Food for Orphans in Ukraine

Prazovje Orphanage, Ukraine.

Priazovje Orphanage is situated in the Dniproptrovs’k state of Ukraine which is home to 3.5 million people. The region is located east of Kiev, the capitol city.

The orphanage started in 2002 with 25 children being cared for. Up to this year it has been home to 36 boys and girls and this year they have been informed by the state that they will be receiving 14 more children. About one half of the children have been abandoned by their parents or they’ve been removed from their homes by the government, the others are true orphans. Children range in ages from 3 years to 18 years. They are loved and provided with good family style care

Since the opening, Priazovje has never received any government assistance, but is required to pay taxes. Further more, the number of children living at the orphanage is dictated by the government along with the expected care and items needed to be purchased for each child in order to maintain their status. Government institutionalized orphanages provide only the very basic of necessities with very little chance (10%) for children to lead successful lives once they are sent out to live on their own at age 16.

Food in the Ukraine is very expensive and most people have gardens so they can grow and preserve food. This past summer brought drought and most people had little or nothing to harvest. In addition to yielding poor crops, the cost of food at the market has risen due to supply shortages and political instability; example: meat prices have increased from $4 a kilo to $9 a kilo. Help is greatly needed to feed these kids.

How You Can Help:

These children have already experience so much trauma in their young lives. We want to assist this orphanage by helping with the funding for these children’s most basic need of nutritious food.

$25.00 will provide one child with food for one month.
$300.00 (less than a dollar per day) will feed a child for a year.

Growing Food and Growing Hope in Kenya

This close knit group of the Luo people, have a well structured traditional community leadership. They’ve lived in this area of the Nyanza province in the community of Kasule since the 19th century, after they moved from Sudan and settled along the rivers and land around Lake Victoria; the majority remained as small scale farmers.
The Nyanza province has a poverty index that currently stands at 68%. Most of these people earn less than a dollar a day. There are about 2093 households in the community (on average there are 7 people per household). The province also leads the country in HIV/AIDS with a rate of 17%; Kasule’s prevalence stands at 23%. Over the past few years there have been reported cases of people dying due to lack of food because of droughts that hit the area.

The area of Kasule is a fairly level plain which experiences hot and dry weather most of the year. During the rainy season the area tends to flood as the soil is composed of quite a bit of clay. The community has existed for years in the way of subsistence farming by growing crops like maize, beans, and cassavas. However, the community’s crops are increasingly becoming stunted due to the poor nutrient content in the soil, the extreme weather conditions, and, in some parts, by being washed away during flash flooding. The food that is left is primarily consumed by the household leaving little or none to sell in the local market.

How You Can Help:

We want to introduce modern farming techniques and the use of certified seeds that will withstand the extreme weather conditions, the expertise and training from a local agronomist to help them increase the yield of their crops along with proper tools and some fertilizer for the soil.

$75.00 will purchase:

- 5 Kg of specialized maize seed (their staple food), 50 kg of fertilizer, 2 hoes plus 1 axe and training from an Agronomist

Nutrition for Children in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone has the highest under 5 mortality rate in the world with 282 deaths per 1000 births compared to Canada – 6 deaths per 1000 births. As well, currently in Sierra Leone, West Africa, only 41% of children are able to attend primary school. This means that the average child will grow up illiterate and unable to benefit from the opportunities that formal education provides. The Rice Raiser will join Cause Canada’s Cause Kid’s program in partnering with families and schools in Sierra Leone to provide nutritious lunches and snacks. They will also support school gardens where youth will be able to learn about math, science and agriculture through the gardens. Parents will be taught literacy and business skills to increase the amount of food they can grow.

How You Can Help:

We will help children, youth and families overcome hunger now and in the future by providing an important break in the cycle of poverty.

Nutritious Lunches and Snacks:

$20.00 provides lunches and snacks for 3 students for one year.
$65.00 provides lunches and snacks for an entire school (300 students) for one week.
$250.00 provides lunches and snacks for an entire school for one month.

School Gardens:

$12.00 provides one bag of seed for a garden
$200.00 provides enough seeds and fertilizer for an entire school garden (lettuce, maize, okra, pepper, potato, onions, cabbage, carrot beans, etc.)
$405.00 provides seeds, fertilizer and all the tools needed to establish a school garden (Hoes, shovels, spades, wheelbarrows, rakes, watering cans, etc.)

Training for Parents: *Funds raised in this part of this project will be matched three to one by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

$135.00 allows a parent to go through a six month training program where they will lean valuable skills that will contribute to the health of their family.
$50.00 provides a parent with a business loan that will increase their income and ability to grow or purchase nutritious food.

The Monga Project in Bangladesh

Bangladesh — Assist rice harvest workers during the ‘Monga’ season when there is no work available. (3000 families)

Monga, a local term, means “near famine situation” which occurs every year during the Aman rice crop season, other than the planting time in August and harvest time in December, in the northern districts in Bangladesh.

The northwestern region of Bangladesh is the poorest part of the country as well as the most seriously affected monga area. 7 districts, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Rangpur, Panchagarh and Thakurgaon, are severely affected by monga.

Demand of labour in the agricultural sector is usually high during this rice planting and harvesting season. For harvesting, the daily labourers usually get a certain quantity of rice along with the daily wages. After the Aman season, most of the people have some rice to eat for a while, unless it has been used for paying off debts.

Millions of people in northern districts of Bangladesh depend totally on agriculture and the landless poor usually sell their labour in advance to survive during the monga period. During this period they survive on one or a half a meal/day unusually on food like millet, arum stem, leaves, or leaves of black gram.

Three thousand families affected by monga in Nilphamari district of Bangladesh will attain food security by participating in new, sustainable agricultural activities.

The beneficiaries have very small or no agricultural land holdings, so their homestead would be the place where something is to be done. Livestock (poultry rearing, calf fattening, goat rearing, milking cows, rabbit rearing) and fishery (if possible) are the main farming activities that have traditionally taken place in the homesteads. The current project will address the technical assistance and capital for undertaking those homestead-based activities where all the family members, including women, will participate.
After getting the training and financial assistance each family will initiate as many as possible from the following food security activities:

Food sustainability and micro enterprise project

Partnering with MCC and implemented through the Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB) which receives matching funds from the Canadian Government at the rate of $4.00 – $1.00!

  • $1 buys vegetable seeds for 7 families — these vegetables will be ready to eat during Monga season.
  • $10 buys two fruit trees for 10 families — the fruit will ripen and be ready to eat during Monga season.
  • $57 buys a calf with matching money from a family who has sold a goat. — income generation for one family to purchase food during the monga season. The calf will be fattened fro 4 months and sold at a profit fro $43 for the family to use to purchase food during the Monga season