Transatlantic Give Back

What feeling is better than knowing you’ve helped another human being? 

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For many years our sponsored students, by necessity, are on the receiving side of help.  With age and maturity, however, they too can become givers.  With this in mind, part of our THRIVE program for Form 4 and Form 6 graduates aims to (1) make these young adults aware of the needs of their neighbors and (2) encourage the teens to find ways to alleviate these situations.

Add to the above scenario YAHOO day (the yodel, not the website). What’s YAHOO day? And what’s the connection?  After beating cancer, a friend of Cocoa McGovern, one of our Directors, designated February 26, the day he beat cancer, as YAHOO day to celebrate those who helped save his life by paying their kindness forward.  He gave Cocoa $100 and told her to find a way to celebrate YAHOO day in TZ. 

Cocoa decided to give the monies to our Form 4 graduates to help others in their community.  Supervised by Tom Kway, the girls first visited the Ward Executive Officer to locate needy families.  The WEO and some other community members took each girl to 2 families.  The girls met with the families and saw their circumstances. The girls then collaborated on how to help.

Some of what they have started to do includes:

  • Helping a paralyzed woman and another elderly woman by bringing them a new mattress, blankets and kanjis
  • Helping a handicapped man by buying seed for his field and then helping him to prepare and plant the fields
  • Helping a blind woman with some new pots and buckets for her family to help her get water and cook.

This is just the beginning as our young women figure out how to continue their new relationships.  In the meantime they are learning how to become a support and lifeline for others – perhaps the best path to real empowerment.

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