'Tis the Season to be Jolly!
We've worked hard to keep things moving in our rural and local communities this year. You may have seen our messages when we participated in the GlobalGiving matching campaign recently as well as the messages we've sent you throughout the year.
We are using this report to let you know that we are grateful for your support all year long and it is because of people like you that we are able to do the work we do. Our team is small, and our hearts are BIG! We know, from our own personal experiences growing up as girls in rural Africa, what it feels like not to have access to basic healthcare support, food and water, and so we give you a BIG thank you for helping us to make progress towards solving these problems for the members of the Bergnek Community.
Keabetswe and the rest of the Bergnek Community Foundation and My Arms Wide Open teams in South Africa
#DontTalkTakeAction
There are multiple ways for you to help and support the program and we are counting on you and the people you know to take action.
Share your Excitement
We ask that you forward this project report to 2 friends or begin your own fundraising page for the cause here on GlobalGiving.
We are grateful for your ongoing support and for all you, as a donor, have already done to create positive change in the Bergnek community, and are always grateful for you our supporters, and especially for those of you who give to the Community projects every year, and for sharing the work we do with the wonderful people of Bergnek. We appreciate you and the people of Bergnek most certainly do too.
We won't give up on the communities we serve, and we know you won't either!
Since our last update, we've been very busy making some noise through our 5 Day Challenge initiative to raise money for the community clinic, under the One Brick at a Time program.
The year is coming to an end fast and you will see more information from us on our activities to support initiatives within the Bergnek Community. Like any community there is more than one need and right now we're focusing on the clinic, which as you know from previous updates is linked to so much more within the community.
5 Day Challenge
The MAWO Clinic Challenge started this week, and the goal is to raise $3,000 in 5 days to save 1,000 children by building the health clinic in Bergnek.
The health clinic has been one of our top priorities in Bergnek, South Africa to help give the community the necessary support that they need to cure life-threatening diseases and move towards sustainability.
What does the clinic do for Bergnek?
My Arms Wide Open will provide a healthcare clinic within the community that can provide basic healthcare for children, pre- and post-natal care and birthing support; the community will not have to suffer the loss of more children and can give other children basic healthcare to grow up healthier.
Having a clinic in the community will provide healthcare to 1,800 community members, of which 1,200 are women and children. It will also help to ensure that the 50 children born in the community each year arrive healthy and have the services needed to help keep them healthy.
What if you were born in Bergnek?
Picture yourself living in a rural community that is 30 miles from the nearest healthcare facility. On top of this you don't even have access to a car to get your children or yourself to health services when you need them. Your community barely has enough water for people to survive and there are no employment opportunities to change that. Children have already died here because of the lack of basic healthcare. You can help Bergnek change that.
They really do only have us to help them!
Share your Excitement
We ask that you forward this project report to 2 friends or begin your own fundraising page for the cause here on GlobalGiving.
We are grateful for your ongoing support and for all you, as a donor, have already done to create positive change in the Bergnek community, and are always grateful for you our supporters, and especially for those of you who give to the One Brick at a Time project every month. Thank you for your contributions, your messages and for sharing the work we do with the wonderful people of Bergnek. We appreciate you and the people of Bergnek most certainly do too.
We won't give up on the communities we serve, and we know you won't either!
Links:
We are making progress
As you are aware we are working on a number of sub-projects, under the 'One Brick at a Time' main project. The most important of which is the Bergnek Community Clinic.
What's happened so far
Last year we went ahead and purchased the land where the Bergnek Community Clinic will be located. We also had the preliminary design done for clinic building, that will include a space for the GirlStuffPeriod.org business to move into. The reason we chose to co-locate the clinic and the menstrual products business is that the education that is provided and delivered by the GirlStuffPeriod.org team is health related and address proper use and care of menstrual products and supplies as well as education about healthy reproductive practices.
Co-locating the two services can only serve to increase access to the products and medical services as well as provide mothers and mothers-to-be with the knowledge and support they need.
Share your Excitement
We ask that you forward this project report to 2 friends or begin your own fundraising page for the cause here on GlobalGiving.
We are grateful for your ongoing support and for all you, as a donor, have already done to create positive change in the Bergnek community, and are always grateful for you our supporters, and especially for those of you who give to the One Brick at a Time project every month. Thank you for your contributions, your messages and for sharing the work we do with the wonderful people of Bergnek. We appreciate you and the people of Bergnek most certainly do too.
We won't give up on the communities we serve, and we know you won't either!
Welcome to the latest report from our infrastructure project in Bergnek, Limpopo, South Africa! We are grateful for those of you supporting the projects under the One Brick at a Time initiative and welcome our newest donors to the projects.
Having patience is a lot easier said than done
What is always so inspiring to me, and what drives me to go faster, further for our communities is their ability to be patient in the face of scarcity and when their needs are so severe and dire. The scarcity the community faces is that of the resources to be able to provide basic needs like water, food more than once a day, and sanitation.
I’ve been reading a new book by Hans Rosling that was recently recommended by Bill Gates, called ‘Factfulness’. It describes why it is so important to walk away from the term ‘Developing World’ and creates a context for how we should perhaps see our world by breaking the world down into global income levels instead. After reading what I have so far, I have to admit I can truly relate to this method of looking at the world, simply because some of the solutions to really big problems have come to me, not from those of that have but from those that don’t because they have such a unique outlook as a result of the circumstances they find themselves in and have been born into. These solutions and ideas have been nothing but genius, in my opinion, and underscore why it so important to provide help and support within the right context or at least a better context than we have been using to date. I’ve included an excerpt below for you to consider.
Here's how the four global income levels break down:
Level 1: People live on less than $2 a day. Rosling estimates that one billion people are living at or below this threshold. They get around on their own two barefoot feet, cook over an open flame like a cookfire, fetch water in a bucket, and sleep on the ground.
Some people living in countries like Nepal, Madagascar, and Lesotho all fall into this income category.
Lesotho, Rosling says, has the lowest life expectancy of any country in the world.
Level 2: This is the income group where the majority of the world's people live. They get by on between $2 and $8 a day and might have some possessions like a bicycle, a mattress, or a gas canister for cooking at home.
Countries like Bangladesh, China, Zambia and Nigeria all have people living in this income level, but of course many Chinese and Nigerian people have much higher incomes, especially if they live in big cities.
That's one of the reasons that Rosling argues it's silly to lump entire countries and sections of the world into broad categories like "developing" versus "developed." It's meaningless.
Level 3: This is the second most populous category on Rosling's list, after level 2. People in level 3 live on anywhere from $8 a day to $32. They have running water, might own a motorbike or car, and their meals are a rich and colorful mix of foods from day to day. They also probably have electricity and a fridge, which makes things like studying and eating enough varied nutrients easier.
Egypt, Palestine, the Philippines and Rwanda all have citizens living on this level.
They might have enough money to take small vacations, and their children are generally free to finish high school, because they don't have to drop out early to make money for their family.
Level 4: Like level 1, roughly one billion of the world's people live on this level. They make $32 a day or more and have things like running water (both hot and cold) at home, a vehicle in the driveway, and plenty of nutrients on their plate. They've also likely had the chance to finish twelve years of school, or more.
Just about anyone living in the US, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden or South Korea is going to fall into this income category.
It includes essentially all of what people think of as the "developed" world, but accounts for roughly one-seventh of the global population.
Be cautious about assuming that your level is the best, or most "normal'" level, Rosling says.
"Be cautious about generalizing from Level 4 experiences to the rest of the world," Rosling writes. "Especially if it leads you to the conclusion that other people are idiots."
In light of the information I’ve shared above help us do more, go further, this May in the GlobalGiving Mother’s Day Campaign, because believe me, when I tell you, it IS the mothers, in the rural communities we serve in, that are leading the way, striving to focus every available resource on the betterment of their families and community
Share your Excitement
We ask that you forward this project report to 2 friends or begin your own fundraising page for the cause here on GlobalGiving.
We are grateful for your ongoing support and for all you, as a donor, have already done to create positive change in the Bergnek community, and are always grateful for you our supporters, and especially for those of you who give to the One Brick at a Time project every month. Thank you for your contributions, your messages and for sharing the work we do with the wonderful people of Bergnek. We appreciate you and the people of Bergnek most certainly do too.
We won't give up on the communities we serve, and we know you won't either!
How do we manage initiatives on an ongoing basis?
We've received some questions relating to how we manage projects and initiatives once they have been operationalized and so we thought we share the information from the last call.
Timing
In our last meeting with the water council and project team, we had some important updates. Every two weeks we meet with the Bergnek Water Council on a conference call and then once a quarter we have a more significant update and discussion to address any challenges that have arisen for the community.
Agenda: Project Status & Updates – Next Steps
Giving you insight into the process
I thought I'd share this information with you all to give you a broader context and insight into what happens in the communities we support. Although the community members work diligently to ensure projects are kept on track and the daily and weekly work is being done, they often times are met with challenges outside of their control or influence.
When we are invited into communities, we make a long-term commitment to work alongside them. We do this because there is no quick fix to the issues they face. The solutions take time to implement and time for us to train and update training for community members as they learn new skills and we move to the next stages of the initiatives and projects.
Share your Excitement
We ask that you forward this project report to 2 friends or begin your own fundraising page for the cause here on GlobalGiving.
We are grateful for your ongoing support and for all you, as a donor, have already done to create positive change in the Bergnek community, and are always grateful for you our supporters, and especially for those of you who give to the One Brick at a Time project every month. Thank you for your contributions, your messages and for sharing the work we do with the wonderful people of Bergnek. We appreciate you and the people of Bergnek most certainly do too.
We won't give up on the communities we serve, and we know you won't either!
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