Our Projects and Funding Requirements

Palms for Life selects projects that have proven to be effective and have a continuing impact on people’s lives as they address very specific unmet needs. Our projects focus on health, education, food production and access to food, as a means of fighting poverty. All our projects are implemented locally by reputable organizations that share our vision. Below is a short summary of our projects. Many require urgent funding. Remember: it does not happen until it happens. Help us make a difference!

 

ANGOLA

Quality Primary Education in Peri-urban & Rural Schools (Pending Funding)

Location: Provinces of Luanda, Huambo, Bie, Huila, Moxico and Cuando Cubango (Angola)
Executing Partner: Development Workshop
Participants: 12,800 schoolchildren and 320 teachers
Funding needed: $592,000 for 3 years

The Project will establish Child Friendly Schools to improve the quality of education and learning outcomes with a special emphasis on school safety and girls’ enrolment and retention; it will
improve water and latrines on premises, school safety and availibility of school material and library facilities. It will increase parents' and students' participation and implement sports and cultural activities, and increasing students' learning ethics and behaviour.

Social Empowerment of Girls and Young Women (Pending Funding)

Location: Provinces of Luanda, Huambo, Bie, Huila, Moxico and Kuando Kubango (Angola)
Executing Partner: Development Workshop
Participants: 6,000 girls aged 6-18 years in peri-urban areas
Funding needed: $782,000

The Project will promote a radical change towards girls' and young women’s basic rights by promoting the importance of girls' education leading to a gradual increase in their attendance and retention in schools; it will increase awareness of girls’ right to be free from violence, sexual exploitation or abuse and to resist traditional practices that threaten their dignity and future. The project will increase their awareness about delaying first sexual experiences, resisting early marriage, child spacing and use of contraception and condoms.

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BURKINA FASO

Food Production by Rural Women in the Lake Bam Region, (Ongoing)

Location: Communities of Loulouka (Burkina Faso)
Executing Partner: APRODES
Participants: 500 rural women
Funding needed: $75,000 (in average, $150/person) Partly Funded

The project is being implemented in different phases: increase the production of tomatoes and onions by engaging more and more women in this activity; increase the irrigation capacity to ensure higher productivity; provide micro-credit to allow for the purchase of agricultural inputs; fund the storage and conservation of the products to increase market value and opportunities. These actions, combined with training will allow participants to double their income and increase their livelihoods and the quality of their families’ life. It is designed as a sustainable model.

Community-Based Health Planning and Service (Pending Funding)

Location: Districts of Zabré and Léo (Burkina Faso)
Executing Partner: Population Council, Burkina Faso
Participants: 98,500 mothers and 68,000 children totaling 166,500 people
Funding needed: $1,531,000 for 2 years

The objective of this project is to reduce maternal and child mortality and also morbidity and mortality linked to malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV and AIDS. In order to achieve this objective, the project will apply a new methodology based on community participation, local volunteers, and the formation and deployment, at the level of the village, of qualified staff. Funds will help train health promoters and community leaders and build basic essential health infrastructure in the communities thereby making health services of better quality available to the local population.

Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation, (Pending Funding)

Location: Countrywide (Burkina Faso)
Executing Partner: Population Council
Participants: researchers, extension workers and all women committed to ending this violence
Funding needed: $14,723 for initial research phase and $500,000 for second phase

The project will first organize a series of training sessions in order to determine the prevalence of the FGM. A second phase of the project will be to continue the series of awareness, training and educational campaigns to ultimately eliminate the practice in the country. Today, despite the Law in 1996 that prohibits the practice and imposes fines on people who excise girls and women, clandestine excisions take place on a daily basis and mainly younger girls are being affected.

Promoting Low-Risk Sexual Behavior (Pending Funding)

Location: Ouagadougou (pilot phase) with extension to Bobo-Dioulasso, Tenkodogo, and Gaou (Burkina Faso)
Executing Partner: Population Council and local partner organizations
Participants: 30 community leaders (first phase)
Funding needed: $8,700 (first phase)

The project will prepare 30 sex workers as leaders and models for other young women that engage in this profession and provide them with comprehensive life skills training to increase their self-esteem and put them in a better position to take care of their life, health, and relationships. The project will also help control the spread of HIV/AIDS (prevalence among the general population is 2.7%, however, among sex workers it was 8.5% and among their clients 4.1% in 2006).

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ECUADOR

Educating and Feeding Working Street Children (Ongoing)

Location: Quito, Ecuador
Executing Partner: Centro del Muchacho Trabajador
Participants: 2,000 street children and their families
Funding needed: $60,972 Partly Funded

The project focuses on educating and feeding the disadvantaged and often forgotten — street children. It is unique in that it educates children while also teaching them a trade or craft. It is sustainable: the poor children are able to remain in school while also working and providing for their families. There are three components to this project: implement a revised curriculum, build a team of community health providers, and strengthen the food security program.

Bilingual Education in Rural Schools (Ongoing)

Location: County of Ambato, Province of Tungurahua, Ecuador
Executing Partner: Fundación Esquel
Participants: 7,129 school children with indirect benefits to 35,000 people
Funding needed: $430,000 for 3 years Fully Funded!

This project will be implemented in areas affected by high levels of poverty and poor education. The funds will improve school infrastructure and curriculum while also preserving the students’ native language and culture by setting up intercultural bilingual education centers. Because of this project children living in rural areas will now have access to quality bilingual education.

Cultural Exchange Program in Poor Urban Neighborhoods – (Ongoing)

Location: Quito, Ecuador
Executing Partner: Musica en Vivo Ahora and Brass Band del Ecuador
Participants: 4,000 children and elderly and 50 musicians
Funding needed: $48,000 for 3 years Partly Funded

This project brings live performances of quality music to poor people who have no access to music. The main target populations are children in public schools and orphanages. By exposing children to music, the project helps raise their general level of educational interest and can maximize other areas of knowledge such as mathematics. The project also aims to assist gifted young professional musicians at the outset of their careers allowing them to communicate with a wide range of different cultural audiences.

Cuéntamelo Todo - Education From the Streets (Ongoing)

Location: Quito, Ecuador; Ibarra, Ecuador
Executing Partner: Fundación Desarrollo Social y Hábitat (DS&H) and Fe y Alegría
Participants: about 1,500 children
Funding needed: $40,000 per year for improvement and expansion (Quito & Ibarra Libraries Funded)

DS&H and Fe y Alegría are taking popular education to the streets. With a multidisciplinary approach and backed by a professional team of pedagogues, animators, a social worker and psychologists, Cuéntamelo Todo invites children aged 5 to 12 in Quito’s old town on the Plaza San Francisco and in Ibarra’s square market to take part in reading and recreational activities that seek, through a rights-based approach, to develop key life values. In addition to generating interest in readership through the Mobile Library, Cuéntamelo Todo also aims to create opportunities for children and their families to transform their realities through tailored social support and an individual referral system to specialized institutions. Click here for photos. Click here for DS&H blog.

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ETHIOPIA

Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Development in Pastoralist area of Ethiopia (Pending Funding)

Location: Ethiopia
Funding applied for: $2 million for 3 years
Executing Partners: CISO & Wako Gutu Foundation

The project targets two pastoralist districts in Ethiopia known for underserved and marginalized pastoralist dwellings and addresses the problems that drought brings to these populations. The project will bring water and sanitation to the participating communities in an integrated and sustainable way and will also consider drought-resilient activities such as harvesting and storing rainwater. Access to safe water supply in Ethiopia as a whole is available to no more than 25% of the population, and adequate sanitation facilities are available to perhaps 12% of the population (WHO and UNICEF, 2008).

Well-Digging in Rural Ethiopia with Sustainability, Health and Sanitation, and Training (Pending Funding)

Location: Ethiopia
Funding applied for: $130,000
Executing Partners: Wako Gutu Foundation

The project targets 3,100 vulnerable households, totaling 15,500 people, with a special emphasis on women-headed households, in lowland Bale Zone of Oromiya region mainly in the districts of Barbare and Dallo Manna Woredas. Several activities will be deployed to ensure the sustainability of the water scheme to be undertaken by the project such as: establishment of water users association; set up of cost recovery mechanism; and establishment of strong linkage with the relevant government offices. These activities include the provision of technical and management trainings and the involvement of traditional leaders.

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INDIA

Enhancing Climate Resilience of Small Farmers through Biodiveristy and Sustainable Agriculture for Greater Food and Water Security in Northern India (Pending Funding)

Location: Northern India- Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Orissa
Executing Partner: Navdanya
Participants: 500 individual farmers
Funding needed: $2M for 3 years

The project will improve food and water security of small and marginal farmers by enhancing their climate resilience through sustainable agricultural practices and integrated water management systems. The project will transform 500 participating farmers, at least half of whom will be women, into core project leaders who will apply and disseminate these practices in their communities; and establish community seed banks and nurseries to collect and distribute bio-diverse climate-resilient agricultural inputs.

Universal School Enrollment & Quality of Primary Education (Pending Funding)

Location: Hyderabad, India
Executing Partner: MV Foundation
Participants: 36,000 schoolchildren
Funding needed: $750,000 for 3 years

The project seeks to abolish child labor and ensure universal education for all children in the project area by building a strong social norm in favor of children’s right to education. It will ensure that all children are retained in schools and are given good quality education. It will also build local capacities to strengthen the school system and monitor child rights.  MV Foundation works in 2,500 villages and monitors 400,000 children on a daily basis and works to get and keep every child 5-14 years old in school.

Vocational Training & Employment Opportunities “Centers of Hope” (Pending Funding)

Location: Countrywide, India
Executing Partner: HOPE Foundation
Participants: 4,500 disadvantaged young men and women
Funding needed: $1,089,508 for 3 years

The project will transform the lives and livelihoods of 4,500 young men and women some who are unemployed and others under-employed, and whose parents often earn less than US$15 per month by providing them with new employable skills. A total of 15 centers will participate in this project. Project participants will go from an earning potential of 1,000 rupees per month on average ($26) to 2,470 rupees ($65), doubling their capacity to earn. The training centers are a sustainable investment and will provide training for many more young people after the project terminates.

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KENYA

A Volunteers for Life Project

Location: New Dawn Education Center, Huruma slum, outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya
Executing Partner: Sanaa Project, Nairobi - Art for and by the Children of Nairobi
Participants: 160 high school students
Funding needed: $10,000 Click here to donate

Sanaa Project focuses on sustainably bringing art to the public schools of Nairobi, Kenya, by promoting an interest in and an outlet for artistic creation for students living in a city otherwise marked by poverty and a struggling education system. It will give the children art supplies and lessons and encourage them to participate in both small and large-scale projects. These projects are geared towards sensitively incorporating their individual interests as well as the realities of their everyday lives. . The small scale projects, such as individual drawings or sculptures, will later be displayed and sold on our blog to raise awareness and money to continue the arts program for the children. The large scale projects, namely a series of murals on the walls of the New Dawn Education Center, will be left as a reminder to the city of the creativity its children can express.

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MOZAMBIQUE

Strengthening Rural Primary Schools (Ongoing)

Location: Nampula and Zambezia Provinces (with also national actions), Mozambique
Executing Partner: The Foundation for Community Development (FDC)
Participants: 4,000 children age 6-16 and 150 teachers
Funding needed: $1,126,000 Fully funded!

The project will drastically improve the quality of education by training teachers and improving the educational facilities and equipment; it will also mobilize parents and the communities to send and keep girls in primary school. One important feature is that the project will help break the silence on and reduce violence and sexual abuse in rural primary schools by establishing watchdog posts as well as a free and friendly national telephone “Green Line” for information and denunciation. These actions will be complemented by a national media campaign with TV debates, investigative press articles and community radio programs.

Food Production with Small Farmers Focusing on Women (2010)

Funding applied for: TBD

The project will be implemented by the Foundation for Community Development in partnership with AGRA. It will concentrate on the Beira Corridor, an area with a significant agricultural potential and will provide participants with technical assistance, credit and other inputs to drastically increase their income from agricultural activities.

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SWAZILAND

Increased Food Security and Improved Water Supply and Sanitation (2010)

Location: Swaziland
Executing Partner: Action Four Africa (A4A)
Participants: 40,000 children, 120 schools
Funding needed: $2.5 M for 3 years, Fully funded. Main funder USAID.

The project is executed by our partner organization Action Four Africa. It focuses on equipping rural-poor communities, specifically schools, with improved water supply (for drinking and agriculture productivity) and enhanced water sanitation systems. It will also create sustainable school gardens to improve food security for children, their families and communities in Swaziland at large.

 

With your help, we will be able to support thousands of poor people and their families. We can not do this otherwise. Please click here and donate now. Thank you!

 

Poverty Physiognomy

At Palms for Life, we use this term to describe the total experience of poverty in a given country, based on the features of the human experience of poverty, including the levels of education, health and food security.

Palms for Life Fund will seek and provide funding in support of projects managed by local organizations in poor countries.

The following countries were selected on the basis of general poverty indicators; gender gaps in adult literacy; levels of pre-primary and primary education, especially of girls; and food insecurity and malnutrition affecting mothers and infants.

Ecuador Nicaragua Angola Burkina Faso Ethiopia Madagascar Mozambique Swaziland Tanzania India Pakistan Thailand

Palms for Life Fund will consider broadening its geographical coverage on a case by case basis.

Project Submission

Palms for Life Fund invites its partners to submit projects (click here to download the Guidelines for Project Submission) within the four program categories and to take into account the priority areas that it has identified for each country.

Burkina Faso

• health and education coverage and quality
• HIV/AIDS prevention in particular at the most remote villages
• adult literacy
• income-earning opportunities especially for women in rural areas
• strengthening rural women’s organizations (such as farmers’ associations)

Ecuador

• health and quality of education
• rural credit especially for women
• agricultural training, technical education and skills development, targeting in particular indigenous and Afro populations and women

India

• education of mothers about improved nutrition and hygiene practices in order to reduce infant and maternal mortality
• girls’ education and women literacy in order to reduce the educational gender gap
• HIV/AIDS prevention

Madagascar

• schoolfeeding to encourage attendance and improve school performance
• education of mothers about improved child care practices
• HIV/AIDS prevention
• capacity building of local farmers’ organizations to ensure more effective participation
• adult functional literacy to support agricultural production

Nicaragua

• feeding children in school
• education of mothers for better nutrition and hygiene practices to help reduce infant and maternal mortality
• HIV/AIDS prevention
• adult literacy, particularly in rural areas

Pakistan

• girls’ education in order to reduce gender gap
• women’s health and literacy to reduce maternal mortality