The Very Beginning

My project for the service learning is to help with a project I was already planning on working on. I went on the Alternative Break Trip to Zambia this winter and it was absolutely amazing. So now for our post-trip activism we've decided to send one of the organizations mosquito nets. Fountain of Hope takes in street children and feeds, educates and shelters them and lets them basically be kids again. Most of the kids are there for only three months while their real or extended families are located, some of the parents have died of AIDS, but some have been there their entire lives. Some of the kids ran away from their homes for various reasons and others were forced to live on the street because their parents died. In Zambia girls are more valued because they will do the cooking and cleaning and care for the other children, but boys traditionally do nothing and are viewed as burdens on the extended families. So Fountain of Hope takes them in and they have beds there, unfortunately there are 40 beds and only 2 mosquito nets. Malaria is a huge problem and is the number one killer of people in Zambia, even above AIDS, so getting these nets for the kids is crucial. Our plan to raise money for the nets is to have students or faculty or whoever "sponsor" a child. We'd give them information about a child and a picture and they could donate all or part of the cost for the mosquito net for that child. I think this is a good way for people here to get involved because they can see the children affected and have a reminder of what they did to help out a greater cause. I hope that this can be made a little bigger and that maybe we can partner with an organization and donate more nets to similar organizations. But it needs to be taken one step at a time, and we are at the very beginning.

Today we have officially started plans to send the mosquito nets for Fountain of Hope. Our student leader from the Alternative Break Trip contacted RAPIDS, who is willing to front the costs to mail the nets to them and we can get them for about $6-7. Although we still have to contact netsfor life to see what they can do, I think we might go with this group. They would buy the nets from a company in Lusaka (the capital of Zambia where we lived for 2 weeks) and deliver them to the kids at Fountain of Hope which is in Kamwala, a suburb of Lusaka. We're also e-mailing Fountain of Hope, they only have one computer for the whole organization, and seeing if maybe the kids can fill out a paper so people can get to know who they really are instead of just what we remember. For now there's not much we can do until we hear from netsforlife and Fountain of Hope, but hopefully once that happens we can start and things will move along pretty well.

Here's some video of the Fountain of Hope kids and students from our trip dancing and singing that I filmed while we were there to help you get to know some of them. The older ones are the educators and outreach workers who go and find the kids off the street. I hope you enjoy and get to know the kids we're trying to help a little bit better.
-Katie