How the profits from the sale of the DVD's and Donations are used:
2007-2008 Update of how funds are helping my neighbors who appeared in the video: 2006-2007 Update of how funds are helping my neighbors who appeared in the video:
Your donations or purchase of a DVD have gone a long way! Thank you! |
2005:
Nestor Djossou's Education Fund:
Nestor Djossou is a hard working young man who is very sincere, thoughtful, and intelligent. I got to know him well when I was in the Peace Corps and I'm happy to say that I'm still in touch with him. He is currently attending Aimé Césaire private school in Allada and is studying accounting as a concentration. Unbelievably the cost is only around $500 for the entire year including tuition, books, fees, and supplies. The public school is extremely overcrowded to the point where students who don't get there early have to stand at the doors and windows because there isn't even enough room to stand in the classroom. Almost no students have enough money to pay their school fees and buy books, so the teacher must write everything on the board and the students must diligently copy it all down. Nestor said that some classes have as many as 50 students in them. This year and in previous years the school year has started in December due to teacher strikes.
Nestor is very happy to be going to this private school for the first time this year. He feels like he finally has a chance at learning and is getting more individual attention. He should be graduating next year.
During our trip last year I taught Nestor how to use the video camera and he was my camera man when I was not filming. He appears in the video several times.
See a scanned copy of Nestor's Report Card
Basic School Supplies for the elementary school children.
Each child needs only about $15 to pay for their pens, pencils, notebooks, uniform and school fees, however this amount is too great for many Beninese families. Here notebooks were just distributed for "back to school."
Adjacome's Emergency Medical Fund:
In the neighborhood where I lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer, there were at least 40 neighbors. I became very close to them and they are extremely poor. You can see how poor they are as I tour through their housing compound and go inside one of their huts in episode 2. They are the one who threw the great party for us in episode 1. Because they have so little money they cannot afford routine medical care. When they fall sick they often rely only on traditional leaf infusions to heal themselves. The only time they try to scrape up money to go to the hospital is when they are gravely ill. I have set up a small fund for when the people are sick and need to go to the hospital. Already this fund has helped two people get the care they needed.