Giving Tuesday: Women in Action Reopens for 2017 School Season!

Hello Echoers!

Great news. Despite the heavy flooding over the Summer damaging the Women in Action Development Project's building and their farmland, Esther confirmed that the school has returned to normal operation. By the start of November, the school had opened with the daycare centre following just two weeks ago. While this has put the school season behind schedule, the school did survive! Over 200 students are registered this year alone!

Your donations all helped to make the school's reopening much easier on everybody overseas. I am so glad that I can give you this update. 

Esther (centre) with Staff and Students of the Women in Action Development Project

In other exciting news, we are closing in on Giving Tuesday in one week on November 28th! Giving Tuesday follows Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For the last 2 years, we have had a profile page up on the Giving Tuesday website and we have done so again this year.

Giving Tuesday is combining with local initiatives this year to promote organizations by regions within Canada. We are reaching out to the #VanGives campaign within Giving Tuesday as Esther's Echo is currently based in Vancouver. #VanGives has been looking for the stories of organizations based out of the city so that they can help spread the word to the community. We are hoping to be one of those stories!

Now that the school is in operation again, we still need your support. Annually, we help cover the cost of the rent on Esther's building which is about 10,000 dollars. Esther has raised a portion of this already and we provide whatever we can through your donations. More donations means that Esther can pay her teachers more, student's fees are reduced, and more funding goes into expansion and development. Your support so far has helped bring Esther to Canada to speak to live audiences about her work, saw the school through an Ebola outbreak, allowed Esther to move into a larger building, bought a plot of farmland to raise funds for the school, and now helped us get the school back on its feet after flooding. So I am calling on you, our donor community, to make a contribution in light of Giving Tuesday, and also to spread the word about our work by sharing our Giving Tuesday profile page which you can find here: 100% of your donations go directly to the Women in Action Development Project. Thank you all so so much!

Donate to Women in Action!

Also, as a treat, here are some of the latest photos from Women in Action and the daycare centre since the reopening! 

Heavy Flooding in Sierra Leone

Dear Echoers, 

Unfortunately I have sad news from Sierra Leone. Due to incredibly high rainfall, Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone, has experienced severe flooding and resulting land slides. BBC reported that hundreds had been killed in one such landslide as houses were buried on the outskirts of the capital. The Red Cross estimates that nearly 3000 people have been left without homes as a result of the rain.

Thankfully, Esther is currently visiting family out of the country and is safe from the floods. However, she shared tragic stories from home where friends had sent images of those killed by the mud slides. I will not share those images with you. Needless to say, the damage to the city is devastating as seen in other images of the flooding and landslide below.

Esther is receiving spotty information from Freetown. So far, we don't have reports that staff or students of Esther's school, the Women in Action Development Project, have been injured. However, we have learned that much of Women in Action's supplies were damaged by flooding and that the first crops planted in the new farm field we purchased last month have been washed away. 

School season begins soon at Women in Action, and this is not the start we want. Women in Action will definitely need support to get its footing again in the wake of this crisis. I'm asking for your help to literally weather this storm and see Women in Action through to the best start possible for this Fall school season. We made a huge leap forward in July with the farmland. Let's ensure this tragedy doesn't undo the progress we've made!

-Matthew

Donote to Flood Relief

Cr. BBC

Cr. BBC

You Did It! You Bought Farmland!

Echoers!

I am very excited to announce that, with Esther's guidance, we have all successfully bought a plot of farmland for the Women in Action Development Project!

I can't thank you all enough for the support that you've shown. When we put out the call for help, you answered and that means a great deal to me, Esther, and the staff and students of the Women in Action Development Project. Special thanks to Capilano University's Global Stewardship program and Mulgrave Secondary for their fundraising efforts, donations, and hosting me to speak about Esther's Echo at Justice High and Action for Esther. 

Esther sent a few pictures of the land which I've included below. Esther is currently thinking of leaving some room on the land to construct the first of their rural school locations bringing us to our next set of goals.

Our support to Esther has, so far, been for the general operation of the Women in Action Development Project. However we want to go beyond that and facilitate growth and expansion as well. Purchase of the farmland was a first step in that direction as crop yields will serve to generate income to help pay expenses we've already been funding like rent on Esther's school building. Having the farm therefore means all your future donations are that much more effective as we can start investing some of that funding into long-term growth. The longer-term goals are to help with the expansion of the primary Women in Action location in Freetown and also expand to a rural location; likely on the land we just secured. These are big plans, but I think we can make it happen. We will need all your support and your help to spread the word to others you think would be willing to contribute as well.

We will keep you posted on the farmland developments. Once again, my sincerest thanks to you all. 

-Matthew

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Justice High and Buying Farmland

Hello Echoers!

Some exciting things in the works since my last post for International Women's Day. I was invited to speak at Capilano University's Justice High youth symposium. Esther's Echo has had a great relationship with Capilano U for 7 years now. In fact, if it weren't for Capilano's Global Stewarship Program championed by Cam Sylvester, we likely wouldn't exist. Global Stewardship sponsored Esther's journey to Canada in 2012 and inspired our initial founding as an organization that same year. In fact, we shot a mini-doc about our partnership with Capilano that year which you can watch below.

 The Global Stewardship Program - or Global Stew as it's known by the students (Stews) - enrolls 35 students per year who learn what it takes to become a global citizen. Courses range from international issues and management training with seminars delivered by leaders in the non-profit and social enterprise sectors. As part of their education, the Stews are challenged to organize their own symposiums for younger secondary school students. That's what Justice High is all about. The symposium invites high school students to explore issues addressed by the United Nation Millennium Development Goals. Last month I was invited to speak about Esther's Echo and our ongoing commitment to support Esther's school, The Women in Action Development Project, as well as how relatively small initiatives like ours can foster big changes around the world.  

Matt Speaking about Esther's Echo at Justice High

One of the big changes we're hoping to accomplish by the start of May is to secure a plot of farmland for Esther. Thanks to donations that came in during International Women's Day, an honorarium from Capilano U for the Justice High presentation, and January's Action for Esther hosted by Mulgrave Secondary, we are SO CLOSE. Esther needs about 1500US more to purchase the farmland. This land will be a game changer for Women in Action as they will be able to sell produce as a form of income to help sustain the project. With all the donations, we are sitting at around 1400CDN which is just over 1000US. So we only need another 500US. I think we can do it! This is the one of the most important donations we've sent to Esther as we are helping to provide a whole new source of income for Women in Action. 

Thank you all so much again for your support. International Day for Women was our largest single fundraising day to date! This comes following our most successful Holiday Season ever! Huge thanks as well to Capilano University, the Global Stews, and Cam Sylvester. All of your support is vital to the continuation of women's education in one of the most challenging places of the world to live. Remember 100% of all your donation goes abroad. Now let's keep up the amazing effort and get Esther that farmland! 

Help Buy that Farmland!

International Women's Day - “Why Are You Here Instead of Her?”

"So why are you here instead of her?" the interviewer asked me pointedly. I didn't have an answer. That was a very good question. It was 2011. I had returned to Sierra Leone to meet with Esther in person before the founding of Esther's Echo. While in country, Esther thought it may be helpful to do an interview on the Freetown news station to talk about the work we were doing to support Esther's school; the Women in Action Development Project.

The interview didn't go quite as I had planned. The interviewer put me to task while I sat there on national television. "Why do we need another white man telling us about the work that is going on in our own country? If this is another woman's school, why isn't she on the television? Why are you here instead of her?" She was right. This wasn't my story to tell. Not while in Sierra Leone. Not while in Esther's community. The experience on the air reminded me of the conflict I felt when I first arrived in Sierra Leone as an undergraduate student in 2004. I was in my early twenties, still a student, but was understood to be an "authority" on other people's communities as a foreign aid worker. Why? I was a white male. And I held the checkbook to an international organization.

The Women in Action Development Project, wasn't founded by international aid workers. And her project certainly wasn't founded by me. Esther began this work on her own in the midst of a war; a passionate woman passionate about the women and children in her own community. So while we echo Esther's story, we will not become the face of her work. On International Women's Day, we will remind our own community of the incredible work of women like Esther around the world who far too often go unrecognized.

Last February 14th was Women in Action Day marking the 21st anniversary of the founding of Women in Action. Esther sent me photos of the celebration at the NEW LOCATION which all of you helped us secure! I cannot thank you all enough again. You helped relocate an entire school in Sierra Leone! Esther's next project is to purchase a plot of farm land that she's had an eye on for a few years now. They are about 2,000 dollars short and so we are making this a priority for our current fundraising. The plot of land is the next step to helping Women in Action become more self-sustaining as they will be able to sell crops from the land as a source of funding for the school. Below are the images from Founding Day and Esther giving a speech as the school celebrates its anniversary for the first time in their new building!

Sincerely,

Matthew 

Esther and Students Celebrate Founding Day and Valentines Day 

Esther speaking at Founding Day

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