2019 shined so bright!
Happy New Year to all of our friends! 2019 has been a very busy year and YOU have had quite an impact on our services areas in Kibera, Kenya and Hidalgo, Mexico. The details will be in our 2019 Annual Report that will be published before the end of January, but we wanted to celebrate a few of the highlights as we step into 2020 with you tonight! Our team works hard every week throughout the year to carefully capture the data for you!
You have been instrumental in our Girls Empowerment, Women's Empowerment, Maridadi Skills classes, Shining Scholars Sponsorship and our newest opportunity of Shining Brighter Sponsorship with the Colleges and Universities in Kenya. Your partnership and support has allowed 1,225 lunches to be served in Girls Empowerment, 49 weeks of Girls Empowerment/98 hours of material to be delivered to 25-30 girls over the year, 9 Career Connection professionals visited/were presented to the girls, 4 field trips completed, the 1st cohort of Women's Empowerment completed, 360 packs of pads/180 soaps with washcloths issued to girls and women, safe space for the women and girls to meet, 47 weeks of income generating skill development with local master crafters and the needed supplies for the ladies to learn, continued scholarship for girls to remain in High School (we had three graduate this December! Thank you to all of our generous education sponsors!), we added additional High School partnerships, more scholars, and...... opened our Shining Brighter Scholar Sponsorship for College and University with you! Our first University scholar goes to campus for class January 6th with one more right behind her. The 2nd Shining Brighter Scholar came about this week, more info to come in our Annual Report on these new University relationships and scholars! We also conducted some research that we look forward to publishing once that is ready (possibly into a Journal!). In Mexico at the Women's Refuge, 80 pad packs/soaps/cloths were issued, 50 hrs of workshop delivered, basic needs support (food, clothing, supplies) issued to the Center, 25 pad packs and soaps issued to the ladies in the local prison, and two community outreaches with pads/soaps were conducted in Actopan by a Board Director and his wife. So much could be done because of your partnership and support, THANK YOU!
Our team would like to appreciate our partners and friends in the communities where we serve, together- we accomplish so much together and the overall voice on women's and girls empowerment issues continues to rise! Thank you to the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Inked Sisterhood (and all agencies and companies they work for), Ambitious Girls 254, La femme Coaching of Nairobi, NVS Team, Angaza Kids Foundation, Kambimoto Foundation, Women's Refuge, the ****** Prison Officials in Hidalgo, Mexico, and the Unknown Trucker who continues to carry supplies to the Refuge at no cost to us from the United States. We also would like to appreciate the many speaking engagement invitations and visits with various churches, Operation Smile, Backyard Buddies, and schools that were exploring our service areas.
Our Annual Report will offer so much more detail on these things, but we wanted to give you a quick snapshot of the impact you have had in 2019 as you bring in the new year- let's celebrate!
Happy New Year! Cheers to empowering women around the world to shine through economic and education opportunities! #Shine2020
