Thursday, January 28, 2010

An Alarming Situation!



The lady in the upper right hand corner of the picture directly above has been a serious bead maker. She has made a lot of the beaded necklaces shown on the Miracles in Caring web site. She has around 25 dependants all living together in one small room!! Can you imagine!? As a mother, though, how could she turn away her children and grandchildren? She doesn't want them to be on the street, so instead, they all somehow cram themselves into the tiny house you see in the background.

She currently has three daughters who are living with her and and each of them have children. The oldest one has 5 children, the next has 7 children and another has 9 children!! 21 children, and 4 adults. I wonder what it must be like in that house! Especially since it is such a small space.
Finding enough food to feed everyone is their main problem. Each morning the children get up early to rummage through the garbage and look for food. This will be their only meal. Some times they are able to find small things in the trash they can sell, and they can buy a scrap of food for one or two of them. The children and adults will go to the stone quarry to work to get whatever money they can to buy food, but when you have to feed 25 people, it is hard to do enough work!

The situation is very alarming!! If we could be there to see this family in person, I think it would leave a lasting impression on us. Since they are not right in front of us, it is easy to go on with our day and pretend as if everyone in the world has enough to eat.

This great family is not asking for a hand out. They are hard-working people (even the children)! The problem is not that they aren't working hard, but rather that the job available doesn't pay but 50 cents for 12 hours of work!

We now have a great opportunity to change the lives of this family and other families just like this one! Miracles in Caring is providing this family and close to 20 other families with a business! They will be able to make necklaces, aprons, and dolls and sell them on the world wide web! Soon, all of the families will be able to eat and send their children to school every day. Then, we will add more families to the business, so that many more people will be helped.

There are BIG, BIG plans for this group. I am working on getting several different things set up as a way to sell these items. For all updates on this group business, I am posting late-breaking news stories here. Check back often, and you will learn more and more about how your help is changing the lives of these families.

Mack is working on the application for World of Good. If you have never heard of it, you can check it out here. It is a GREAT opportunity for these women to get their items sold at a great price, and to be able to help as many families as possible.

Now, I need your help- They need your help. I can get the items sold for them, and get the money back to them (100% goes to these families in Uganda). I am donating all of my time, and I do not get a dime for this. However, in order to get this business started for them, we have to get the products to the US. The total needed to ship 20 kilos of products is $300. These products are already made and ready to come this way. We are lacking $200 to get them here. Can you help us with this? If so, please click on the donation link here

I can not emphasize enough just how hungry and desperate these families are. Because of this, if you would rather provide them with a loan, we would rather get that and get the products shipped than get nothing at all. The loan would be kiva-style. The women (via myself) would pay you back little by little interest free over a 6 month period. As their items sell, I will take out a portion to repay the loans that anyone has provided. The rest will go to the families.

Ideally, I would like to send a deposit for the items as well. Since the $300 only covers shipping, and the families are hungry now, if I could send them $100 or more the money can help them eat this week! When their items sell, you can get the deposit back (the same as the loan above).

Any and all help is appreciated! Regardless of how much is raised, I will be sending them a payment tomorrow. I can't sit back and wait, and know that these children are eating garbage or nothing at all!!

This is the greatest impact IGP we have ever tried to do. It will have the greatest results because so many will be helped. If you think that there are close to 20 families included, and each family has an average of 12 dependants, that is 240 people helping for only that small, small amount!!!

If there is anything you can do to help, please do so. I will be sending whatever is raised to them on Friday, early in the morning.

Also, the mothers wanted me to pass along their gratitude to you. They are so happy that people on the other side of the world truly care about their well-being and are doing something about it. Unlike Kiva, you can correspond with these families! To those who donate and would like to have a "sponsor family", contact me, and I will set you up with one. Then, you can get direct letters from one of the families being helped through this business.

Thank you in advance to all who open their hearts to these families!!!

1 comment:

Sara S said...

Hi Heather! I'd love to have a sponsor family! Good idea, and good luck with this project. - Sara