Our library project is now fully funded! The outpouring of support we have received from friends, family, and even complete strangers who simply believed in the project has been overwhelming. To everyone who helped to hang fliers, who spread the word in person to their coworkers and associates, and who donated to help [...]

Lou and I are currently trying to fundraise $2,983 to fund an Ewe language library and to buy books for the teachers in our literacy coalition. Ewe is the dominant local language in our city. In a previous post, we talked about how we have been working on literacy with a coalition of charities, churches, [...]

I have been working on organizing local giving through the development of local foundations to support the NGOs in our town.  I started this project because I found very few organizations receive local funding.  Almost all funding for NGOs is international.  The few organizations that funded locally usually do collective savings and loans or organize [...]

                Our town has a high rate of illiteracy.  Many women who sell things at the market have no formal education and cannot keep the records or do the math to know whether they are making a daily profit or loss.  Likewise, as discussed in the section on apprentices, many apprentices graduate unable to effectively [...]

Our most rewarding work is with groups of apprentices.  In Togo, one must pass a 3 year apprenticeship program to become a tailor or seamstress, a woodworker, an electrician, a refrigerator repairman, a mechanic, a hairdresser, a plumber, or a member of one of the other guild trades.  Young people often pay near $200 dollars [...]