Building Tomorrow Announces New Commitment Supporting Rural Education in East Africa

New outreach to benefit more than 18,000 students.

An Indianapolis-based non-profit social enterprise has announced a new commitment to construct a total of 60 primary-level Building Tomorrow Academies in East Africa and to launch an initiative aimed at improving the quality of education in Ugandan communities by training over 450 current and future educators and developing a rural-relevant classroom curriculum.

The commitment, announced at the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting in New York City runs through 2016 and will harness partnerships already built with student chapters at U.S. institutions including the University of Notre Dame, Indiana University and the University of Texas–Austin as well as the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports.

“We’re continuing to see an incredible embrace of the Building Tomorrow model–more so with each new academy we announce,” Founder and Chief Dreamer of Building Tomorrow George Srour said. “Just this week we’ve visited with two new partner communities that have independently made overwhelming contributions with land, labor and construction materials to support Building Tomorrow’s efforts.”

In just under five years, Building Tomorrow has engaged thousands of students in the United States in service-learning, awareness, fundraising and design activities to support the construction of primary-level academies in Uganda. Today, Building Tomorrow counts seven open academies enrolling 1,500 underserved students with commitments for another ten to be constructed. Building Tomorrow’s unique cost-sharing approach means each donor community’s funds will be matched, in-kind, with the donation of land and approximately 20,000 hours of volunteer labor by each partnering Ugandan community.

“While focusing on what happens inside the classroom is new territory for us, we know it is a matter of critical importance to our parents and, most of all, students,” Building Tomorrow Uganda Country Director Joseph Kaliisa said.

For more information see Building Tomorrow’s Clinton Global Initiative Commitment: http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/commitments/commitments_search.asp?id=732518

Building Tomorrow is an international social-profit organization encouraging philanthropy among young people by raising awareness and funds to build and support educational infrastructure projects for underserved children in sub-Saharan Africa. BT works with a college network of over 25 chapters nationwide and has a partnership with the 245,000 members-strong Key Club International, the world’s largest high school service organization.

For more information, visit www.buildingtomorrow.org.

Empowering Women Farmers Could End World Hunger

Across the world, 1.6 billion women rely on farming as a means of survival. In many cases, they are the sole providers of food for their families, yet cultural biases and a lack of resources, education and financial means have prevented most from rising out of poverty.

According to a report released by the United Nations, women produce 50 percent of the food in rural areas yet only receive 1 percent of the profits. Research has proven that women are more likely than men to use money they earn to provide food and other necessities for their families. Closing the gender gap by empowering women with the skills and resources necessary to purchase land and increase yields could potentially lift 150 million people out of poverty.

With approximately 43 percent of agriculture supported by women (it is estimated that up to 80 percent of farmers in Africa and 60 percent in Asia are women) more and more programs and resources are popping up to help sustain and improve their livelihood. Convergence between farmer and buyer, and access to lines of credit, fertilizer and transportation all play a large role in supporting the mission to end world hunger.

In a recent article, the Christian Science Monitor explores several programs that are helping women farmers get on their feet. Concepts, such as vertical farming, which have traditionally been used to provide people living in urban areas the opportunity to render  gardens using alternative methods, are a practical solution for women farmers living in rural communities who do not have the means or rights to own land.

The Food, Agriculture & Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network’s (FANRPAN) WARM Project provides venues for women to voice their opinions on agricultural policies. Men traditionally influence policy, so these gatherings, which are held at FANRPAN theaters in Malawi and Mozambique (the organization is planning to expand to others areas of Africa as well), offer women a chance to brainstorm ideas and collaborate on improving their access to resources vital to growing a business.

The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and The Women’s Collective are organizations that assist women in developing countries with obtaining equipment and licenses to land while empowering them through cooperatives, self-help groups, and agricultural programs. The Women’s Collective focuses particularly on protecting women in India against domestic and sexual abuse while providing education about natural farming techniques that will ultimately increase yields and ensure water and food security.

Collectively, women farmers have smaller yields than men. This is mostly attributed to women having limited access to high-quality seeds. The GREEN Foundation partners with other NGOs to provide seed banks for women in India’s Karnataka state. The seed banks provide women farmers with primarily organic seeds which are known to yield profitable crops. The foundation also runs a gardening project, which “improves women small-scale farmers’ food security and economic status, involves training women in agricultural methods and encouraging them to grow a variety of fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants for their families.”

The future for women farmers is looking brighter as the global community begins to grasp the importance of their role in the agricultural industry. Empowering women with the same resources and wages that are available to men may ultimately save mankind from a creeping food crisis that is threatening our ability to feed the world’s rapidly growing population.

                               Support Rural Women in Entrepreneurship

RARUDEIF Entrepreneurs Loan Support Project- ELSP (Abstract)

Project Abstract

The purpose is to conceptualize the idea for support and contract making to provide go ahead for Loan facility to improve the access of entrepreneurs particularly in rural areas, to micro-finance service and there by improve socio-economical well being through their engagement in income generating activities. In order to achieve these vital goals, which will be benefited for receiver and provider guided implementation, monitoring and evaluation as well as small guideline will be developed and engineering changes to focus the establishment of networking of loan facilities to be executed as project by both RARUDEIF and Donors. 

In line with Rural Financial Services Strategy, the project will support economic and social development through the provision of financial services to underserved categories of the population. Recent studies found that Tanzania ranks lowest in the region on the ability of the population to access financial services. Only 9% of the populations in Tanzania have access to any form of formal banking services while more than 54% of the population is totally excluded from accessing of financial services.

RARUDEIF is chiefly committed to empowering the communities in rural areas because of the fact that their access to financial services is extremely limited. The initial community to be reached during the pilot phase is Kilosa, starting with 400 entrepreneurs, a District in Morogoro Region, 300 km away from RARUDEIF’ s Head Quarter in Dar es Salaam City.

The main goal of the project is to contribute in reducing poverty in the project target areas (Kilosa-as Pilot District) and later all districts of mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. The project objective is to improve access of the poor in rural areas to microfinance services particular Entrepreneurs. The Project will have two components basically provision of Credits and Capacity Building to entrepreneurs.

The total project cost is estimated at Tshs 244, 910, 000 equal to 136, 061.11 USD. These cost estimates are based on November 2011 prices, the cost analysis has given bellow as capital and operation cost. For the purpose of costing, all items have been priced in Tanzania Shilling and converted into USD at the exchange rate applicable for the month of November 2011.Price escalation has been calculated based on 5% annual rate of depreciation of foreign and local currency throughout the implementation period under partnership.

The Project financial projections for the year 2012-2013 are produced but transform into a corporate entity during project implementation. Projected interest on loan portfolio received per annum will increase from Tshs 220 Millions (122, 222.22 USD)-100% to Tshs 273, 240, 000 (151, 800 USD) - 124% at the end of the first year, this will include the general performance that is the share of the Project Team 44, 000,000 -20% Total of profit interest) where 3.5% will add to capital and 16.5% for operation cost. Under this performance the project will double the capital and returned to Lender/Donor after period of 5 years equivalent to 10 Terms where by one term is equal to 6 Months.