Sometimes, fighting poverty on this scale can get overwhelming. There are so many people that need our help, so many that count on us…it can be difficult for anyone to have hope and keep fighting in the face of such odds. At times like these, we remember the people we are fighting for.

Take Bako, for instance. We encountered him via our partnership with Hands-At-Work. He, along with the other children in this particular slum community in Lagos Nigeria, are at serious risk.

At 11, Bako has a smile that belies his desperate life. To get home from school, he has to walk over planks across a foul smelling swamp, through tight alleyways and past brothels. Above the door of his home is some text that reads the scripture ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. Inside the tiny room, with a single bed and mat lives Bako, along with 10 to 15 other children.

All are looked after by a woman named Roti, a local ‘nanny’ of sorts. Bako’s mother, a sex worker in the area, abandoned him here when he was 12 months old, unable or unwilling to continue caring for him. He has no idea that Roti is not his mother.

A care worker, a heroic man called Sylvanus, visits him twice a day. Once at 6am to wake, bathe and walk him to school, and again after school. Sylvanus does this for 30 children in this community. At school, we help provide a meal. However, it’s people like Sylvanus that essentially take care of the children. They are the life line. Without them, our efforts would bear little fruit.

So, today we remind ourselves that the work we do at PSH is important. Underneath it all are real people in really desperate situations. They NEED our support, or they might not make it.

So, in spite of the challenges, we are grateful that, with your help, we are able to provide some help for those that need it the most.

Please click HERE to see how you can help support people like Bako.

Thank you.

The PSH Team

Tags: Africa, Communities, impact, Updates

Janet, Salatu and Jonathan in Gbawukuchi and Takalafia.

At PSH, we continue to work hard to deliver resources to those that need them the most. The recipients of these micro-loans are able to build up their businesses and march towards complete self-sufficiency, which our ultimate goal.

To see more about how you can help us, click HERE.

Thanks!

The PSH Team

It’s a new year. At PSH we have been busy trying to finalize our plans and vision for our partner communities this year. The steps we plan to take this year build on the foundation we laid last year. We’ll be increasing our support for educational initiatives substantially this year, helping to make sure that children in these deprived communities can receive food and healthcare while they get an education.

We’ll also be continuing with our micro-loan program. We don’t anticipate any major water projects this year, but we’ll be monitoring the situation in these communities to make sure we are able to respond when issues arise. We still have our representatives on the ground always tracking the situation and providing updates to us, so we can keep you abreast of how we are deploying the resources you so graciously provide us with.

Here are our Goals for 2013 as they stand right now.

You can track our progress with these goals at that link on the website. Also, more details are available by viewing the Impact pages for each community. We have set a high bar for ourselves this year. To meet these goals, we need your help, now more than ever.

so, come to our website regularly. Check out our partner communities. Then, visit our ACT page to see how you can help.

We, in turn, will show you just how much your support really does make all the difference, with regular community and financial updates.

Thanks again. We’ll be impacting many more lives in 2013, with your help!

The PSH Team

Tags: Communities, impact, Updates

In the slum community of Ilaje, Nigeria lives a family of 7 – a mother and her 3 sons and 3 daughters. There are a further 2 daughters who have married and are living away from home. Bayo is 18 years old and Michael is 15 years old – they spend the majority of their time looking for piece work in their community, in order to support the rest of the family. There is also a new addition to the family – baby Faith, who is 6 months old. The remaining 3 children all attend the Ilaje Community School – Emmanuel is a 12 year old, smart and chatty boy, Rebecca is 11 with a sweet smile, and a sweeter personality and little Bolu is just 5 – she is instantly recognised because of the pink backpack she wears all day long – she refuses to take it off! The children live with their mother, Esther who is originally from Ghana. She has not found any work in Ilaje, and instead begs for food from her neighbours – every single day.

The family moved into the community of Ilaje in 2011, having moved from another state in Nigeria because their house flooded and then collapsed. Found wandering in the community of Ilaje with her 7 children, the church took pity on Esther and offered a place for her and the children to stay in. The church then appealed to the Eagle Foundation for help in feeding and educating the children. After a long break in schooling throughout 2011, Emmanuel, Rebecca and Bolu started school again in 2012. The kids love it! Emmanuel says that he loves all his subjects, but especially maths. Rebecca enjoys everything except maths! When asked what he wants to do when he grows up, Emmanuel says he would like to be a pastor. Rebecca would like to be a banker one day. Bolu isn’t sure, just yet!

Emmanuel broke down in tears when he spoke about the struggles the family face at home – how they have to go without so much. But he also spoke about how much the Care Workers do for him and his siblings. He knows that no matter what happens, he can turn to them for help.

PSH continues to work with Hands At Work supporting children in this community. To learn more about Ilaje community and the work we do there, click HERE.

Thanks for your continued support.

The PSH Team

Tags: Africa, Communities

2012 presented several challenges and opportunities for PSH. We updated our operations playbook, and changed our focus a little bit in our partner communities. The results have been positive so far.

To see details, please view our PSH in 2012 page.

Thanks so much for your help. We’ll be out with our plan for 2013 shortly.

The PSH Team

Tags: Updates

Just a quick message from all of us here at Poverty Stops Here to say “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”. This has been a great year for us, and our partner communities have benefited, thanks to your efforts.

Here are a few highlights:

- Motorized Borehole built in Takalafia

- Building a new kitchen in Takalafia

- Now supporting Primary School efforts in 3 communities

- 60 microloans disbursed

We just hosted our yearly benefit concert in Madison, WI; and we raised over $4,000! Thank you!

We hope to have even bigger impact in 2013, with you help. Expect an update early in the year outlining what to expect from us.

As always, you can check out our website to see how we are deploying our resources.

Have a fantastic holiday season!

The PSH Team

Tags: Updates

Blessing is an 11 year old girl who has a brother named Segun, who is 7. They live in the community of Ilaje in Nigeria. After their father died in 2005, they were forced to drop out of the private school they attended, and to relocate to Ilaje community with their mother. She is only able to raise a small amount of money for their family, selling drinks in a local beer parlour. The children were found by Ilaje Care Workers, incredibly vulnerable and facing daily abuse from people getting drunk. Since the Ilaje Care Workers have been visiting Blessing and Segun in their home, the children have discovered life and light in the place of darkness. They have someone who listens to them and cares for them. They also now receive a nutritious meal every day at the care point.

Blessing and Segun rely on the visits their Care Worker makes to their home

Blessing’s story is one of many from this community, where we currently partner with Hands-At-Work to provide food security, education, and basic health services to 50 orphans and vulnerable children for the entire year. we did this in 2011, and have also done it in 2012. With your help, we plan to do it again in 2013.

We recently received an official report on the community from Hands-At-Work, and we can say that, while there’s always more work to be done (and the year isn’t over yet), we have achieved what we set out to do this year.

In 2012, we helped provide writing and education material to the children; we provided school uniforms, bags and sandals, a nourishing meal each day, and basic first-aid medicine. In addition to these, volunteer care workers have kept up with visits to the children in their homes to check up on them.
These don’t seem like much, but they mean everything to the kids in Ilaje.

So, on behalf of Blessing and the other children in Ilaje, we offer heartfelt thanks. You helped save her and her little brother, and we want you to know how much we appreciate it. As we continue to work in our partner communities, we’ll keep bringing you news of the results of your support.

To find out more about how you can help us, click HERE.

The PSH Team

Tags: Communities, impact

Hello PSH Friends.

Last week, we found out that the band, Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons (check them out on David Letterman here – Youtube) agreed to host a concert benefiting Poverty Stops Here. We are thankful to have this opportunity as ALL PROCEEDS from this concert go to Poverty Stops Here.

We’ll also have Ryan Mauer & The Angry Fix and Jason Horowitz of The Whiskey Farm. This concert will take place on the 19th of December at The High Noon Saloon, 701 E.Washington Ave, Madison, WI. You can see details of this event on the Facebook Event Page.

Tickets are definitely bound to sell out considering the popularity of the bands so purchase your tickets ASAP if you are interested in attending the concert. During the concert, we will sell various Poverty Stops Here paraphernalia, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, and water bottles. We hope to see you on December 19th.

Go to http://www.high-noon.com for tickets.

For information on our progress in Nigeria, please check us out here – http://povertystopshere.org/schedule.php

Thank you for all your support over the years. We are eternally grateful.

The PSH Crew.

Tags: Updates

2012 for PSH is marked by progressive change. We began working to streamline our operations on the ground to maximize the impact of our efforts on our partner communities. We also began to channel more of our resources to the support of Educational initiatives. Now, as we approach the last quarter of the year, our efforts are bearing fruit.

We continue to support children in Ilaje Community, providing food and school supplies to vulnerable orphans. Now we are providing meals to school children in Gbawakuchi as well. In Takalafia we provide meals twice a week; something we would like to do on a daily basis. Our partners (via a local church) however only have capacity to provide the meals on a bi-weekly basis. Our next step is therefore to construct a kitchen on the school premises to facilitate daily meals. We expect that, while this will allow us provide food everyday for the children, it will also provide employment for members of the community.

This is in line with our new strategy of assigning work to community individuals where possible. We have found that partnering more with members of the community, rather than only organizations, has served us quite well in the past months, as we now get more up-to-date information while providing gainful employment for at least a small number of people.

We continue to make progress on other fronts…see the table below for a view of where we stand:

This is all thanks to you. With your help, we will continue to make progress in the fight against extreme poverty.

To see how you can support us, go to our ACT Page. Whatever help you can provide, we truly appreciate it.

We will endeavor to keep you up to date at all times. You can always view details of our finances, and of our partner communities, on our website.

Thanks for your support.

The PSH Team

Tags: Communities, Updates

Quite frankly, it is sometimes difficult to be empathetic about the struggles of people living thousands of miles away. Almost nothing in our surroundings exposes us to the sufferings of others, making it really difficult to relate.

That is why we are very grateful for your very generous donations to Poverty Stops Here. Since 2009, your generosity has allowed us:

• Provide safer and more accessible water to more than 3,000 people in different communities in Nigeria.

• Invest in education for more than 500 children in Gbawukuchi, Takalafia, and Ilaje communities.

• Provide small business loans to 74 village entrepreneurs, one of whom is an 18-year old girl that had nothing after being deserted by her family because of an unplanned pregnancy.

Thank you for all you do.

On August 25th, PSH will launch an initiative called The Eat Hunger Initiative. This effort will allow us make a choice to experience hunger so that we can better empathize with hundreds of millions of people in our world that live in hunger…everyday. It is a tall order. It will be difficult and, at first, it will not make much sense. However, at PSH, we believe that there’s something special about walking in another man’s shoes, and experiencing his pain.

Let’s Eat Hunger together. To sign up for The Eat Hunger Initiative, do so at http://povertystopshere.org/eathunger.php.

For all you do to change the lives of people you do not know and may never meet, we thank you.

The PSH Team

Tags: Hunger Days, Updates