Koinadugu College: transforming a region through higher education
Feeding Mouths and Filling Minds is partnering with Project 1808 to bring the first higher education institute to the Koinadugu District of Sierra Leone - giving these young people the opportunity of a lifetime.
Status: Fundraising
Fundraising Goal: $85,000
Transforming a region through higher education
Feeding Mouths Filling Minds is contributing to bringing the first higher education institute to the Koinadugu District of Sierra Leone - giving these young people the opportunity of a lifetime.
Education provides the key to job security, community growth and individual wellness. However, options are limited for high-performing young people after high school in Kabala, Sierra Leone. The nearest university is hours away - making living at home while attending school impossible. Most families make less than $90/month, and college tuition costs run upwards of $500/semester. In order to pay for room, board and school fees, some young people turn to prostitution just to obtain an education. Others opt to take a low-skill job in Kabala instead of continuing their education.
Establishing the University of Koinadugu in one of the most isolated districts of Sierra Leone, will empower youth and improve community livelihood in the district and country.
Our role
Feeding Mouths, Filling Minds is helping to guide the strategic planning to be sure the project is secure and sustainable for the long term. This means assessing the land in-person with members of our team, carefully selecting trustworthy partners to oversee the development and providing funding.
Project funding covers the cost of:
Main Academic Building
This three-room building is where the majority of classes at Koinadugu College will occur. Construction for the main building began in January 2018.
Endowment Fund
In the spirit of sustainability, we have developed an endowment fund from the onset of creating the college. We have built the college because there are clear immediate needs, yet we are not only thinking about the here and now.
Feeding Mouths, Filling Minds is contributing the initial $10,000 for endowment. The broader Koinadugu College team is establishing the governing guidelines of the endowment and the Board team to make decisions about the underlying investments.
For more information: https://www.uofkoinadugu.com
Partners
Huruma Children's Home Farm Pond
FMFM's role is to provide Mama Zipporah's team with the financial resources it needs to research, plan and develop an alternative water source: a farm pond.
RAINWATER HARVESTING & SUSTAINABLE FARMING
PROJECT STATUS: BUILD & FUNDRAISING
FUNDS RAISED TO-DATE: $10,000
TOTAL FUNDRAISING GOAL: $15,000
Huruma Children's Home is a children's orphanage located on the undulating slopes of the beautiful Ngong Hills which is about 25km from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya in East Africa. This is, unfortunately, also a relatively poor area where most people have to struggle every day to make ends meet. Poverty, poor health, HIV/AIDS and massive unemployment are the main challenges people meet. Many children are orphans or live in families that are not able to care for them.
“All of the households around here walk about 17 kilometers (10 miles) each way to fetch water. For these women and children, it takes like the whole day just to fetch water. They don’t have time to concentrate on other issues that would uplift their standard of living. ”
During a recent visit to Kenya, the FMFM team learned that the children's home founder, Mama Zipporah, was gifted a plot of land in the community of Ndeiya.
FMFM worked with Mama Zipporha to create a vision for the land's future - sustainable farming. This would provide the children of Huruma with a reliable and cost-effective food source. But farming requires water. And the land is located near the Great Rift Valley - an area so dry that digging a well was not an option.
OUR ROLE
FMFM's role is to provide Mama Zipporah's team with the financial resources it needs to research, plan and develop an alternative water source: a farm pond.
Project funding covers the cost of the following:
Excavation of the 120-square meters of farm pond (completed)
Construction of silt trap and other masonry works (completed)
Dam liner, ultraviolet resistance plastic (completed)
Metallic roofing structure (fundraising)
Shade-net roofing material (fundraising)
Establishment of drip irrigation systems (fundraising)
Technical support and training (ongoing)
Provisional for survey and design (ongoing)
Additionally, FMFM volunteers from the United States traveled to the farm plot's land in 2012 and 2015. Our work there included:
Meeting with local engineers and project partners to review project plans, finances and progress
Hauling boulders for farm pond walls
Installation of pond liners
Masonry work on farm pond walls
“This project will cut the cost of food production. It will also provide an opportunity for our kids to learn about rainwater harvesting. We are raising these children to be productive citizens of our nation. Going forward, this will be a learning center for the entire community. ”
THE OUTCOME
This project affects Huruma Children's Home and the Ndeiya community in several ways.
It will provide the community with broader possibilities for food and water and set an example of access to water in the semi-arid land.
It will allow Mama Zipporah (the orphanage founder) to develop sustainable food systems for feeding her 160+ children.
Over time, it can serve as a catalyst for Ndeiya’s children to have access to food, increase school attendance, and hopefully, break the poverty cycle.
Once the water and food systems are developed, children will not have to turn to medial work to help the family survive. This will also serve as a best practice and collaboration that can be scaled throughout Kenya and other countries
PARTNERS
“On behalf of Huruma Trust Fund, and Mama Zipporah, I would like to say thank you so, so much. The community has been very, very impressed. They are saying that a bright star has come to our community, and suddenly, everything seems to be opening up.”
