Help Rural Village Build First Granary
September 14th, 2009 by FriendsofCameroon
Elena Bussiere serves in the rural village of Ngan-Ha in Adamaoua Province where she’s an agro-forestry volunteer with the Peace Corps. She and a local Cameroonian Counterpart provide technical support for farmers and community groups as they plan and plant fruit orchards and gardens. The village requested a PCV to teach English, but didn’t get one, so Elena also teaches English one day a week in the village’s high school.
Following a broad needs assessment, for the last year she’s been
working with local leaders and organizations to plan, design and
construct Ngan-Ha’s first Community Granary. The granary is a very basic technology advance that will benefit many families throughout the Ngan-Ha area – where practically everyone is a farmer – and make farming more profitable. What’s more, any surplus profits from user fees will help address the village’s serious teacher shortage. Here’s a blog her parents have set up to provide some project background and detail: http://communitygranary.wordpress.com/
The project has been approved under the Peace Corps Partnership Program, a private non-profit organization, so we’re fundraising here in the states to support it. Our goal is to raise $9,753. The village contribution – in a country where per capita GDP is 3% of ours here in the US – is $5,161, plus land for the facility and any labor required to complete the project. Naturally, we’re networking like crazy and looking everywhere for support. All donations are tax-deductible and 100 percent of all donations go directly into the project. Between donations and pledges project partners have already raised over $3,000 after the first couple of weeks of fundraising. Not bad, but we’re not there yet.
If you want to support this project, you can donate here on-line:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-143
Or, if you prefer, you can make a check payable to Peace Corps
Partnership Program and send it to:
Paul D. Coverdell Peace Corps Headquarters
Peace Corps Partnership Program, OPSI
1111 20th Street NW
Washington DC 20526
Be sure to indicate Project Number 694-143 on the check so it will be applied to the correct project.
Any donation, no matter how small or large, is appreciated. We’d also love to hear any ideas you have for other fundraising strategies, or just how you’re doing. Please pass this along to anyone you think would want to help. If you have any questions, let us know.