a local newspaper chain, The Mercury News. Upon learning about the AIDS Patient Family Support Program (FSP) , LJ invited us to be interviewed for her weekly column, which was then published in print and online on July 7, 2010.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_15454071?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com&nclick_check=1
Things to remember...
Not everyone gets a summer vacation!
With the summer holidays upon us, it is sometimes easy to forget or defer support for various charitable programs in our local community or in the global community. Global Giving’s recent matching funds campaign was a good reminder to all of us that some folks can’t take a break and “ just get away” for a while. We can however, ease some of their challenges with our continued and regular support.
LJ Anderson featured this photo in her article. The photo shows living conditions in Borey Keila, a slum district in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where several of our other patient families live. This photo gives us a child’s daily view of the world. Despite the many photos like these that I have seen, I am always amazed to think about how difficult it would be to try to raise children in such an environment. But even more importantly, how can a child like the little girl in the photo aspire to more in life if this is the only world that she knows?
This particular photo emphasizes the great value of the social oversight that the FSP provides by stressing educational achievement. We also try to give the children exposure to their rich culture heritage.
Can you imagine the awakening that such a child would experience by attending one of our Apsara Arts Association dance performances? Magical is the only word that I can think of to use.
Other things:
Mark will return to Cambodia in August or early September.
We have raised a total of $ 4856 for the FSP in combined donations when including the June 16, 2010 GlobalGiving match campaign. This amount also includes another matching donation that we expect will come from a donor's company program. We will need to subtract out approximately $ 456 for fund raising fees paid to GlobalGiving for a net result of about $4400. We continue to seek funding for this program as there are no reserves to support any gap in funding and so the program exists on a month to month basis.
Again, thank you all for your continued support of our programs and for giving the children in the FSP a chance to break the cycle of inherited poverty and work towards a better life.
Have a great summer !
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
Links:
Mark has just returned from Cambodia where he met with our Home Care Coordinator and Team to review the status of each family in the FSP. As a part of his visit, Mark also visited almost all of the families currently enrolled in the FSP. This quarterly visit by Mark is a standard practice and it is done in addition to the weekly visits that the Home Care Team makes to each family. During Mark's visits with each family, family status is reviewed and the educational progress of the children is discussed along with any other issues that may need additional attention.
All operational aspects of the FSP continue as described in the program description without any significant exceptions.
We continue to expand our efforts to engage the children in the FSP more actively in order to encourage them to work toward greater academic achievement. As many of the parents in the FSP are illiterate, this additional social support which stresses the importance of education takes on an even more important role.
We see signs that our efforts are beginning to pay off. In the past, children in the FSP almost never voiced dreams involving educational goals, so it was quite exciting when one young lady, age 14 , when showing Mark her rapidly improving English fluency, announced that she aspires to become a doctor! A long time member in our FSP and excellent student, this young teen and her sister , age 10, are both HIV positive and at times symptomatic of AIDS. Her father passed away from AIDS and her mother, who also has AIDS, goes up and down with the her illness.
There are currently about 120 children in the FSP. Of the 89 school age children who in the FSP, we are pleased to note that during the past school year, 5 of our students have been ranked in the top 5 of their class. One child, an orphaned FSP child who is now a permanent boarding student in another Kasumisou Foundation program, is the top ranked student in her middle school class.
The fate of the parents in the FSP has already been decided by their health status: they have HIV/AIDS. However, the children face a world that is still full of possibilities. It remains our continuing goal to help these children to break the cycle of inherited poverty. We feel that a long term effort of providing educational opportunity and building self esteem is vital to achieving that goal.
Funding update:
At the present time you have collectively donated $ 3,925 to our FSP via the GlobalGiving project site. We are also grateful for matching funds of $ 850 that we have received from GlobalGiving bring total FSP donations via the GlobalGiving website to $ 4,775. Total funding costs attributed to GlobalGiving, when including their gift of matching funds average about 5% of the total amount raised via their site.
Donations to the FSP from all other sources, excluding GlobalGiving, now total $61,385, leaving a balance of approximately $ 23,000 yet to fund in order to achieve minimal program funding for the FSP's 75 families. Total projected program costs remain at $ 88,000 per year, or a cost of $ 1118 per family.
Kasumisou Foundation FSP operates and funds itself month-to-month. The continuing economic climate continues to impact all charities with total donations often significantly lower than in past years, with Kasumisou Foundation feeling the same sorts of challenges. Although we are blessed to receive continued support for our projects, at the present time, all of the donations that we receive are quickly used for current program expenditures as we were forced to spend our reserves during the uncertain times of 2008 and 2009 . Until we can begin to restore our reserves, we are keenly aware that a shortfall in funding means that we would immediately be forced to stop our support of these 75 families and causing these mothers and their children become homeless within the month. So our top priority continues to be to raise funds to support of our existing program commitments and to try to restore our reserve funds once immediate funding commitments are met. Once, again, thank you all very much for your generous support! Your generous support of our programs has enabled many of the mothers in the FSP to living longer, allowing families to stay together longer. A stable lifestyle with adequate nutrition and housing support allows these mothers to qualify for free anti-retroviral medications through programs such as the UN’s Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis. Social oversight is a vital part of our program and we are hopeful that over longer term allow we can help the children in these families break out of the poverty cycle Again, thanks so much for making it possible for our programs to continue. Please feel free to contact us for more information at info@kasumisou.org Barbara Rosasco Kasumisou Foundation
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