Big updates from Seeds of Kindness today! Sounds like they're still chugging along at a good pace. They've accomplished some really impressive stuff at this point! Anyways, Update after the break.
Seeds of Kindness 3: Three Tons of Flax, No Wait, Seeds
Today, we have three items for your perusal:
- A party: Seeds of Kindness 3 has funded the second project.
- A question: We want to make a slight adjustment to a Seeds of Kindness 2 beneficiary—but only with your support.
- A forum: We want you to join Ponychan’s new /good/ board.
Two Projects Funded
If you’ve already donated to Seeds of Kindness 3, then you’ll need a lot of cocktails, coffee, and Kleenex now, because it’s party time!
Your donations will enable Another Hope to complete the orphanage building, and erect a sizable guest house right next to it. Over fifty children will be able to live in the new orphanage, and the small business next door will endow the nonprofit with a greater degree of financial security, so they can more easily pay the various running expenses for the children.
Now all donations go to the extension of the Green Village. You will remember the project from the first Seeds of Kindness fundraiser. Green Life has since built several houses on the property for living, sleeping, educational activities, and the small-scale agriculture projects they started together with the children in their care. They’ve also been accepting new children in, a gradual process as they have to first win their trust. To provide housing, food, clothing, medical care, education to even more children, they want to extend their agricultural program, and also establish their own water and electricity supply.
A little over €20,000 are still needed to reach this goal. Only a matter of days, right?
(By the way, if you missed or lost the download link and you used the “advanced donating” option, just return to the abovelinked page and enter your email address to regain the link.)
Well, Well, Well
Here’s a question for you. Toward the end of Seeds of Kindness 2, we were raising money for a project by Ingenieure Ohne Grenzen, the German version of Engineers Without Borders, that seeks to build a large number of rainwater harvesting tanks throughout Tanzania at various sites where they benefit people who would otherwise not have access to an uncontaminated water source. We already had Betterplace forward €4,271 from Seeds of Kindness 2 and €3,413 from two Kallistis to the project.
Now, however, something changed: The project is flourishing much better than we ever anticipated. Engineers Without Borders has won a long-term partner for constructing the tanks, and they’ve already built 110 tanks by now with 45 more on their way. Three teams of specialists are assisting local engineers in the construction, and the project is making great progress.
Hence, Engineers Without Borders asked us whether we could instead support a very similar project that still depends on our help. Since 2010, they’ve been supporting the establishment of a boarding school in Chonyonyo, Tanzania, that is to be completed by the end of 2014. Unfortunately, there is, as it’s so often the case, no safe water source in the region that could support the projected 1,000 students. Their conclusion from analyses and surveys of the region is that the most effective and durable solution is a well, which they want to build in cooperation with the same local partner that also realizes the rainwater tank project.
The well they’re planning to build would provide water for 3,000 people, so apart from the students, 2,000 more residents of the region would gain access to clean drinking water. At this stage, they need funds to analyze the water quality and for the drilling itself.
Of course, we raised the Seeds of Kindness 2 donations in question—€1778 and about €5 more from Kallistis—in the belief that we would assign them to the water tanks project and communicated this intention to you. Now, however, it seems greatly more effective and urgent to support the new, very similar project, so we want to let you, our donors to Seeds of Kindness 2, decide how we should proceed.
If you are one of the donors in question and you have any objections or reservations about having your donation instead support the well for the boarding school, please contact us, and we will work something out with Engineers Without Borders, so that your donation can still benefit the water tanks.
You are one of the donors in question if you donated after the given date but before August 24, 2013, to any of the following Betterplace fundraisers:
- Kallisti III after July 1, 2013
- Seeds of Kindness 2 after March 25, 2013
- Kallisti II after February 24, 2013
- Seeds of Kindness 1 after December 22, 2012
- Kallisti I after November 19, 2012
- Elements of Charity after June 17, 2012
We want to let Betterplace proceed with the transfers on September 9, 2013, so if you do not want to support the well for the boarding school, please contact us before that date and specify which fundraiser you donated to, when, and how much. If you have no reservations about the new project, no action is required. Thank you!
Ponychan’s Shiny New /good/
This is not directly related to Seeds of Kindness, but our friends over at Ponychan have launched /good/, a new board to facilitate, discuss, and share ideas for charity, volunteerism, altruism, and random acts of kindness. The Forum o’ Good, as it’s called, is looking to be a useful tool for those seeking inspiration for ways to make the world a better place. Opportunities are on the horizon to really bring people together in the spirit of good. So if you like that which is good… Check it out!
About Bronies for Good
Bronies for Good, first and foremost, is you. We are the facilitators who organize service events worldwide and encourage individual, group, and social involvement to fostering the growth of a global community of caring, socially conscious individuals: you. (You can also follow Bronies for Good on Twitter and Facebook.)
About Your Siblings
Your Siblings is a nonprofit charity organization registered in Germany that provides 100% effective monetary aid to select Third World projects that representatives of Your Siblings have personally visited and assessed. The projects need to be themselves nonprofit, nongovernmental, run by locals of the respective country, and geared towards providing the most essential means and services to those most severely disadvantaged in society, all to ensure that the donations will have the greatest and most permanent impact. (You can also follow Your Siblings on Twitter and Facebook.)
