By David Zarraga | Board Member, Gawad Kalinga USA
To our wonderful project donors,
Good day!
The GK USA team would like to provide a brief project update for you today. Though we are still awaiting a formal completion report for the home-building project at GK Ark of Noah, we would like to thank you for your support over the years for this community. Without your help, we could not have achieved the completion of this project.
Our efforts at GK Ark of Noah have now turned to fighting childhood malnutrition and finding a sound solution to the flooding affecting the community and surrounding area. Though we have separate projects for these two initiatives, allow us to provide an update regarding these efforts at GK Ark of Noah.
1. Childhood malnutrition campaign - through the GK USA community health internship program, a household gardening initative was piloted at GK Ark of Noah in 2016 by one of our interns, University of Massachusetts Medical School student Gregory Zandrow. The project, in which Greg and other GK volunteers gave away potted vegetable seedlings to the families of GK Ark of Noah and trained the villagers in preparing and consuming the vegetables, sought to address the problem of childhood malnutrition at the community. At the start of the project, 36% of the children at GK Ark of Noah showed signs of severe malnutrition. After a year of a vegetable-enhanced diet from the gardens, only 1% of the children at GK Ark of Noah showed any symptom of malnutrition. Last November 2018, Greg presented the project’s results at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference on International Child Health in Orlando, FL. It was recognized as the 2018 Best Poster for Program Evaluation, affirming Greg’s and GK’s scientific and community-friendly approach to fighting childhood malnutrition. GK USA, working once again with Greg Zandrow as the project lead, will be expanding the Household Gardening initiative across 5 more GK villages, with the goal of distributing seedlings to 250 more families, in early 2019.
2. Flooding at GK Ark of Noah - our fundraising for this project is still ongoing, but community leaders at GK Ark of Noah are continuing to coordinate with the local government to have the government conduct a formal engineering study and recommend a solution for the flooding afflicting GK Ark of Noah and its surroundings. We will continue to update you as we progress with the preparation work.
Thanks to your help and support over the years, GK Ark of Noah continues to flourish. Your donations have fueled a multi-pronged approach to help keep this community out of poverty - from nutrition and community health, to social entrepreneurship and education. We hope we can continue to count on your support as we enter 2019.
May you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday season!
All the best,
David Zarraga and the Gawad Kalinga USA Team
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
