Education
Teach To Grow 'Back to School' Education Program
It all began with just a seed! We have created a potato farm and within the next few months, we were able to start harvesting. We had the patience, and the time finally came, we were able to see results. The photo shows what we were able to donate to the seventy-four families! Since the season is not favorable for planting potatoes after this harvest, we started to investigate buying goats for them to breed! They will be planting potatoes in the mouth of September! We could not have done this without our sponsors; the project was a success thanks to them.
We hosted our second annual fundraising event. We had a great night, with great food, live music, and a lot of raffle prizes. All for a great cause! The second annual BBQ, the Burundian traditional dancers, and the chance to be a part of the “world changers team.” It was an opportunity no one would want to miss out on as we do our part to change the lives of the less fortunate!
We took baby steps to create our Wheat Farm and we were thrilled to see the results of our hard work! Some pictures of our wheat farm show the harvest season is just around the corner!
In the end, eighty people from different backgrounds came together to share the joy of harvesting the wheat from our wheat farm! Not only did this project help the community financially, but it was also a huge social boost! We cannot be any happier, as these people are sharing a life-changing experience!
Some feelings are not easy to describe! It was a happy day as we were able to donate school supplies to thirty-two children! We were able to give them notebooks, pens, pencils, rulers, and erasers. We did not have the funds to buy them backpacks, shoes, uniforms, etc. We still have a long way to go, but we are sincerely grateful for our donors and supporters. https://youtu.be/3mLJB6NKU50
The project this month was to plant vegetables and fruits. One focus this year is to teach the families the importance of having a balanced diet. This was done by teaching the families how to farm. How to take care of the vegetables and the fruits by themselves and on their farms. We would not have been able to achieve this target without our great support.
The concept we used: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” This is what our foundation, Teach to Grow, is all about. We teach people how to become self-sustainable for a lifetime. We develop mentalities. We are not putting band-aids on a situation but instead getting to the root of hunger and malnutrition in one person, one family, one village, and one province at a time!
We were able to get the material needed and we worked hard on creating the Demonstration farm. We were able to create a cabbage demonstration garden. As you can see some photos of our vegetable garden from our demonstration farms. We were able to introduce some new vegetables to the families, such as the previously mentioned, cabbages, and onions, and tomatoes. We showed them how to take care of each of the vegetables so that they would be able to grow these vegetables on their plots/gardens.
It is exciting to bring change and we hope that these families will use the knowledge we gave them to improve their lands and food source. These are but only small steps to fight against malnutrition and create long-lasting sustainability.
The families we sponsor in Burundi were going through one of the toughest times. In General, Burundi is going through insecurity/economic turmoil and this is affecting most Burundians families.
Thirty-six of the families we sponsor had a meeting and discussed how the Tech to Grow foundations could help them during this time. They put together a wish list in their language (Kirundi) and in this list, the families had asked us for food, clean water, etc.
Not everyone has access to the basic human fundamentals and that hurts our hearts. So, we took it upon ourselves to sincerely ask for donations so we could help these farmers by collecting money to buy them food. In the end, we were able to donate 791 kgs of corn to thirty-seven selected families. Our mission is to fight against hunger and malnutrition through sustainable farming but today we needed to put on some “band-aids” and help them by getting their immediate needs. We hope to fix this by teaching them how to fish not by doing the fishing.
We were able to start and finish building the storage sheds for the community’s Flour Mill. It was amazing to see what we could do with all the support we received. We would not have been able to do any of the building without it! The Teach to Grow team in Burundi was able to hire local builders that helped achieve the building site. We intern created jobs for the local community and began to take the right path towards long-lasting development! As the hard work continued inside the Sheds it became impressive how hard these people were working. All these people were being paid just a little bit to help their families and we are glad we could generate income for the small farmers.
We are doing whatever it takes to fight against hunger and malnutrition. As the wheat we will keep in our storage sheds, will eventually be donated to families that otherwise do not have enough seeds for their farming needs.
Many may wonder: why is this project so crucial for farmers? Why were we patiently waiting for the flour mill to gain full functionality? Well, we have come to realize that these small farmers are wasting so much time getting the flour ready. Each family spends at least two hours a day to get the flour ready, the traditional way, which entails using two rocks. Now we can put this behind them!
We have collected donations for the Flour mill. This will allow everyone to have access to the flour Mill, and in turn, this will allow them to have more time to work on the farm.
Keeping in mind that this area uses Corn and Wheat flour on a regular basis and in almost every food they make. We can say: Yay to no more traditional grinding in Sigi as the day we have all been waiting for has arrived. The Flour Mill is now functional. We cannot describe the joy expressed in the speeches given during the opening. This must be one of the best projects we have worked on so far! The team in Burundi did incredible work putting this together. We can only imagine the impact this had on these farmers! Not only is it healthier, but it is also a time saver. A big thank you to the Mckenzie town church who contributed the most towards this project!
Teach to Grow is working hard to get where children and adults in Burundi have sufficient food, nutritious meals, and access to resources they need to sustain healthy lives. Donations can feed a malnourished kid, senior, or even a pregnant woman. Right now, parents, young kids, infants, and seniors are going to bed hungry.
We have taken a small step in the direction of sustainable development! We created a cabbage nursery for our demonstration farm. The cabbage nursery then became mature enough to be moved into the demonstration farm. The sponsored families attend the demonstration sessions at the farm, where they were taught how to take care of the cabbages. The families were given cabbage seeds and fertilizer for their own which theyplanted in their family gardens. These families expressed great testimonies. Their children are now enjoying nutritious meals!
Eventually, the time to harvest came. The cabbages in our demonstration farm were harvested. From our demonstration farm, we were able to donate cabbages to each and everyone from the community of Sigi! This is loud proof that our work is changing lives for young kids, mothers, seniors, and the whole community that previously could not afford to have vegetables in their daily diets.
These families worked hard using their hands, land, and energy to fight against hunger and malnutrition and we are continuing to fulfill our mission to fight against hunger and malnutrition one person at a time.
We can not wait for days that the harvest in general will overflow like this one!
During the past three years we managed to host one annual fundraiser, but this year we could not. However, we continued our great work without the funds that we usually get from our fundraiser, by instead setting up an online fundraiser campaign called “Sponsor a Farmer.”
Did you know? Approximately 795 million people suffer from chronic hunger. Hunger kills more people every year than malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS combined. One in four children in the developing world is stunted. One in six children in the developing world is underweight as per USAID study. The contributions made to our “Sponsor a Farmer” campaign helped us achieve our milestone of helping thirty-two families in need of food and almost seventy-four children. With the support we received, we took steps to end hunger and malnutrition for thirty-two families! Our project was to help them with seeds for the September planting season by collecting funds. We also supervised them and gave them advice on the practices used to farm that will help them for a lifetime. The concept we used: rather than giving them fishes we teach them how to fish.
When we say, “sponsor a farmer”, it seems vague and often people question whether these farmers exist or not. Here we show thirty farmers we sponsored in the community of Sigi. As you will notice when viewing the images, there are a lot of children. The concept used: help their parents so that the children can benefit.
The parents can not afford to send their kids to school or buy them medication, or even feed them. These things are kept in mind during all our projects. There is still a lot we can do for them but the focus for “Sponsor a Farmer” is to fight so that no one would have to go to bed hungry. The event was a success, and we thank everyone who donated to the campaign and helped us spread the word. We were a part of the movement to end hunger and malnutrition one person at a time! We made a difference in the lives of small farmers in the Burundi community of Sigi, as they plan on starting their September planting season.
This year was our 2nd consecutive Back to School Campaign. We had 61 kids who needed notebooks, pens, pencils, etc. Since last year we started helping the kids of our sponsored families with school supplies. This has been a huge help for the parents, otherwise, they would have struggled to have enough school supplies to give to their kids.
This year one of our volunteers took this campaign on her own and managed to collect $530.00 from her friends and family. We are so thankful for people like her but also grateful to have people that believe in our mission and donate to our great cause. Regardless of where you live or where you come from, one of a parent’s greatest dreams is to see your kids go to school and you hope they do well and become successful in their lives. It hurts when you cannot afford to buy them school supplies or afford to let them go to school.
Ultimately, we were able to make one of the biggest dreams for parents a reality, by sending 58 kids, from different grades, school supplies. They were extremely happy!
We donated seeds of corn to thirty families in need. The families expressed how not having enough seeds had caused them to go through months of hunger each year.
We can not be any happier thinking that the next year the harvest will be so much better! These families will have enough food for themselves and their families. Thanks to our amazing donors. Together we can end hunger and malnutrition one person at a time!
We scheduled a visit to some of our sponsored families to whom we donated corn seeds back in September. It is amazing to see the fruit of our hard work and donations. They expressed how happy they are and grateful for our efforts.
Our volunteers selected eighty-one kids from the different communities, who without our help would not be able to afford school supplies such as backpacks, notebooks, pens, and pencils. These kids were thoroughly selected by our team of volunteers and had no other way of getting their school supplies. Launching our online fundraiser campaign we were hoping to generate enough money for these kids to attend school because the success for these kids will start with going to school!
The goal for this year was $3000 by the end of August; it takes $37.00 to send a kid back to school with everything they need for the year. Initially, we raised $500.00 for our backto-school campaign, and we were weeks away from donating the school supplies to the 81 kids in need. The plan was altered so that if we were to raise $300.00 more so that we could send all kids with all the school supplies needed except for backpacks.Before the end of the campaign, we were blown away by one of our donors: Kelly Thompson and her family. We meet our goal to buy school supplies. We reached $815 which meant that even though we wanted to surprise the kids with backpacks, we could not. As an alternative, not 81 kids as planned but 84 kids got their school supplies from the donations!!
We are so very thankful for the people who generously donated to the back-to-school Campaign as we made it happen again for the 3rd consecutive year. The “back to School” campaign depended on generous donations to make it a successful one. The eighty-four kids were so happy to start the upcoming school year with our support. Please help our future campaigns by continuing to donate and share with everyone who wants to make a difference in the lives of the less privileged.
Last year in June 2017 we donated 23 cows and 5 bulls to selected families. Our goal was to help small farmers grow great cattle and feed their kids with milk and have enough fertilizers for their plants. Three of the Twenty-three cows were expected to have calves. The cattle are growing and soon some cows will multiply and help more families. This project takes a long time to see results, but we cannot wait to see how it helps the whole village. So far families are getting organic fertilizers for their plants and that is a success!
It took some time to get our great cattle project to the finish line, but we did it! Our volunteers were initially busy buying these beautiful Cows and Bulls. They bought the first batch which included nine cows and five bulls, the next batch was bought the week after. Ultimately, the plan was to officially donate them to the selected twenty-three families the following week. This is one step in the right direction to fight against hunger and malnutrition: one village at a time!
In the end, we bought twenty-three Cows and five Bulls, and we were able to donate them to the selected families in the village of Sigi. The community members of the village came to witness this life-changing moment. It was an especially important moment for some families as some of the selected families had never owned a cow before. Now that the families have a Cow, they will be able to produce enough food, as they have the Cows’ manure now. Not only will the Cows help the families get enough manure to fertilize their farms, but they will also help the families generate extra income. We can not wait to see the short-term and long-term results!
Malnutrition kills more than malaria or Aids combined; basic needs should not kill nowadays.
We conducted an assessment to find out the state of the kids, nutrition-wise, in the area we work in. The results were heartbreaking. We assessed twenty-three kids. Nine had moderate malnutrition and two had acute malnutrition that required immediate medical attention.
In addition, we will work with the families to determine the root cause of this to determine a solution. Therefore, we collected funds this month to help kids suffering from malnutrition in the community of “Sigi”.
In March, we were able to donate seeds for cabbages and carrots to an entire village. They are working together to improve the quality of life. In the coming months, we will begin teaching them the basics of nutrition so they can better feed their kids. We are changing lives, one person and one village at a time!