Humanize the Earth!

Chris Flomo funding request (draft)

Once I get all of the current round of fundraising requests organized, I need to decide goals for each one (how much I’m willing to ask for each one). This one is higher than the funding I’ve raised so far, but they do have a large number of people involved. This will of course need to be balanced with what the other teams need.

Dear Ted,

peace, force and joy we do greet you and chicago humanist. we the members of chris team continue towork effectively on camp recruiting people into the movement. we are also undergoing a sanitation project,educating every residents of camp buduburam.ted, the camp is presently occupied with approximately 45 thousand liberians refugees and other nationales.about 95% of the said number are not yet being inform of sanitation education in the camp.owing to this predicament comfronting them(better health), inorder to meet better healththere is a ned and cost of living on camp. at this time we deem it necessary to implement the sanitation project which will eventually give rise to better and healthy community. sanitation educationinto the community that will help to minize the said if not eradicated. with the help of this project which aims of providing better health in camp buduburam, aleast of the 95%, 80% will be provided sanitation knowledge.we have alread y begun the project by ourselves volunteerly by sprying drainages, bathrooms toilets etc. we are also educating people about the humanist movement how to surpass those endeavour. for more encouragement and evidence to yuo and the chicago humanist, here are some of our works photo graphs:

Therefore, we plead to the humanist branch of chicago to please compensate our team with the following materials inorder to speed up our works. materials they as follows:

sprying cans ………….4 @600,000 =2,400,000

wheel barrows………..5 @600,000= 3,000,000

shovels…………….10 @ 40,000 =400,000

rakes……………...10 @ 40,000 = 400,000

gloves……………20pairs @20,000=400,000

masks ………..20 pairs @20,000 =400,000

rain boots…….12pairs @55,000= 660,000

TOTAL: 7,660,000 cedis

convertion in us dollars: 859.00

categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement fundraising

Beatrice Brown team report (draft)

Beatrice has never sent me an email, and on this trip I found out why. She has no typing experience and hasn’t used a computer before. We made arrangements with her team for people to help her communicate with me and learn to use the computer herself over time.

This is a small team, but they have started a garden project and have already harvested some items. Beatrice has 6 members working directly with her and 16 total members in the council in 4 separate groups. They submitted the following:

Brief History & an Appeal

The six members of this project started in the month of July 28, 04 gearing toward been self sustainable In view of the foregoing, we started by molding mud bricks and renting of tools, such as shovels, diggers and rake. In this direction we were able to mold one thousand two hundred (1,200) mud bricks at the rate of five hundred cedis per bricks which amounted to six hundred thousands cedis (c600,000) [ed: ~US$70], but due to the hard labour involved, we decided to look toward agriculture production. We got in contact with the land owner (Ghanian) who land is situated between the estate and the refugee camp. A six feet well was dug to water the garden in two hard working days to complete. This include corn, pepper, beans, palava sauce, okra and etc.

To get our project started, we spent the c600,000 this way:

Seeds (corn 15,000, pepper 15,000, beans 15,000, palava sauce 13,000, potatoe greens 10,000, okra 10,000, pumpkin 5,000)	83,000
Tool Rental 48,000/day x 7 days (once per week) (they said 420,000) wheelbarrow 1x 6,000 =6,000 cutlasses 3×3,000=9,000 hoes 4×3,000=12,000 shovals 2×3,000=6,000 diggers 2×3,000=6,000 rakes 3×3,000=9,000	336,000
drinking water 4,000/day x 7 days	28,000
food (rice/oil) 10,000 x 7 days (once per week)	70,000
Total (they said 600,000)	517,000

Due to the hard cost of renting tools, we are therefore appealing to your organization to please help us to purchase our own tools to extend the garden to a full farm. The tools needed are:

tools	Qty	unit price	amount
wheel barrow	2	500,000	1,000,000
Cutlasses	6	35,000	210,000
Hoes	6	20,000	120,000
rain boots	6	100,000	600,000
Hand glove	6	35,000	210,000
Rakes	3	25,000	75,000
spraying cans	4	680,000	2,720,000
Shovels	3	50,000	150,000
water cans	4	120,000	480,000
grand total			5,565,000	[ed: ~US$630]

The spraying cans will not only be used for the garden, but also for sanitation purpose like spraying the drainages, bathrooms and toilets to help prevent some diseases like diarrhea, cholera and malaria on the refugee camp.

In view of the above, we are appealing to your good organization to help us get our tools so as to make our dream come through. We are at the verge of harvesting our crops and we are expecting to hear from you as soon as possible to enlarge the garden to a farm. We will be very much glad to see you come visit us on our farm in the future.

Beatrice in Garden 2004-1
Beatrice in Garden 2004-2

Thanks,
Sincerely Yours,
Six Members
Attested by Beatrice Browne (signature)

I took this photo of Beatrice’s team at garden 27 November 2004

Once I get all of the current round of fundraising requests organized, I need to decide goals for each one (how much I’m willing to ask for each one). This one is way high given the number of people involved, but even a small amount will go a long way with this team.

categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement fundraising

ted’s bike

I took this because I still had one photo left on the camera after my Nov 2004 trip to Ghana. Plus, I wanted to show the people in Ghana the snow on the ground outside my house. I’m also pleasanly surprised to see how reflective my reflective tape is. Good stuff.
categories: bike transportation

Ghana photos

Sampson with No Dumping signboard 2004

Not sure what the best way is to display these 51 photos (just picked one to show here), but they’re now all in a flickr group.

Maybe I’ll write separate blog posts for the various groups and what they’re doing. About half the photos are from one group (the one we raised the tip jar money for) so I can’t see displaying them all on the blog, but maybe a choice few and then a link to the flickr page?

Any advice or ideas?

categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement

More from Ghana trip (unfinished draft)

There are seven people in the camp working with me directly. Each of them has a team. I will go through them one by one to tell what I know about each team as well as what I saw during the November 2004 trip to Ghana.

Sampson Nugba

Sampson’s team was the one to send me the photo of the clean-up campaign that led to the Tip Jar for Shovels & Wheelbarrows. I sent them US$250 and they bought various tools (see budget). I visited this team’s Saturday action where they had about 25 people cleaning up a certain area of the camp. See photos. One point that really struck me was the fact that there were many more tools in evidence than what was purchased with the $250. We bought one wheelbarrow, for example, and 3 were in use. Same with rakes, shovels and cutlasses. This tells me that not only did they begin the project without financial help from the outside, they are continuing to maximize resources brought to bear on any particular day. Sampson’s council has at least 7 teams and at total of at least 130 people.

Chris Flomo

Chris’s team is now acting without him present as he has left for Liberia to put documents in order so that he may exercise his option to move to the US as he has won the annual Diversity Visa Lottery. This team gave me photos of them doing clean-up campaigns in the past as well as a requested budget for fundraising (see budget). Boimah Sombai is one of Chris’s team members and he himself orients a council with at least 6 teams and some 100+ members. Chris’s council has a total of 11 teams with over 160 members. Boimah submitted this proposal.

Prince Eric Yengbe

Since I’ve known him, Prince has had a lot of health trouble and thus has not been very active. He did not have any active projects for me to visit during this trip. He did register more than 100 members in at least 13 groups while I was there, however. These teams would like to carry about a campaign to clean up a certain area of drainage in their zone.

Beatrice Browne

Oretha Johnson

Oretha has been working more or less alone with a group of children in her area. She tutors them and has organized them into a choir that is much-sought-after to perform for special events. They have also won performance awards. She seeks to mobilize more members to expand these activities. She registered 12 members while I was there.

Benjamin Witherspoon

Benjamin is the Zonal Head for Zone 10 in the camp. He is very highly respected in the community and finds himself involved in all aspects of camp life. His influence was instrumental in Sampson’s team’s ability to secure tools to begin their campaign even before any fundraising. He has at least 41 members in at least 4 groups.

Alvin Zweh

Alvin has 13 members currently registered.

categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement

Malaria Campaign Tip Jar report #1

categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement

10. The Principle of Solidarity

Tonight Gerry and I spent a lot of time on all sorts of issues that I can’t remember. Then John came home and we talked about a bunch of other stuff. I think my jet lag is still getting me down because I’m really sleepy and couldn’t focus well. Eventually we decided to simply pick a principle for next week’s meeting so I could publicize the meeting with a topic. We chose the Principle of Solidarity:

“When you treat others as you would have them treat you, you liberate yourself.”

We talked a bit about what this might mean. It doesn’t say to treat the other how they want to be treated, though it’s possible it could be read that way anyway. In any event, will you join us at my place next Thursday at 7 to share personal experiences about this principle? Or share experiences in the comments?

Categories: Principles of Valid Action Humanist Movement

recent family photos

Skylar Ernst (niece)
Judy (mom) & Skylar Ernst
Max Ernst (nephew)
Chris (brother) Andie (sister-in-law) Max & Skylar Ernst
category: family