$1,270 went to Volunteer Peten, an organization working in Guatemala. The money will buy textbooks, dictionaries, thesauri, and atlases for three classes in each of three different schools in La Union, Ixhuacut and El Tigre. Additionally, a photocopier, paper, toner, and book binding supplies will be attained to enable educators there to copy and share other papers for curent and future students in these and neighboring communities.

For more information: www.volunteerpeten.com

February 2004

$1,300 was given to the Born Free Foundation Global Friends Program to fund the construction and delivery of 8 desks and 80 chairs to students at the Ngaga School in Uganda. Before Born Free’s support of the school, each class had a blackboard suspended from their “class tree.” When it rained, kids would be forced to scurry for shelter in a nearby church.

For more information: http://www.bornfree.org.uk/educ.htm

March 2004

$1,440 was provided to WaterCan to fund the construction of a "waterpoint" (a communal tap-stand connected to a main municipal water system), and the necessary sanitation and hygiene education activities for local residents in Woreda, a slum area on the northern edge of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capitol. Beneficiaries will also be trained in basic repairs and maintenance to ensure the long-term viability of the waterpoint. The tap that we funded will directly serve approximately 80 water collectors. Since each water collector does so for a family of at least four others, well over 300 Ethiopians should benefit from our contribution. In a world in which more than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water, in Ethiopia, only 24% of the population is able to obtain this life-sustaining liquid.

For more information: www.watercan.com

April 2004

$1,570 was provided to Onneyshan to fund the construction of 24 water-seal latrines in Lalmath Basti, a slum in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, where 25 million people live in
abject poverty earning less than a dollar a day, only an estimated 14% of slum households in the metropolitan cities have sanitary latrines. Unbelievably, 125,000 Bangladeshi children die every year because of diarrheal diseases. Open defacation pollutes the water that poor families there use for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. 50%-60% of the funds we donated for this project are recoverable: beneficiaries of the project make payments in very small portions over time and the money that is returned will ultimately be reinvested into an expansion of the sanitation project.

For more information: Hasinul I Choudhury, hichou@dhaka.agni.com

May 2004

$1,610 was donated to the New Hope Rural Leprosy Project in India to construct 10 brick row house units to provide waterproof and safe housing for people afflicted with leprosy. India is one of ten countries that has not been able to meet global leprosy elimination goals. In fact, India represents approximately three-quarters of the global leprosy burden with 473,658 new cases detected in 2002. The New Hope Rural Leprosy Trust undertakes more than a dozen programs including leprosy eradication, care of victims, health education, and immunization. The Director notes that the people he encounters with leprosy experience a loss of sensation in their fingers, hands, toes, and feet. “Women burn their fingers while cooking, not feeling the heat. Men develop blisters while doing labor work and don’t feel the pain.”

For more information: http://www.newhopeindia.org/




June 2004

$1,720 went to the Human Development Foundation in Bangkok, Thailand, which runs the Mercy Centre. The money will be used to buy uniforms, shoes, sports clothing and sneakers, backpacks and school supplies, and fund field trips for 17 teenagers enrolling in a new literacy program operated by the Centre. These kids were orphaned, sold into the Thai sex trade, or subjected to other forms of abuse in their adolescent years. As a result of the new program, and the uniforms and supplies, they will have a sense of pride and self-respect, and a chance at a bright new future, armed with a valuable education. The Mercy Centre is embedded in Klong Toey, the worst slum area of Bangkok.

For more information: http://www.mercycentre.org/




July 2004

$1,830 went to Vision International Eye Missions to purchase surgical instrument trays and subsidize cataract eye surgeries at an eye hospital in Madagascar. As many as 150,000 people suffer from blindness in Madagascar; half of these people could have their vision restored with appropriate surgery. The trays bought with the grant from The $10 Club will double the hospital's capacity to perform eye surgeries, benefitting literally thousands of people annually, as the surgeons there can perform ten to fifteen operations a day with each tray.

For more information: www.vision-international.com

August 2004

$1,790 was given to Scheer Memorial Hospital in Nepal to purchase an air compression system for the Intensive Care Unit ventilators, thereby ensuring that life-saving care is administered to the patients in need. Currently, pumping oxygen into patients manually is not adequately regulated and does not enable the patient to be stabilized sufficiently. Scheer receives trauma and acute medical cases by the busloads; installation of an air compression system to their ventilators will enable patients to be stabilized and have their lives saved. Some patients walk for days to get to the hospital; others are carried by friends or family members on homemade stretchers or even by “piggyback”. Despite overwhelming poverty in the region, no one is ever turned away from Scheer for lack of money—over 35% of the cases there are charity cases, and most of the hospital’s equipment and labor are donated.

For more information: www.scheermemorialhospital.org




September 2004

$1,780 was given to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to support two projects run by indigenous groups in the Democratic Repulblic of Congo. One project, operated by a local group called the Pole-Pole Foundation, is a sewing cooperative to enable local women to make dresses, shirts, and other garments for sale, thus generating their own source of sustainable income. The other, the Association de Femmes pour la Conservation et la Developpment Durable, promotes sustainable agriculture. Rebel soldiers recently ransacked the sewing project, destroying machines and stealing material, while more than 100 women were brutally attacked and raped. The $10 Club grant will provide eight new sewing machines, fabric, scissors, needles, pins, chalk and other items to help reconstruct the sewing project, and provide transport and other expenses for three women to receive victim support training and learn rape counseling techniques from Doctors on Call for Service, which they can then administer to other women.

For more information: http://www.dianfossey.org/