ONGOING FUNDRAISING EVENTS 2010

1. Donating calendars:

We are designing some wall-calendars with beautiful photos of Kenya and we are planning to give them to people at Christmas if they dinate 5 euros.

2. Photo exposition:

Laura Pujol is trying hard to organise a photo exposition with her beautiful photos taken in Kenya. We will provide with mor einformation about the near future.

3. 2nd Hand Market:

Near my birth village there is another small village, Castelló d'Empuries, where they have a 2nd hand market every Sunday. To obtain a space in the market from the government costs 10 euros per day. So we will pick a few boxes and fill them up with all kinds of items that we have at home and we don't use anymore (books, clothes, accessories, shoes, toys, etc). We will also prepare some nice posters and a small place with the book where we have all our projects written and set up a "solidarity stall" during one or two Sundays. And see how much money we can make.

4. Handmade jewellery:

5. Christmas cards:

Susana Monedero is making some Christmas cards to sell and fundraise. She will expose them on her blog where people can order as many as you want. http://regalosolidario.blogspot.com/

6. BIG solidarity concert:

And last but not least, the big challenge, I want to organise a big BIG solidarity concert maybe in May. The main idea is to bring a famous singer who would sing along with other minor singers or groups that we could convince to sing for us to fundraise. We will also have to ask the government about a public place for them to perform, but it cannot be an open area because then it's very difficult to fundraise and to sell tickets. As you can see we are sttuborn, and very dreamy hehhehehheee,, But nothing is impossible if we try. So up to now, I'm dreaming of bringing AKON to Barcelona! hehehhehehhe yes, yes, maybe next week I will hit my head on the floor after dreaming, and I will go down to a lower-category singer hehhehhe.... But dreams are for free, aren't they?? I already sent an email to a woman whose husband is supposed to know Akon's manager. But she has not replied yet. please if you have any contacts, or any ideas about this, let me know. It would be great that we could organise "The June's big Children of Africa Concert" for the children of kenya!!!!! hahahhahahaha....
Well, this is all the fundraising events we have up to now. You can include more and more, and more of course.... We will all cooperate to make them become true and useful!
In the end, it was not Akon, but we had a lot of fun with M'Bore and The City's Last Noise!

VOLUNTEERS WORKCAMP 2009

In summer 2009, a group of volunteers from different countries (Spain, u.k and German) decided to come with us this time and help bringing and distributing the school materials to the sponsored kids. Maria, Nicola, Rachel, Lidia and Laura came together in the first visit to the village this year and not only helped sponsoring the children but also contributed to the community by hiring local villagers who danced and played traditional music for them. In a second expedition, Rebeca, Cristina and Martina also volunteered bringing medicines, clothes and toys that they had colected in Spain. The villagers were very happy to receive their help as it is not common to see many volunteers around.

IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE PROJECT

Agriculture, being the main economic activity and the backbone of the village, has been a misery and a complete disaster up to now. This has been mainly propelled by the global warming which has resulted into big changes in the weather and therefore in agricultural landscape. Rains are insufficient and unreliable, and therefore nowadays villagers collect very scarce harvest.

Poor and old traditional farming methods have also contributed to this misery and thus something should be done to change this situation. The Doctors volunteer workcamp will require 100 euros per week to be paid by each volunteer to contribute with the community. It is with this contribution that we will be able to carry out the irrigation project.

On the one hand , we will try to extend a branch from the main water pipe to lands that belong to the community to irrigate a vegetable garden that will also be planted with the help of the contribution from the Doctors. It will be the first irrigation farming to take place in the area. From here not only the villagers will see the need to focus on new farming systems but also the district as a whole will take it as model to imitate. Hopefully, it will be a successful plan and all thanks to Reyes for the great projets that she has.

DOCTORS WORKCAMP

Again the Canarian Doctor Reyes came up with a new project. She is making big efforts to gather as many doctors and nurses as possible to go to Kenya as volunteers in a two-weeks-health workcamp. They will be staying in the village of Tsunza where they will be dealing with issues related to healthcare, such as:

• Treating identified cases of sick villagers


• Encouraging mothers to give birth in hospital, and providing them with motherhood education


• Visting nearby primary schools in order to give speeches on sexual education, health, and hygiene (Aids is widespread in the district, as well as early pregnancy, and cholera)


• providing them with information about proper use of medicine


• examining the viability of the future medical dispensary

THE MEDICAL DISPENSARY

Out of the brilliant ideas of Dr.Reyes from the Canary Islands, come the greatest project for Tsunza: the construction of a medical dispensary that would cover the health needs of many villagers. Once she found out that the life-span of people from Tsunza was very short (45), that many girls left school after getting pregnant and even have problems as they are not very educated in motherhood matters, and after getting information about the high rate of AIDS, Cholera, malaria, and other diseases, she could not avoid struggling for such a big dream to become a reality.

On the other hand, the nearest dispensary is kilometres away, and it even serves to more that 40,000 people. The Kinango district hospital, which is the only well equipped, is located almost 100 kilometres away from Tsunza. For this reason people die every year due to complications during birth, or from diseases produced by lack of education, medicine and hygiene.

As a first step, she will try to have acces to the social helps of Government , she will also be organising the Doctors workcamp, who will examine the possibility of such a project and will make big efforts to contact organisations like Farmamundi that would provide us with big quantities of medicine to be used by the centre.

This medical centre will be constructed on the lands that belong to the community (in the photo above), and although we will provide them with infrastructure, the community compromised to take part in the construction task and in the maintainance of the centre.

More information of the whole project will be provided soon. The approximate budget that we need to fundraise for this medical dispensary to be constructed is 123,000 euros.

The project will be developed in two different phases dues to the difficult task of gathering all the necessary funds. This summer a group of volunteers and two architects are travelling to Kenya in order to carry out the first part of the project: the foundations (budget: 15,200 Euros). We have already applied for different subventions in different institutions. Let's see if we are lucky.

If you want to see the full project, click here.

SPONSORING CHILDREN OF TSUNZA 2008

In summer 2008, I had the opportunity to visit a typical African village called Tsunza located in the outskirts of Mombasa, in Kinango District, (one of the 5 poorest Districts in kenya). I was happy and so much impressed by the hospitality of the villagers, they seemed very smiley but despite first impressions, I was surprised to see many kids around during school hours. Most of them were barefoot wearing ragged clothes and even walking on the hot sun with herds of cows. I became curious and could not avoid to ask about the situation. I was informed that their families were not able to afford bringing them to school due to many reasons ranging from lack of school materials to examination fees.

On the same day, I felt that something should be done to change the situation of these kids. I was filled with new energy and came up with a plan. I stretched my hand into my bag for my camera, I took photos of 22 kids and promised to bring them back to school next tim I would step my foot in Kenya, although I still did not know how.

Back in Spain, I started sending mails to my friends even with very little hope that this plan would work. Amazingly, my mailbox never stopped receiving news from people who wanted to help and, in less than four months, the 22 kids were sponsored.

In the same year 2008, during christmas, I went back to Kenya and, with the help of William and some others, made the bigest shopping ever: 22 pairs of shoes, 22 uniforms, school material etc. We finally brought the kids to school. After one month, I was back in Spain with 8 more kids to be sponsored through the same process. And again it was a big success.

At the moment we have 30 kids who are already sponsored and 20 more are waiting to find sponsors. Thank you all for your great help!

PEOPLE OF TSUNZA

PHOTOS OF THE VILLAGE

Tsunza is a village that used to be part of Kwale District, but nowadays, due to administration reasons was recently relocated within the new District of Kinango. Kinango district is among the 5 poorest districts in Kenya with 75% of its population living below poverty line, and 26% of them surviving below absolute poverty.

Causes of poverty in the district include the following:

• Poor infrastructure development e.g. roads, electricity, water e.t.c

• Low agricultural production due to land tenure problems

• Poor and undeveloped agricultural marketing

• Poor agro-industry base

• Vagaries of nature of droughts and flood e.g. the El niño phenomena

• Yearly droughts due to rainfall inadequacy particularly in Kinango and Samburu divisions

• High population dependency ratio.

To sum up, the rate of AIDS is also very high (33.2% of population is infected), therefore there is need to intensify awareness and to educate people in health matters.

Overpopulation has a direct impact on the basic needs such as water, food, health and education. This implies that efforts should be made to cater for this population increase and other economic constraints that come with it.

TSUNZA TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Tsunza Traditional Music is played and danced by the villagers themselves as a way to preserve their Duruma culture and traditions. However, due to the breakdown of their farming system and the diminishing benefits of their fishing activities, dancing has become a new target for survival, as the different tribes has turned it into a new profession. Thanks to the increase of tourism industry, these villagers sometimes have the chance to play and dance in front of visitors and tourists, who at the same time provide them with the opportunity to bring home some income to feed their families. Therefore, it is also among our duties to bring as many people as possible to the village, and to encourage them to improve the life standards of this community.