The Inside Scoop Volume 1 Issue 3

July 10, 2021 / By
Summer Update
Wow, so many things have happened since our last newsletter and we are anxious to share with you. Our projects all have some movement forward and of course this excites all of us and leaves us wanting to be able to complete more.

Western Kenya: Sr. Agnes bricks to start the Poultry House
Sr. Agnes’s project in Western Kenya has begun. We were able to send enough money to start building the chicken coop. When you see a photo of it soon you will understand why we think we need to rename it to ‘poultry house”. Bricks and lumber and a tin roof are in the process of being put together in such a fashion that the chicks will have a nice place to roost. We can’t even think about the purchase of an incubator and chicks until we purchase a vehicle to resolve the delivery of products to the local residential schools and hotels.
In addition some added expenses of wiring for electricity as well as installation of solar power for the times that electric power unpredictably goes down. Water there can be scarce as it is in many locations around the globe. They plan to catch rain water and hold it in a 5000 liter water tank to mitigate any situation where there is no water for the operation. We and they are excited to have movement forward.
Lome Togo : Mama Charity: Meanwhile in Togo, Mama Charity’s indomitable spirit is running at a galloping pace. The orphanage has 99 children now and when she is not running to the hospital with one, she is attending to the land she was able to purchase with our assistance for farming in the future. She raised a sign announcing to the community her foundation is the new owner of the land. She isn’t able to start planting yet as there are crops belonging to the previous owner that must be harvested this fall before she can release her dream onto the land. She will need a source of water and plans to drill a borehole. The town has limited water supply and she is praying for a borehole (drilled well) that will produce enough water that she can share. She probably will wait to plant trees until the next rainy season and there are some crops that do not require much water so she will decide if there is anything she can plant before she has rain or a borehole for water.

Mama Charity had a sign made showing the collaborative effort of the orphanage foundation and Hand in Hand in bringing the dream of land to fruition.

As if all this is not enough, she owned a plot of family land in Ghana near the orphanage, big enough to build a schoolhouse and she has put in foundations and bamboo walls with a roof. She sent us a photo of a brick building next to it that will be the office and library. The school, while located in Ghana is within walking distance of the orphanage. Mama Charity has long talked of wanting to have a school for the children from the orphanage. In Africa, what tribe you are from is important in social acceptance and many children in the orphanage often feel at a loss and ostracized because they have lost that cultural identity when they were abandoned. In a school run by Mama Charity, they will belong. The school will eventually be a source of income as there are families that can afford to pay from the village. Many families want their children to be taught in French which is the language of Mama Charity and will pay for a school that can provide this.

Oloonkerine Maasai Mara, Kenya:
Mama Dinah has now had a hydrologist come out and do an assessment for drilling a new bore hole there on the Maasai Mara land. The old bore hole has brackish and insufficient water so a new water source is important. We learned so much about soil structure and the geological history of the Maasai Mara land in Oloonkerine from reading the hydrologists report. The land is influenced by volcanic activity in the area from times long ago They have located a good spot for a new bore hole and we are now waiting for an estimate on what costs will be involved in drilling. The estimate is they will need to go 350 meters deep and of course the hope is this will supply enough for the village needs and it will be high quality water. The water will need to supply about 5000 people and a large herd of livestock. This will require a major fundraising effort on our part as well as looking at corporations that might be able to help with donations of equipment or other needs.

Mama Dinah consulting with hydrologist who is surveying the land for best bore hole location.
There is such richness in discovering cultural differences. Mama Dinah opened a bank account in the largest nearby town in a bank that has an affiliation with a large US bank so money can be transferred to her. The Maasai Mara do not have street addresses the way many of us do and the bank required this. After much deliberation a description of the land and landmarks was accepted. We can probably all imagine driving to a place without street names and being told to go about 5 kilometers southeast, take the 3rd right and 2nd left and go 500 meters and look to your right for a cluster of bomas and ask for the dwelling of Mama Dinah! Fortunately the recommended site from the hydrologist is marked in GPS terms.
Next Steps
We will be adding addenda to our project list as each of the projects have changed form since initiation. For Mama Dinah, the decision that a new borehole is needed and the details of what that entails. For Mama Charity, the land purchase once it was surveyed was smaller in hectares and therefore less expensive, and a borehole will need to be drilled. And for Sr Agnes the necessity of a vehicle to deliver the eggs and broilers as well as a tank to store collected rainwater and electrical wiring and solar for when electricity is not available. As they see the coop coming into fruition they also assessed how much feed they are going to need for raising the chicks .As projects move forward we will share with you the progress. We are so appreciative of the various kinds of support you are sharing with us, from cheering us on, to financial donations. We would love to hear from you if you know of global companies that do business in Africa that we could approach regarding the needs of our 3 communities. If you feel called to support the next steps of our venture with these exemplary dedicated women, you may donate on our website www.handinhand.space. Know that this is a gift that will keep on giving!