PSH Christmas Update Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 at 5:46 pm
First of all, we want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year. 2011 has been a very good year for PSH. We have learned a lot more about the work we are doing in Nigeria and have developed closer relationships with our partners on the ground.
At Poverty Stops Here, we truly believe that we, simple individuals, can eradicate extreme poverty and this year has allowed us take a confident step towards proving that.
Donations from individual contributors, people just like you, increased by a staggering 55% from around $11,000 in 2010 to $17,000 this year. This has allowed us to raise over $35,000…most of which has already been deployed to improve lives in our partner communities. We cannot thank you enough. Here are just a few of your 2011 accomplishments.
Over $16,000 invested in Ilaje slum
In 2011, PSH joined forces with Hands at Work to sponsor 50 orphans in Ilaje community. We invested $9,000 to ensure these children could go to school and receive food and after-school care. We are also investing $7133 to help purchase a bus that will be used as a taxi service. The funds from the taxi service will help Hands at Work compensate the already enthusiastic group of volunteers we working with in the community.
Loans, Water and Sanitation
One of the major accomplishments of PSH in 2011 was kicking off our widespread microloan campaign in three different villages. Since the start of the year, we have loaned money to 20 people in three different communities.
In addition to that, we received information that our old water wells were no longer functional. We intend to work with the community to fix the wells and implement a more sustainable approach to providing access to safer water in the communities. In addition to that, we will begin working with the communities to help implement programs that will improve the sanitation in the communities.
Benefit Concert, Silent Auctions, and Christmas Party
We have had some great events this year as well. In September we organized a Benefit Concert in Madison, Wisconsin while some of our friends in Austin, Texas held a Silent Auction and Christmas party. The Austin folks raised over $4,000 from their events.
Feedback to You
We started out the year promising to provide better feedback and updates to allow you see exactly where your resources are going. We now provide frequent updates via our Facebook page (Please Like us!); and also via our website Blog. We have implemented Community pages on our website so you can see exactly what our investments are in each community. These pages also allow you to donate directly to a particular community. You can click HERE to visit this page and see for yourself.
In 2012, we plan to take this feedback to the next level by providing you quarterly updates of what is going on in our communities. While most of our programs are long term, multi-year projects, we promise to keep you abreast of our successes (and failures) as we work to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty.
Your support, as always, is the key to the success of this effort. To learn more about how you can help us, please click HERE.
Our journey continues in 2012…we hope you will come along with us.
Here’s to a Merry Christmas and a great start to 2012 for you.
The PSH Team
Tags: Updates
