A significant element for creating global change is building safe havens for people to gather. Whether it is a physical space or a digital platform, building an environment for communities to grow, learn and reclaim their well-being is essential for long term success and independence.
TPP grantees are passionate about ensuring their communities are heard and have a welcoming platform to voice their needs, share their stories and cultivate meaningful relationships with those around them. Learn how TPP grantees face global issues and transform society through intimate connection.
Chimwemwe Chitambala – Embrace Her
Being a sympathetic and energetic individual, I am passionate about creating change in my community. I believe that young people can create change and be the ones to create solutions to challenges that they are facing in the community. From an early age, I had an understanding that society had positively shaped me through lessons and words of correction from elders and other knowledgeable people. Thus, I always dreamt of doing as impactful project that would touch lives people in society as a way of appreciating a society that took care of me. Consequently, I donated my time, strength, and skills to developmental issues at both local and international level with a sense of integrity and accountability in all my endeavors.
Embrace Her is a micro-finance project started by Chimwemwe Chitambala in Lusaka, Zambia. The project seeks to increase economic participation of young women through a system that austerely gives access to finances for business purposes with a view to providing families with an opportunity to provide an education to their children, building capacity to provide the daily basic needs at home, and encouraging young women to save and create the possibility of future investments.
The operation base for this microfinance is intentionally non-profit making with an interest rate that relates with the businesses of our clients; very affordable, lowest rate any microfinance is offering, and is purely for administrative cost.
This project is designed for small scale businesses that particularly run to meet the basic daily needs of an ordinary Zambian and can consistently generate money and offer the ability to repay the loan, and make funds available for saving on a weekly basis without making clients feel bothered or thrown off balance. The specific businesses engaged involve the selling of fresh vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and other food products that are widely consumed as part of the main meal or staple food in Zambia. I focused my energy on a microfinance project because a lot of women run small business with little or no expansion due to lack of funds as banks and other financial institutions use complex systems which are too cumbersome.
Society Aid Ghana – Livelihood Empowerment For Teen Mothers
Livelihood Empowerment for Teen Mothers is a project in Bawjiase, Awutu Senya District, Ghana that provides 16 teenage mothers with skills training in sewing along with financial management workshops. Society Aid Ghana is spearheading the implementation of this project as a result of the high unemployment among teenage mothers in rural communities.
We are inspired by the world goal of ending poverty by 2030 as a means of ensuring employment opportunities for all.
Funding from The Pollination Project will enable the trained teenage mothers to start their business after the training and become financially dependent.
Jamilah Cooper-Bowden – WORTHIT Inc. Period Pack Project
Jamilah Cooper created WORTHIT Inc. out of the desire to provide for the upcoming generation of women what she lacked in her youth. A network of positive and knowledgeable women who actively pursue the health, safety, and happiness of the young girls in their communities; no matter what. Her hope is that through WORTHIT, every girl will know that she is valuable, worthy, capable, and loved.
Maria Lyriam Rivera – Valientina Rag Dolls
Path of Hope and Progress Foundation – CESPRO in its Spanish abbreviation – is an institution focused on working with vulnerable populations, especially women and children who have been victims of domestic violence. We have designed a small workshop for this group, where we give to these mothers, who are heads of families, a specific training focused on the craft of beautiful rag dolls, along with a small production system and the possibility to sell the products created during the project in a local market.
The women receive hands on training on how to create the dolls. These women do not have a lot of work opportunities in the labor market and they have lived in difficult situations, sometimes derived of sexually abusive and domestic violence, hence they need economic and psychological support found in these groups.
Shiloh Place Orphanage Volunteer Team – Shiloh Place Classroom Building Project
The Shiloh Place Orphanage Volunteer Team is fundraising to build two elementary school classrooms, with an accompanying hygiene block, in Lubumbashi, DRC, Africa – former home of our founder, Chantal Kasango. These will allow 70 girls and boys from a very low-income neighborhood to attend school free of tuition, required uniform and shoes at state schools. Education is a route out of poverty that Shiloh Place can help open.
“We are inspired by Chantal’s dream and longtime commitment to improve the lives of children in her former homeland.” Shiloh Place currently supports several orphaned older children who live with extended families, to receive an education through sponsorships donated by caring North Americans.
The small group of 8 active volunteers was re-energized by The Pollination Project grant and will continue to seek individual and other gifts toward the cost so the two planned classrooms will be ready for the start of school in Fall 2020.
The Nosapo Freedom House
Stationed in Guatemala along the migratory route from Central America to the United States, The Nosapo Freedom House is a safe haven and a hub of hope, learning, community and sustenance for change. Melanie McCarthy, Founder and Executive Director of Nosapo, believes in education and human rights as the framework for empowering those that have been marginalized and has spent the last seven years working to give power back to the powerless in similar settings around the world.
Along with a full staff of volunteers, she will maintain a guest house and provide legal aid, healthcare, meals, yoga, and meditation to migrants traveling to seek asylum in the United States. The Freedom House will provide an unprecedented opportunity for migrants to find rest — without the threat of abuse and trafficking — and prepare for a safe journey and arrival.
NoStigmas – NoStigmas Research Study
The NoStigmas service area has high rates of mental health disparities and suicide deaths. Limited education is a barrier to services affecting these rates. NoStigmas engages in providing services that will enhance the systems-of-care available to individuals living with a mental illness. We aim to lower the stigma of mental health services and to provide peer-to-peer services for individuals.
We implement programs to increase education about mental health, services available, and overall wellness. NoStigmas will assess our training curriculum for effectiveness on these primary issues. We will investigate our effect on these barriers through The Ally Program Research Study conducted with the Illinois Institute of Technology and Doctor Lindsay Sheehan, Lewis College of Human Sciences-Psychology Department, project director.
