Would you like to make a tax deductible donation to my future projects?

Hello Fellow Blog Readers:

To those of you who are interested, I will be setting up an account that will allow you to make tax deductible donations to the projects I will be working on my second year. I will be spending my first year working on education. Then in my second year, I will determine families that are in need of a project in order for them to better their health. Projects could include, an improved cook stove, latrine, cement floor, water storage system, or drainage system. Criteria for recipients of projects will also be based on families dedication to the educational health talks that I will be giving and how great their desire is to better their health. More details to come concerning cost break down as it becomes available.

I am giving you a heads up so that you can start putting money away for this now if you so desire, maybe you have something you can give up and instead of spending the money you can send it towards a good cause. I will be setting up a fund when the time gets closer to begin my projects.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Finishing Up


I felt like it was time to give an update on how I am finishing up here. After receiving news of my early Close of Service (COS) date, I was pretty down hearted on not being able to come through on my word and carry out the projects for my women’s groups. Things have changed and developed since I broke the news to my groups. 

I have learned to keep my expectations low here and that way if something better happens I am pleasantly surprise instead of being continually let down from having high expectations. I was expecting the worst with my groups, that they would be angry and frustrated that I was no longer able to come through on my said projects. I held on to the hope that after spending almost two years with these women that they had a good idea of who I was as a person and would understand that this was something that was out of my control. Luckily that was how it worked out in each group and instead of just taking the news and stopping there, they decided they wanted to take action and search for another way for their projects to get done.
All along the planning process of my projects, I was never completely sure that they women were ready for it. You see, the goal of the projects that I was going to do was that the women would be involved in every step of the process and that I would no longer be something that was in my hands. I would function only as a facilitator and offer whatever support they needed. The way the process was going for me, I was doing pretty much everything and wasn’t really sure if the women were willing to work for their projects. The sudden change in my plans allowed me to step back and take another look and through that, I realized that I was right, that the women were not really ready to take it all on themselves.
After getting news of my early COS date, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I could do to fill my time. I would no longer have to plan projects so I wasn’t sure what to do. I made myself available to my groups to support them if they decided to continue.  They all took me up as an available resource in helping them find alternative funding for projects.  
I have been spending my last 2ish months doing my best to help my groups seek out other sources of funding. I have found it to be quite challenging as most of the them are looking for an easy way out. Hopefully the time I spend with them now will inspire them to keep working in the future.

Friends and Family back home, see you soon! I will be flying home March 31st!

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