Pangeo

BoyWithoutArms gets New Arms!

This is just too exciting!

Remeber Aschelew, the AIDS-orphaned BoyWithoutArms in Ethiopia we raised money to build a store for last year? Volunteers went in early '09 to start building the store, and it was completed in the fall.

But there was still the matter of his needing prosthetic arms...

Our Field Supervisor for Ethiopia, Jeff Latsa, recently returned from visiting our projects there with our local Ethiopian director, Zerihun Kassa. Here's what Jeff wrote:

“Aschelew’s story has touched my life as well as thousands around the world. Many people within Global Hope have helped. Through your help, GHNI built Aschelew a new store (I'm standing in his store in the picture). My friend Richard even ran a marathon to raise money to help his cause.  

“During my trip to Ethiopia… I spent my last day visiting Aschelew. With his new arms he has a new-found confidence. Although you can’t tell from these pictures, he couldn’t stop smiling the whole day.

“Because of his new arms that you helped him receive, we can no longer call him, 'The Boy Without Arms.' ”

"And next month Aschelew will start to pay back the loan he received from us to stock his store. He has gone from being a beggar to being a businessman.”

I agree with Jeff. To all of you have have contributed to Aschelew's life (and he will never get to meet most of you) a HUGE THANK YOU from all of us at GHNI on his behalf!

"Mobilize to the Villages!"

It was an awesome week with the greatest of people!

We recently concluded a week where ten of us were living and working together here in our home. The ten? We're Global Hope Network International's new Mobilization Team across North America... from the US east coast to Vancouver, Canada.

It was personally exciting for me on about a million levels. Two years ago I joined GHNI staff to help launch Mobilization here in the states. Now we have staff coast-to-coast... all of them enthusiastic about connecting businesses, churches and other groups with the poor villages we're helping to transform in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

As a new, geographically dispersed team, it was the first time we all met face-to-face!

What a great way to kick off our team and kick off 2010. We had hours of intense planning, mingled with just about as many hours of laugh-from-the-gut fun :)

Want to involve your business, church or organization in a DIRECT relationship helping a poor village somewhere? Contact me, and I'll put you in touch with one of these great team members!

 

Side-by-Side Sweat In India

(This post is by our India Field Director, Sushil Marandi, about our fall volunteer trip to his home village):

I could see the joy and excitement among the people in my village, Dhoker Jhara. September 29th to October 3rd, 2009 was an amazing week for them.

For the first time in their lives they saw the ‘white’ people from the other side of the world working with them. My people usually call white people ‘Saheb’ which means ‘Boss’ due to India’s history of colonialism. They never imagined that these Saheb would get dirty digging a water resevoir side-by-side with them.

The Work

It was a great honor for us to have the GHNI Compassion Team join us. We had 11 people from different parts of the world come and work along with the TCD (Transformational Community Development) Committee of Dhoker Jhara. Global Hope Network International has adopted this village to demonstrate a model of TCD in India.

Like most villages in India, the main source of income is agriculture. Farmers completely depend upon the fall monsoon rain for their crops. As a result they have only one crop a year. So unless they learn ways to irrigate during the rest of the year, they cannot produce more crops and will stay in the same poverty they have always known.

The volunteer team and villagers worked very hard together through the heat to help dig an irrigation retention resevior. They also gave the village a water pump to irrigate the fields from the reservoir during the dry months. It was a great start!

Fun Time

We also wanted to have some fun time with the team and villagers. Therefore, we arranged a sports and football (soccer) tournament. We had football teams from 16 different villages take part in this event. Prizes for the football tournament were two goats and three ducks. It may sound funny, but this is how they do it! We also had sports for different age groups. This all-day program drew around 5000 villagers.

We had the Ex-Deputy Chief Minister of Jharkhand (our state), Prof. Stephen Marandi, as an honorable chief guest. He was very encouraged by what we are doing and agreed to help us in such projects in the future. He was so happy, he invited the volunteer team for dinner at his home the next day.

Nutan and I would like to thank all the team members who came to serve our people, and to those of you who give so generously to see change in India. I can assure you that you are a part of making a history on this side of the world.

Sushil & Nutan Marandi
GHNI India Field Manager

Helping Village Children LIVE

You really CAN help a village transform itself away from severe disease and death.

Our TCD model (Transformational Community Development) helps a village transform itself thru addressing the five key areas of Water, Food, Wellness, Income and Education.

Check out this hopeful video by our Field Interns in the east Ethiopian village of Hurso:

Obama, Nobel, and our TCD

American President Obama delivered his Nobel lecture when he received the Peace Prize last month.

One of his key points about peace described exactly what we do -- helping the poorest parts of the world develop. And he practically gave a direct pitch for our TCD method--Transformational Community Development--helping each poor village transform holistically and sustainably :)

Listen to the excerpt below. President Obama explains how real hope for the poor must come from transformation in our 5 TCD areas: Food, Water, Wellness (health & housing), Education, and Income Generation.

Obama's Nobel Lecture and GHNI's TCD from Jeff Power on Vimeo.

Signs of Hope... Village Transformation!

Our first-ever Village Interns in east Ethiopia, Ian & Peter, are starting to help pull the village together... helping them believe they can truly transform themselves.

It sure helps that they're fun, zany, white guys -- "forengies"!

Boy Without Arms' Store Opens!

Remember Aschelew? The Ethiopian AIDS orphan who lost both arms?

MANY, MANY of you contributed to our "BoyWithoutArms" campaign in January to build him a store. Then volunteers went in February, and construction for his store/home was launched.

Since then, our Ethiopian director Zerihun (in the middle below) made sure the building was completed by locals, then he helped Aschelew form a relationship with a wholesaler, then he trained Aschelew and his brother in how to operate the store.....

AND NOW THEY'RE OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!!!!

I can't help but tear up when I look at this picture. And here's great news on top of it all: Aschelew is due to get two prosthetic arms in the next month or so.

Amazing. Totally amazing.

 
  

Neighborhood to Neighborhood... 10,000 miles!

This is too cool... a neighborhood group in Algonquin, IL commits themselves to helping our poor Kenyan village in its transformation, for the next 3 years.

They're going to involve their WHOLE neighborhood.

Catch this video: families signing their "pledge" to the village.

I got to watch by Skype video.

Neighborhood to Neighborhood -- GHNI from Jeff Power on Vimeo.

Peter & Ian arrive in Ethiopia!

A vision: get pairs of one-year interns to go help with TCD in each poor village GHNI is helping in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

BIG NEWS... our FIRST interns... Peter Masters and Ian Moss... ARRIVED in Hurso, Ethiopia! And they've started a GREAT blog.

Here's their first video update after being in Ethiopia for a week. Way to go Ian and Peter!

Good News from Gambella!

I got an email from Habiba & Wubshet yesterday, and we just got off the phone together today.

Good news from Gambella!

It seems the Kenyan government has arrested a number of people who were funding and fueling the attacks on Gambella and several other villages.

Gambella, and the area, has been at peace now for a few weeks. And the Gambellans are redoubling their efforts on their development projects.

Here's an excerpt from Habiba's email:

"We had faced the greatest challenge of this project since the fighting all the way until recent when the PC of eastern province come down, and had to arrest many people and now things coming back to normal. The project was moving quite slow because we felt our own life might at risk and Gambella advise us to be careful. But now we have resume our normal program, and people are coming back to the village."

Gambella has been extremely grateful for all the GHNI partners. Thanks to all of you who sent contributions for their recovery!

I'll keep you posted.