In this very challenging year, we reached the season for giving thanks (Thanksgiving) and we are entering the season for giving gifts (Giving Tuesday, Christmas).
A SEASON FOR GIVING GIFTS
To all of our readers and especially to our previous donors, we want to thank you very, very much for your interest in and support for the Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund during the past 10 years (the first two development grants for development projects were provided in 2011). This Newsletter is designed to serve as a report on our development results and a request to our readers in the United States to consider including the US-based Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund (HMODF) in your gift giving during this gift giving season (see Donations tab above).
In considering becoming a donor and making a donation, please review the information and results identified below and please donate because the development works. Please donate to allow us to continue to invest in the development of poor Burundian people and to continue to gain the important, much-needed and lasting results.
An Indigenous Development Idea
More than ten years ago, the Rector of Hope Africa University (HAU), the late Bishop Elie Buconyori, suggested that I consider developing a fund to provide opportunities for students and graduates of HAU to pursue development projects.
Using money from my initial and significant personal start-up donation, the HMODF provided its first two development grants in 2011.
Project Proposals, Grants and Projects
The development is pursued by posting Calls for Proposals and providing one-time, start-up grants for project proposals submitted by students or graduates of Hope Africa University. The proposals are reviewed and evaluated by the Burundi Advisory Committee members and the best proposals are recommended for a development grant. The grants are not giveaways or welfare; the grants are single, one-time, start-up investments in development.
The grants are provided to develop the capacity and improve the lives of needy Burundian people, usually vulnerable women, who form a self-help association and work together on income-generating activities so that the project associations and project beneficiaries become self-supporting, self-managing, self-governing and self-sustaining.
Consider the Results
At this point we have done a lot and we have very good results.
- We have conducted 8 Calls for Proposals for any interested student or graduate of Hope Africa University
- We have conducted 2 Special Calls for Proposals for graduates of the Community Development Master’s Program
- We have provided 24 one-time, start-up grants (the Burundian equivalent of $1,500.00 USD) to 24 small, self-supporting development projects
- We have provided community development experience for 26 voluntary student and graduate Project Managers
We currently have 335 beneficiaries, mostly poor vulnerable women, who, thanks to our voluntary Project Managers and our development grants, are now better able to provide for themselves and their families. The beneficiaries join a project association and work together to generate income and become self-supporting. Our Newsletters are full of success stories.
Burundi is an agrarian country with more than 90% of population living in the rural areas as subsistence farmers, working small fields and using traditional methods. As an under-developed country, Burundi experiences tremendous malnutrition, famine and poverty. Not surprisingly, almost all of our projects are agriculture development projects that are involved in animal husbandry and crop cultivation.
- Our agriculture development projects currently have 331 beneficiaries, mostly women
- Our agriculture development projects currently have a total of 513 animals (goats and pigs)
- Our agriculture projects have sold 90 or more animals to generate income for the beneficiaries
- Our agriculture projects have cultivated a wide variety and a huge number of crops (vegetables and grains)
- Our agriculture projects have shared a portion of their harvests with their beneficiaries
- Our agriculture projects have sold a portion of the harvests to generate income for the association to continue with crop cultivation
Beneficiaries, Association Members
Goats and Pigs
Harvests
GIVING GIFTS
Thankfully, we have, thus far, received donations that have allowed us to continue investing in the development of poor people in Burundi. Fortunately, we have been able to continue by attracting donations without making constant or frequent appeals for money. Our Newsletters have focussed on our development activities and our beneficiaries rather than marketing or fundraising. However, we reached the point where we need to acquire more donors and more donations.
We want to be able to continue our development work; we want to be able to continue to provide start-up grants for more self-supporting projects that will improve the lives of more beneficiaries and their families. Accordingly, we are asking you for financial help to develop more projects and enable more Burundian people to lift themselves out of poverty. Positive results are more important than ever in this pandemic year.
Please donate now; please donate within this giving season and this taxation year. We invite you to donate and we invite you to consider encouraging some of your family members and/or friends to donate.
Donation Link: http://haleymccreadyfund.com/u-s-donations/
Thank you in advance for recognizing the unique value of our small but mighty concept. It works, not on a vast impersonal scale, but simply, directly and sustainably.
BRIEF PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Farming Potatoes and Breeding Goats in Bukirasazi Commune, Gitega Province, Prosper NIYONGERE
The Project Manager, Prosper NIYONGERE, a graduate of the Entrepreneurial Program at Hope Africa University, started this project in 2018.
The beneficiaries are 15, very low income orphans, widows and landless women between 15 and 40 years of age. The women are organized into an association that has elected officers, holds regular meetings and functions democratically. The main functions are cultivating crops and breeding goats but the project is also involved with microfinancing to support association members in their own income-generating activities and arising family emergencies.
Cultivating Crops
The project has had good success in cultivating potatoes. In the recent past, the project has had the following harvests.
- The association harvested 185 kilograms of beans
- The beneficiaries harvested 52 kilograms of millet
- The women harvested 327 kilograms of maize (corn)
The association has rented three fields and is cultivating potatoes during the current growing season.
Breeding Goats
The project began by purchasing a female goat for each of the 15 association members.
Currently, the development project has a total of 32 goats and four beneficiaries have sold a goat and the association has sold two. Goats are sold in order to generate income for the beneficiaries or the association.
Testimony about One Beneficiary:
According to Prosper NIYONGERE, Project Manager, Jacqueline SINGIRANKABO is one of our association members; she is an orphan without a father or mother. Before joining our group, she was isolated from others.
To make matters worse, the first goat given to her died. The association gave her another. Now she has a goat again. She actively participates in the savings and credit activities. Now, she can buy clothes and pay for some health care. Her esteem is raised to another level. She says joining our group is of utmost importance to her.
Donation Link: http://haleymccreadyfund.com/u-s-donations/
DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND PROJECT MANAGERS
2019
- Supporting and Sustaining the Livelihood of Widows and Orphans at Rubirizi, Barthelemy MINANI
- Pigs Husbandry, Potatoes and Cabbage Plants in Kizunga Colline in Nyabiraba Commune, Désiré NSENGIYUMVA
- Supporting Widows and Divorced Women in Breeding Goats and Cultivating Rice at Musenyi in Mpanda Commune, Epithace NDUWAYO
- Breeding Pigs and Raising Sweet Potatoes for Widows from Nyabiraba Commune, Raro Hill, Bujumbura Province, Juvenal HAVYARIMANA
2018
- Supporting Poor and Vulnerable Women by Raising Pigs and Cultivating Crops at Kajaga in Mutimbuzi Commune, Aimé Fidèle NINGEJEJE
- Supporting Batwa Women in Breeding Goats and Cultivating Rice at Rubirizi in Mutimbuzi Commune, Barthelemy MINANI (formerly Guillaume GAHUNGU)
- Breeding Goats and Cultivating Crops for Vulnerable Women from Mihigo Colline, Kayanza Province, Dieudonné IRAMBONA
- Farming Potatoes and Breeding Goats in Bukirasazi Commune, Gitega Province, Prosper NIYONGERE
2017
- Women Shopkeepers in Buterere Zone, Bujumbura Mairie Province, Audace MPAWENIMANA
- Raising Pigs and Cultivating Crops in Nyamburye Zone, Isale Commune, Louise NTIRANYIBAGIRA (formerly Desire CIZA)
- Supporting Poor Rural Women through Pig Farming in Mutimvuzi Commune, Bujumbura Rural Province, Elise NUWAYO
2015
- Microfinancing for Poor Women at Mirango in Kamenge Commune, (formerly the Producing Eggs to Support Aged Poor Women project), Ernest MANIRAKIZA
2014
- Making Bricks and Cultivating Rice in Mugaruro Quarter, Buterere Commune, Audace MPAWENIMANA
- Farming Peanuts with Landless Women in Giharo, Rutana, Barthelemy Minani
- Goats and Crops for Women at Matara in NYABIRABA District (formerly Savings and Loans: Christian Initiative for Women’s Development in Gatumba), Christine KAMIRAMEYA
- Breeding Goats and Cultivating Crops at Nyambuye Zone in Isale Commune, Louise NTIRANYIBAGIRA (formerly Desire CIZA)
2013
- Development of Vegetable Culture for the Self-Financing of IAP Twubake, Louise NTIRANYIBAGIRA (formerly Anicet NYANDWI)
- Improving Lives of Poor People through Farming Crops at MUSENYI in GITEGA, (formerly the Farming Rice in Gihanga Commune project), Ezechiel MANIRAKIZA
- Improving Food Security through Chickens at Karurama, Fidèle NIYOYITA
2012
- Farming Goats and Crops at Gatwe, Jean Claude NGENDAKUMANA
- Welding Workshop at Buterere, Kilongo Banyakwa
- Improved Food Security at Kabezi, Louise NTIRANYIBAGIRA (formerly Marie Nadège TWAGIRAYEZU and Anicet NYANDWI)
2011
- Tailoring for Women at Kinama, Christine KAMIRAMEYA
- Farming Goats for Women in Karusi Commune (originally the Pig Farming at Muyebe project), Evelyne KANYANA and Eddyne IRANKUNDA
Donation Link: http://haleymccreadyfund.com/u-s-donations/