Happy Holidays!

Hi everyone!

This is our last ESTC blog for the year as we wind down for the Christmas and New Year period. This has been an amazing year for ESTC and we hope an amazing one for you to! The ESTC team want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

As we look forward to 2012 we want to share an opportunity with you to really make 2012 a year to remember - the chance to join an Eat So They Can Distribution Trip!

Our funds distribution trips to Kenya and Peru offer participants the once in a lifetime opportunity to directly help with distributing funds raised through our Eat So They Can campaign. By joining this program you will be assisting on the ground and delivering supplies to the schools, orphanages and camps we support. You will also have the opportunity to participate in workshops and see some of Kenya's most famous wildlife or several historical sites in Peru.

 

In Kenya the funds raised from Eat So They Can will be distributed to schools, orphanages and IDP (Internationally Displaced Persons) camps throughout the Nairobi and Nakuru areas.

And in Peru the funds will be distributed to schools, orphanages and community centers in Cusco and the Sacred Valley.

This is an unbelievable chance to see directly where the money you raised ends up and the amazing difference it is making to children and communities throughout Kenya and Peru.

To find out more visit: http://www.globalvolunteernetwork.org/distribution_trip/ or check out our Facebook page for photos from last years trips https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eat-So-They-Can/

See you in the New Year,

Eliza and the ESTC Team

Proud to Support the Losinoni Lunch Program!

Hello again!

I hope you enjoyed last week's update on the new Uganda projects. This week, we would like to take you on a trip to the village of Losinoni in Tanzania.

We recently sent out  a grant of $1,159 to help fund AfricAid's lunch program at Losinoni Primary School. AfricAid is a nonprofit organization that supports girls’ education in Tanzania in order to provide young women with the opportunity to transform their own lives and the futures of their communities.

The Losinoni community has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the education of their children. They have partnered with AfricAid to build new classrooms, renovate existing classrooms and install solar electrical power in order to provide the students with improved learning environments.

In addition, the community has pooled its meager resources to hire a cook for the school, so that the lunch program can be provided during the entire school year. The community has also set aside land for growing maize to be used for the lunch program, in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the program.  As such, the community has made the school lunch program a priority, both for the education and for the sustenance of its children, a community commitment that is critical for the long-term sustainability of the program. However, resources continue to be critically scarce in this rural, impoverished community.

With the ESTC grant, AfricaAid will be able to feed the 750 students at Losinoni Primary School for over 9 weeks. That's more than 34,000 lunches!

Thank you to our hosts for making this grant possible and thank you to AfricAid and the Losinoni community for their amazing work!

~ Michelle and the ESTC Team