Donations to this project
are eligible for a 50% match
as part of
the
September 2023 Little by Little campaign!
until September 22, 2023, at 23:59:59 EDT
As 2013 comes to a close we can reflect to a terrific year in Guatemala with our elderly members of the community. We have brought more of them into the reforestation program, allowing them to grow their own trees which will be later used for firewood in years to come. As well, they are part of the vegetable and medicinal plant program, ensuring sustainable income for them.
During this festive season we have to look ahead to 2014 and beyond; get donations in the bank to ensure our programs progress and improve over the coming months; ensure our children have daily food and fruit; ensure we can pay our local teachers who do such a terrific job; make sure that the children have materials to study hard!
May I take this opportunity to thank you for previous donations and thank you in advance for donations to come. As we all share gifts this season, please share our message with friends and family and let’s all ensure a prosperous 2014 in The Phoenix Projects and their communities. Happy holidays!
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Across Phoenix we are always trialing new ideas to try and improve our services to the communities we work in and with our older people's programme, we are no different.
Handing out food to the older members of the communities has always worked really well for them, but, in other projects we have been trialing veggie gardens. These are plots of land in the community where we provide the seeds and fertilizer to the community and, on rotation, they tend the garden and share the veggies between those of the cooperative.
In Ecuador we have put a veggie garden in each of the communities and so far they have grown lots of different vegetables including spinach, onions and peas and it has been going really well!
"The Mums are really enjoying the vegetables and we have been giving them hints and tips on recipes to incorporate the new foods in their diet. The community are really getting involved in the projects, and in the home, everyone is benefiting for the meals."
Zoe, Ecuador project manager
We think this is a fantastic way to involve the whole community in improving the diet of their entire families. In Guatemala, the older people will be able to tend the gardens and then take the food home, learn how to use the vegetables in cooking and feed the whole family. From the oldest to the youngest member, every person in the family will recieve more nutrition from the garden - it is a whole community effort!
Thanks to continued donations from you, we can now trial this in Guatemala and will be keeping you updated on how the project is progressing!
Thanks very much!
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One of our great passions for our group of older people in the community is to keep them as involved in the work of the community as possible. They work so hard for their families and they are so passionate about their communities that we want to make sure they have a role in the community work we do.
For the first time in Phoenix history we have involved our older people in our reforestation programme! Deforestation is a huge problem in Guatemala and can lead to more destruction when there are heavy floods during the rainy season. To combat this problem we ask our women's group (which has included some of our older people this year) to grow 25,000 trees in our vivero which once a year we plant in the surrounding areas where there are problems of deforestation. Some of our older people even took trees home with them to plant on their own land and around their own homes to help with the problem.
We are also still collecting funds for our older people's programme. So far, we have collected over $2000 from you and other kind donors which we are using the collect together food parcels to hand out to the older people once we have enough for everyone. We will continue to collect funds for the food parcels over the coming months so that we can hand out food to the older people once supplies through other means start to dwindle later on in the year.
Thank you once again for your continued support, if you know of any friends or family that would also like to support this wonderful cause please do pass on the details to them.
As we come close to US Mother's Day on May 12, we are focusing on supporting our Moms in Guatemala!
Ex-volunteer Lisa Bailey brought four friends with her to Guatemala this week, her third visit, to run our very first Breast Health Workshop in Santa Maria.
Lisa, a specialist in breast cancer surgery and prevention at the Carol Ann Read Breast Health Center in California, gave the first ever workshop on Breast Health to more than 80 Mothers in Santa Maria. The community was really interested and the talk was given in Spanish and Kaqchikel to ensure everyone understood the information that was being provided. The workshop covered the importance of breast health and how to check and monitor breast health and included the opportunity for a health check from one of the team.
We also launched Plan Iron Woman this week with the same team, distributing seeds of iron-rich vegetables. The plan is specifically aimed at expectant mothers and young mothers to improve nutrition in a child’s first 1000 days of life, the time deemed most important for a child's development.
We are part of GlobalGiving's Mother's Day campaign this year, celebrating Moms in the US and Guatemala through one gift. If you would like to support Mom's in Guatemala, whilst gifting your Mom a handmade scarf and set of worry dolls then please take a look at our gift:
http://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/gifts-for-good/detail.html?projectGift.id=124
Thank you
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Global Giving’s first bonus day of the year starts NOW, 9am EST!
Global Giving are matching donations at 30% from right now! There is $50,000 available in matching so if you would like to donate to the project plans below for 2013 please so do now so we can benefit from the extra donation!
Our next scheduled hand out of food to our older people will be over the next two weeks. This includes a parcel of food full of the basic nutrients we need and fruit and medicinal trees, grown locally by the women’s group, to help with general ailments and vital vitamins and minerals missed by lack of food. In turn, the grandparents are more able to support their children, in the home, getting them to school and helping them anyway they can with their work. All of this can be done thanks to our generous donations.
We will be able to hand out more food to the grandparents with your support so please, consider a donation today and let us benefit from a further 30% on top of your donation COMPLETELY FREE!
Don't delay, donate now!
Thank you.
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