Thank you for supporting communities in the US Virgin Islands as they rebuild in the year after hurricanes Irma and Maria. Your donation to the Island Spirit Fund continues to support these five incredible organizations working locally to support their communities through recovery:

• The St. Croix Long Term Recovery Group has managed 267 volunteers who in turn provided 13,050 hours of labor to support construction on 20 homes. Chris Finch shares one of the group’s many success stories, “When the homeowner entered the house and saw that she could occupy her bedroom for the first time in over a year, she collapsed on her bed in joy.”

• The St. John Long Term Recovery Group started or completed the rebuilding of 10 or more homes with materials purchased with the funds donated by the Island Spirit Fund. They used their funds to source approved materials to build the homes in a more resilient manner and in accordance with building codes.

• The St. Thomas Recovery Team (STRT) has put five families back into their homes. “The Island Spirit Fund has really raised morale on St. Thomas as well as on the other two islands,” says Imani Daniel, Chair of the Board for STRT.

• The Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands (CFVI) has made three grants to local organizations. The grants are piloting a recycling program on the University of the Virgin Islands St. Thomas campus, supporting native tree restoration, and strengthening the local marine workforce with internships in coastal science or conservation and a partnership with Penn State's Biology program.

• Across their work in the USVI, All Hands and Hearts has managed 1,141 volunteers who provided 23,668 volunteers hours to impact 6,718 people. A client expressed gratitude for this work saying, “All Hands and Hearts were the first people who said, ‘We can help you,’ and actually delivered on the promise.”

With your help, our Island Spirit Fund nonprofit partners are able to continue making a transformative impact in the lives of people impacted by the storms. Thank you for your continued dedication to the recovery of hurricane-affected communities for the long haul.

Dear Project of the Month Club,

Last month, 468 of you gave $22,129 to East Bali Poverty Project, an organization that educates children near Mount Agung in Indonesia and runs a social enterprise creating bamboo bicycles. The EBPP team was elated to benefit from your support and is planning to train even more young people to build and sell bamboo bicycles.

 For our last Project of the Month for 2018, your donations are headed to Japan to support dozens of very cute therapy dogs. Japan Animal Therapy Association rescues stray dogs—who would otherwise be put down—and trains them to be therapy dogs, serving elderly people and people with disabilities. Sarah and Shreya, two GlobalGiving staff members, visited JATA this past spring and were so impressed by their impactful work.

Eiko, JATA’s CEO, couldn’t believe the great news!

“When we heard the news that we have been selected as GlobalGiving's Project of the Month for December 2018, we totally doubted our ears! It was amazing news and we repeated to ourselves, “Really? Really we were selected?!” We at JATA greatly thank the GlobalGiving’s staff and community for supporting and helping us! And of course, we truly appreciate everyone who has made donations for our project to make a change. We will keep dedicating all our best to show all the people in Japan and all over the world the “power of the dogs” and work to reduce the killing of dogs.

Eiko has big plans for your donations:

"First of all, your donations will help us improve the indoor and outdoor facilities for training the rescued dogs. These facilities help us raise the rescued dogs into therapy dogs. Our association JATA was established in 2007 so almost all facilities and equipment, such as kennels and fences, need upgrading. Also, enough care should be taken on the earth of the training areas to prevent water flooding at times of rainy seasons. We hope all the dogs live and be raised comfortably.

“In order to train the stray dogs into therapy dogs, we need an experienced dog trainer. For this reason, we would like to use the donation effectively to hire professional dog trainers.

“This week we will visit a palliative care unit in a local hospital for therapy with a golden retriever named Johann. He was a stray dog in Turkey. I rescued him three years ago, and two years ago he came to Japan. After some intensive training, he became an excellent and caring therapy dog and now he even has a fan club! We want to show all the people in Japan that even a rescued dog can be a therapy dog. And with these donations, we will continue to rescue more dogs and train them to become a nice therapy dog!”

Thank you very much for your support and generosity! From everyone here at GlobalGiving, we hope your holiday season is full of joy and peace.

Warm wishes,

Mari Kuraishi, Co-Founder + President

Seven years since the outbreak of civil war in their country, 5.6 million Syrians are now refugees, with 151,000 Syrians newly registering as such so far in 2018. The ongoing conflict threatens to drive this number higher in the coming months. The leader of the Syrian Civil Defence volunteer rescue workers (also known as the White Helmets) is warning that millions of residents in the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib are at risk if the recently agreed upon ceasefire should fail. The city and its surrounding province are home to more than 3 million people, the majority of whom have fled from other parts of Syria in search of safety, and experts predict that a siege of Idlib could result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people being displaced and heading for the Turkish border.

More than 600 miles from Idlib, 7,357 Syrian refugees have made the perilous voyage from Turkey to Greek islands in the Aegean Sea in search of safety so far in 2018. In this update I’d like to share progress being made by three of our nonprofit partners assisting these refugees on the islands of Leros and Lesvos:

• In December 2016 Echo100Plus launched the Echo-Hub, a community center in the town of Lakki on Leros, to help arriving refugees integrate and thrive in their new surroundings. Since then, the number and diversity of the programs they offer has increased substantially, and now includes European language classes; IT and coding classes; creative workshops on film, music, sewing, and pottery; and physical activities like soccer, basketball, yoga, swimming, and hiking. Their teachers and volunteers have now taught more than 700 English classes, and their students have a 98% success rate when taking their English Speaking Board exams.
• Lighthouse Relief’s emergency response team has assisted 124 boats carrying 3,674 people arriving on the island Lesvos. Their team staffs nearly round-the-clock lookout shifts from the shore, assists landings, and then helps refugees reach transitional camps. Throughout the summer and fall, volunteers with their Eco Team have led beach clean ups that have collected 42 dinghies, 692 lifejackets, 555 bags of garbage, and numerous pieces of debris from broken boats.
• The Advocacy Project has partnered with Sewing 4 Solidarity, a volunteer-led initiative on Leros, to train 30 refugee and migrant women in making handbags, helping them secure a steady source of income for themselves and their families. Beyond the financial benefits to participants, the project has been designed to provide the women with a supportive environment of their peers and an opportunity to build their self-confidence through the development of a valuable skill.

Thank you for joining more than 9,000 other GlobalGivers who’ve donated $1.79 million in support of dozens of inspiring organizations like Echo100Plus, Lighthouse Relief, and The Advocacy Project. We’re especially grateful that you made the smart choice to donate cash, rather than physical goods, to help those in need. Giving money in response to a crisis allows for quicker and more efficient deployment of resources and supports, rather than disrupts, local economies.

Watch your inbox in the coming months for our next update and more stories of how your donation is supporting Syrian refugees.

Warmly,
Will Frechette + the GlobalGiving Team