Home of Hope. Dr. Milima Sabharwal, a San Francisco physician, started this nonprofit in 1999. Since then, it has improved life for more than 2,000 orphaned and abandoned children all over India by helping them study at schools that emphasize English and computer literacy. The organization has four Executive Directors, all women---and the “unofficial co-founder” is Dr. Sabharwal’s daughter Sonia.
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Itafari Foundation. Itafari means “brick“ in Rwanda‘s
language, and the Foundation uses the word metaphorically
to describe rebuilding Rwanda one brick at a time after the
catastrophic genocide of the 1990‘s. Your $75 brick
will help build a school; a $25 “brick“ will buy a school
uniform--or a nanny goat for a child-headed household;
a $100 “brick“ will provide a microloan.
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Zoom Uganda. Photographer Julie Resnick gave
disposeable cameras to a dozen orphaned girls in
Uganda, and invited them to document their lives
over 24 hours. You can schedule an exhibit of their
work at your school or workplace! Or help fund a
science lab at the school the girls attend, which will
be dedicated to the 12 photographers, making them
benefactors of their own community.
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Paola’s friend, award-winning indie filmmaker Michealene
Risley, is making a documentary about the Girl Child Network. It will make the girls’ heroic movement to end
child rape known throughout the world, inspiring support for them and modeling effective activism for others. You
can help fund the film. Buy a Silent Bravery necklace
(a hammered-silver square created by jewelry designer Janelle Gibson, stamped with the word Future, hung on
a fine leather cord). Michealene’s Blog will inspire you to cheer her on, as she works in Zimbabwe during August, 2007 and beyond.
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In
Africa, 470,000 children die each year because they cannot get
the anti-retroviral drugs they need for HIV/AIDS. For $1
a day, you can sponsor a child through Keep
A Child Alive; 97% of all donations go to medicines and
clinics.
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In Zimbabwe over the past
eight years, 20,000 girls have been meeting after school; about
half have been sexually abused by their fathers, uncles, teachers
or boyfriends. The Girl Child Network in Harare set up the first shelter in Zimbabwe to protect, rehabilitate
and empower girls and alter men’s behavior. You can help.
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Teenaged members of New Global Citizens. San Francisco, California, are collecting
toys, washing cars and organizing garage sales to fund a toy library
for children who live on the train platforms in Bubaneswar, Orissa,
India. Soon, they will have the $16,000 required for a truck and
driver to drive the toys between train stations. Teaching kids
to be philanthropists is NGC’s goal; they’ll
share their methods.
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Make-A-Wish Foundation International grants wishes to children around the world
who are living with life-threatening illnesses. They work in 28
countries and territories outside the United States; your donations
will help them go further.
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Project Baobab. Californian Gee Gee Williams took a Kenya safari trip in 1996—and witnessed the poverty and abuse that women and girls experience. The nonprofit she founded, Project Baobab, now trains teachers to instruct girls in entrepreneurship and life skills. Since 2001, the program has reached more than 1,000 young women. You can host a house party, run in a fundraiser marathon, share their newsletter with friends, or donate to their work.
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Right now, Save
the Children’s humanitarian aid is helping children
in war and conflict areas such as Iraq, Sudan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan,
Guinea and Nepal. Their well-researched publications, Children
In a World of AIDS (available on line) and their annual report
on the State of the World’s Mothers, are
must reads. The e-post cards on their Website will help you spread
their name.
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El Shadai Family Foster Home is an orphanage in
southeastern Uganda, run by a local NGO. Thirty
children live there as a family. Ages 2-19, they
share a history of poverty neglect, abuse and
abandonment. The organization’s US Friends
group is staffed by four professional women in
San Francisco who volunteer their time so that
100% of the tax deductible donations go to the
children. El Shadai means “of God” in Hebrew,
but the organization is not religious and doesn’t
discriminate.
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The Nyanya Project. Mary Martin Niepold volunteered for three weeks in orphanages in Kenya and met grandmothers raising as many as 18 AIDs orphans. She founded TNP, which has established grandmother cooperatives in Kenya. Tanzania and Rwanda. TNP provides livestock for the co-ops to raise, breed and sell; trains members in basket weaving, jewelry making and running businesses; runs daycare and preschool centers. You can contribute a goat, ram or sheep; hot lunches; healthcare; preschool fees and much more.
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Fotokids. Nancy McGirr taught photography to
children who lived in the dump in Guatemala
City. That resulted in a book of their work, a
school, the expansion of the project to Honduras,
and ultimately in her formation of Fundacion de
Ninos Artistas de Guatemala. You can buy a print,
download their book, fund a scholarship.
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With only 10% of the
world's population, Sub-Saharan Africa has:
*92% of the world's AIDS orphans: 12.1 million children
*more than 2 million children with HIV
*46% of all pregnant women are HIV positive and a quarter of their
babies will be born infected. One hundred percent of the money you donate to the Firelight Foundation will fund grassroots organizations
in twelve African countries, supporting and advocating for these
children.
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The Girls Project is an analysis of the impact of 40 grantee organizations funded
by the Global Fund for Women in Africa, the Middle East, Europe,
Asia and the Americas. Atypical of such studies, girls themselves
were surveyed and their voices tell us what they need, want and
value most.
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The
Global Fund for Children makes small grants to grassroots
organizations to gain schooling for the world’s most vulnerable
children and stop hazardous child labor, child prostitution and
exploitation. Some of their funding comes from the sale of children’s
books from their publishing arm, Shakti for Children but your contribution
will be welcome.
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Educate
Girls Globally (EGG) is a nonprofit that works in developing
countries to improve girls’ chances of being educated by involving
parents and communities in reforming government-run elementary and
secondary schools. Worldwide, there are about 82 million school-aged
girls who are not enrolled, this is a big job, but the future effects
of girls education are dramatic: a woman will have one less child
for every four years of school she attends; her income increases
10-20% with each additional year of schooling. You can help.
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Photographer Phil
Borges’ online classroom project, Bridges to Understanding, connects indigenous and urban students via interactive photo story telling.
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One way to teach kids to think about people in
other parts of the world, is to enrich their understanding of other
cultures. The Museum of Craft and Folk Art,
San Francisco, conducts workshops in Bay Area schools that include
artifacts and hands on art projects. You (and the National Endowment
for the Arts) can send their experts into classrooms.
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