News Letter Winter 2021
Winter 2021
News Letter Winter 2021
Chair and President’s Message
Dear Friends and Supporters:
Like many other charitable organizations People Bridge continues to be faced with COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to our plans, strategies, and abilities to support all our programs globally.
However, while we could not hold our annual gala fundraising event in 2020 and 2021, the Board continues to meet regularly and actively support several causes at home and abroad.
Now more than ever, we need your help to achieve our mission of ‘focusing on small scale activities that produce large-scale results.’ The impact on the communities we serve, while sometimes immeasurable is great. We are incredibly pleased to highlight these projects in this newsletter and make you aware of others we hope to have funded in the coming year.
We wish you and your families a healthy and safe holiday season and hope there will be some opportunity soon, to get together and share in the challenges and successes of this past year.
All the best the holidays!
Our vision is to sow modest seeds that will bloom and expand into significant and sustainable contributions to society.
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Winter 2021
The Rampanalgas School Tablet Project 2021
The Rampanalgas School Tablet Project
Carol Comissiong, Director and Past Board President, recently returned from a visit in Trinidad, where she took the time to visit with and spend time with the principal of Rampanalgas school.
In an interview, conducted with Carol, Principal Niana Ali kindly articulates the impact your donations have had on the students and the community. She also shares their expressions of gratitude to you, the generous donors as you have kindly answered the call to furnish the school with educational tablets.
This initiative has proven to be timely and extremely helpful to both the children and teachers given the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on remote schools in Trinidad and across the world.
Friends, we ask that you open your hearts again, and help us complete our goal of ensuring that 100% of the students have a tablet and to replace twenty educational tablets that are now inoperable due to natural wear and tear.
Another key initiative at Rampanalgas school includes refreshing the currently dormant and unused library. Let us create a sanctuary for reading, not only for the children but also for the community since the school doubles as a community centre. Below is my interview with the principal Niana Ali.
Without your generosity, we could not achieve our mission of “focusing on small scale activities that produce large-scale results.”
We ask that you continue to answer the call for much needed donations to support the needs of the children of this school located in Toco, Trinidad, where your dollars are working to support with an increase in the number of children attending
Winter 2021
The Youth Sponsorship Pilot Project
The Youth Sponsorship Pilot Project was developed and administered in partnership with The Aya Afrika Foundation. The pilot began in September 2019 and concluded in February 2020, and 11 Canadian donors committed to sponsoring 19 students—6 in Sumbrungu, Bolgatanga, in the Upper East Region and 13 in Tsledom Village in Manya Krobo, in Ghana. The project focuses on poverty reduction and community development, and its stated objectives were as follows:
• Support needy students with health, education, and living expenses
• Support the emotional, academic, and social development of the sponsored child
• Support overall improvement of living conditions of families
Letters from Afrika: The Impact of Your Generosity
In their letters, students, teachers, and parents have detailed how they used the money, and speak about the personal impacts of the sponsorship, such as:
• relieving financial burden on a single parent
• keeping a student that was forced to dropout due to lack of fees enrolled in the school
• Academic improvements in student outcomes
• being able to eat breakfast and lunch, which helped with focus during class; and sharing how the sponsorship was life changing.
• academic improvements experienced by students
• how the sponsorship was life changing
The challenges persist, the work continues
Friends, the need is greater than ever. With your kindness and generosity, we hope to achieve the following:
• Provide micro-loans to families in need: The small loan could support the existing small business/entrepreneurial/training efforts for the family thereby boosting economic activity to generate more income and greater self-reliance, and more effectively support the entire family, including children.
• Donate directly to the schools to cover general school fees, fees for extra lessons, and the purchase of books, uniforms, bags, food at school, etc. for students in need. This would ensure consistency of support and would be specific to each student. This assumes proper, efficient, and honest management of the resources by the schools.
• Create an emergency fund at each school: The teachers expressed concern about young women who do not come to school each month because the family cannot afford sanitary pads, students who come to school having no money and having not eaten, medical emergencies, accidents on school property, etc. As such, it was proposed that an emergency fund could be created to assist with these situations on an as-needed basis. The fund would be administered by the head teachers and documented properly.
In their letters, students, teachers, and parents have detailed how they used the money, and speak about the personal impacts of the sponsorship, such as:
• relieving financial burden on a single parent
• keeping a student that was forced to dropout due to lack of fees enrolled in the school
• Academic improvements in student outcomes
• being able to eat breakfast and lunch, which helped with focus during class; and sharing how the sponsorship was life changing.
• academic improvements experienced by students
• how the sponsorship was life changing
Winter 2021
The Tewegan Mattress Project
An Update on The Tewegan Mattress Project
Last March we endeavoured to raise funds towards outfitting the Tewegan Aboriginal House with eleven new mattresses. Tewegan is a Transitional home of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis women ages 16-29yrs located in Ottawa, Ontario. The goal was to provide these young women, many of whom are suffering from trauma and anxiety with a better night's sleep. With your support and participation in a virtual Yoga Class lead by Rachelle Wintzen of Toronto's Chi Junky Studio and in collaboration with Caroline Hudon of Tewegan Housing who initiated the project, we were able to achieve this goal. The mattresses were sourced locally through Lapensee and have provided security and comfort to the girls that live there. Thank you from Tewegan's Executive Director, Karina Skov.
"It is a challenge to articulate the impact of your efforts. Sleep and sleep quality are fundamental to wellness. Yet is also an impact of structural inequity which is simply lost in the thread of day-to-day survival. Tewegan has the privilege of spending time listening with young women whose spaces simply have not reflected their value. Over and over. For a young woman to arrive at Tewegan and have access to a quality mattress sends a wealth of immediate and concrete positive messages about their value and the future. And, over time, the quality of sleep begins to interrupt the constant precarity that trauma imposes in day-to-day living."
Karina Skov, Tewegan Housing
Winter 2021
Malosa, Malawi Project
An Update on The Village of Malosa, Malawi Project Update It is no surprise that Kamala Jean Gopie received the 2020 Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Award from the Afroglobal Television Excellence Awards program. Her past accomplishments have been outstanding but her recent partnership with People Bridge since 2017 to establish a community center in Malosa consisting of a kindergarten school, water wells, carpentry, sewing, teacher education, computers, solar, covid-19 and cyclone Idah support will be the legacy that now bears her name.
Thanks to your generosity, Malosa now has a community that is well positioned to reduce poverty and ensure better health, education, and skills for individuals. However, if you chat recently with Kamala-Jean, she will tell you there is still much more to do so please continue your generosity and support.
Winter 2021
St Vincent Volcano Relief
An Update on The St Vincent Volcano Relief Support
People Bridge Charitable Foundation quickly recognized the severe impact the La Soufriere volcano had on the island and the lives of the people of St. Vincent in April 2021. Through a partnership with CAR-ION, People Bridge contributed funds to this relief organization supporting the recovery efforts.
