Hi folks,
This blog is beginning to look like all the other blogs of folks who go overseas, need to fundraise or just want to share pics with friends and family back home, and then gets abandoned once they get back. I hope to keep updating, but so far its clearly not been going so well.
In any case, I hope to do a better job in the future but in the meantime I want to share an opportunity with you. As you know, I was an intern in Liberia through Partners Worldwide with a local non-profit called Liberia Entrepreneurial and Asset Development, In the Name of Christ (LEAD, Inc). One part of LEAD's work these days is developing a research farm in Nimba County where 1) the viability of new crops and animals can can be tested and 2) improved methods for growing existing plants and animals already in the local economy can be experimented.
Liberian farmers can visit the farm, attend classes and even live there for short periods so that they can gain an understanding of these new concepts in a risk-free environment. You see, profit margins in the agricultural sector are so narrow that a failed crop would likely mean bankruptcy, so farmers are understandably averse to trying experimental methods on the crops and animals that they will need to sustain them for the coming months.
The research farm was built on 25 acres donated by a Liberian farmer and it already has a small pig barn and is growing a variety of crops. So far LEAD has trained 100 farmers but the it needs some basic items in order to train more farmers and to demonstrate other methods.
That's where you come in. We presented this as a year-end fundraiser to our networks and did well - big thanks to everyone who donated! - but we're still a little ways from our goal so I present it to you, my readers. We need people to help donate the remaining items needed; specifically grasscutters and beehives but also some other items.
Take a look at the current needs and see where you feel passionate and equipped to contribute. If none of those things call out to you, consider a contribution of any amount to the capital fund which will go toward a training center and dormitory, barns, farm tools, pickup truck, solar system, and a well.
Please take a moment to make a quick and easy donation with a credit card on our secure online giving page.
All the best,
Derek
FULL DISCLOSURE: If you donate a 'bee hive', the LEAD staff will straight-up be using that 50 bucks (minus a 5% Partners Worldwide admin fee) to go down the road and buy an actual bee hive. This is not child sponsorship, that bee hive is not 'representative' of a community being helped, and its not going to some operational budget; its a pig, bee hive, drip irrigation kit, etc. on a research farm in Northern Liberia that the LEAD staff will be using to teach farmers how to do it themselves. Now, if suddenly 30 bee hives get donated, but no grasscutters LEAD will use the money to buy as many pigs as are needed, and the extra for grasscutters or whatever is needed most.
