Africa Charity Project - People Website Donate Money

These pages comprise of correspondence with those who have provided suggestions and valuable insight for our Africa Charity Project. Uploaded on Dec. 1, 2009. Other Africa Charity Project correspondence pages.

Thank you for your email showing us your website and work - its lovely to hear that you are doing such great things!

Hi Donna,

thank you for your lovely and encouraging letter and I will be sure to approach the links you suggested. I'll respond to your points as I read them below.

You website is really good - I hope you don't mind that I do have a couple of suggestions or questions that might make it easier for people to help or get involved. Are you asking people to actually physically donate laptops, USB's etc to you, or do you want them to donate money so that you can buy them? It is not clear from the website, and I think that many more people would donate or help out if it was made very easy for them to do so - I couldn't find a 'donate' section where people can see all the ways they can help. I couldn't see any contact details which would be useful for you too.

You're right and I'm surprised I forgot about that.

Concerning the donation thing, I wrote in there that I could accept money and will donate 100% to the cause, and since I have run a translation agency for 15 years and know web programming, I'm sure I could make all sorts of fancy buttons and accept credit card payments etc. That is also a good idea, but for now this is more of a concept I wanted to throw out there and see what happens. If I had enough money I'd be prepared to start it on my own and drive to Kenya with my truck and start there, since I have some charity contacts there. Set up the project myself, fund the panels, find some volunteer interpreters, hit some villages and train the people myself. Use it as a pilot run and then use that as a template or something, and as an example for a sales pitch to snowball the concept, hopefully. For example I read that aid from the west is actually hurting the Africans more. They don't need or want to be spoon fed but want to become self sufficient. I think this is a great way to help them to do that and that the internet revolution should hit Africa over the next 5 to 10 years. I also once read that food aid from the US is doing a lot of harm. The US in its agricultural subsidy war against Europe is pumping tons of money and driving the price of its own food down. Then they dump second rate and genetically modified stock on Africa, calling it aid but driving many African farmers out of business because they cannot compete against these ridiculously low prices. Many say that the US is doing it on purpose as a sort of price dumping policy to leverage its future agricultural might. Like when the Japanese were dumping their cheap cars on the North American market, causing much problems to car manufacturers, and penetrating the market in this recognizably illegal way.

In any case, for now I'm just looking for feedback on my project and can adjust accordingly.

You say that you think many people would be willing to donate money, but how would I get to those people? My page is ranked high on google for "Africa charity project", but I can imagine so many people would be looking up those key words. That is why I thought I'd approach a bunch of charity organizations to see about networking somehow. I'm new at all this, so looking for any suggestions.

Okay, thanks for yours and I'll approach those organizations and see what they say.

Thanks for the happy thumbs up!

Greenpeace now have offices in 3 countries (Senegal, DRC and South Africa) on the African continent. You may want to ask them for some advice, although they are still small and new and extremely busy so they may take a while to get back to you! Here is the website: www.greenpeace.org/afrique/  Greenpeace may not be the most experienced people for you to ask about advice with your project, although we have tracked e-waste before, and installed solar panels on Mama Obama's roof! (see these pages for more info about this: www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/bringing-solar-power-mama-obama-20090902 www.greenpeace.org/international/footer/search?q=e-waste)  I recommend that you get in touch with the following organizations for further help as they are doing similar projects: Action Aid: www.actionaid.org.uk/ Practical Action: http://practicalaction.org/home WDM: www.wdm.org.uk/  And there are probably others.

You are very welcome to add a link to Greenpeace on our website - that would be much appreciated, and I will check with the rest of the Webteam to see if we are able to link to your site too.  I'm afraid we often have to say no to adding links to our site, even if we love what you are doing, just because there are so many environmental organizations out there that if we linked to all that were relevant our lists would be endless!  I'll let you know though.  Thanks again and I wish you loads of luck with your work,

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thank you for your response and I will check out your links, and look forward to any other input you may have.

Concerning my truck, as stated in my website, I've been living in it for the past three years, with solar panels on the roof, which gave me this idea in the first place. I would prefer to take it with me, as it is my beloved home. But I guess it would be dangerous to drive through Sudan etc.? Perhaps shipping it from Alexandria would be better?

Ethiopia sounds like a good place where I might try to start this project. Is there any internet through mobile phone? I need regular internet connection for my business.

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Ok. Just give me some time to find you suitable organization. But if there will be some emailing, will you pay money to these organization or you want charity organization.

Right now I'm leaning towards driving straight down to Kenya and setting up village bases in all the countries between, possibly including Syria. I will try to find some sponsors in Europe before I leave and fill up my truck a bit. I do not plan to pay anyone for emailing but am looking for organisations in each country to help me with networking an advice.

Following are the answers to your questions:

do you think this is a feasible idea?

# The idea is brilliant but I don't think I know about all African regions. As for what is written in the website; I see that bad guys will not leave civilians become dependant or will try to steal any of the equipment.Here in Egypt, I think your idea is perfect, and will find many organizations that will back you. As for Egyptians, you will find a fertalized land to plant skills and even you can find them aware a little bit. 

I am prepared to go down there myself and help this get off the
ground. Do you think it will be safe for me in my Mercedes diesel truck?

# As I mentioned above, I don't think so unless you get governments' approvals. Again, here in Egypt, you won't find a safer place but in this country and you will find many organizational activities everywhere.

do you think there is a danger that the villages might instead sell
the solar panels and equipment I give them in order to feed their
families?

# Absolutely. Do you think you're going to give these things without primary supervision or even without consulting governmental authorities on how to protect all these equipments. 

do you recommend any villages or areas of Africa where I should
start? Do you have any contacts there with which I can email in
advance to help set this up? 

# You can kick off in Sudan where you can find a more organized government there. Asking for my help, I think I can only provide you with necessary information here in Egypt only.

can you suggest any aid organization which could help my network?

# If in Egypt, yes.

do you have any suggestions how I could promote my concept to the
west, for support?

# you can use the concept of fighting any possible future extremist or terirorits; the idea of fighting poverty and spreading knowledge. Also, going from the point that Africa can be a better place where Western can invest and do other activities.

thank you very much for your detailed response and I will get back to you later once I process all these emails. If you can recommend any organisations in Sudan or Egypt for me to approach I an slowly start organising everything.

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about your questions:

do you think this is a feasible idea?

R:Yes it's feasible idea and very genuine

I am prepared to go down there myself and help this get off the ground. Do you think it will be safe for me in my Mercedes diesel truck?
R:The s country in Africa it's Tunisia(north africa)
But for countries like Cameroun, Gabon, Ghana (west africa),you should there have good knowledge of peoples and have a solid contact so you can be safe in your truck, and i think when you make a public Relation works with the officials authority to the land you chose to install your project and execute so this make you known and you will be safe in the country and you will not have problem sure. because you help peoples so peoples will help you.

do you think there is a danger that the villages might instead sell the solar panels and equipment I give them in order to feed their families?

R:Dangereous no, but give feed it's not also solution so you should learn thoses peoples how they can sell ,when you settle a supervisor in each village learn peoples how they can do for sell.

do you recommend any villages or areas of Africa where I should start? Do you have any contacts there with which I can email in advance to help set this up?

R:You have a lot of countries in Africa i give you for example:Gabon;Muritanie,Tunisia,Nigeria
yes i have some contacts there

can you suggest any aid organization which could help me network?

R i am working to have all thoses organisations inf

do you have any suggestions how I could promote my concept to the west, for support?

R:Like i told you ,you should work with official authority of the land you chose and you should make a public relation plan for promote accordignly your project with making solid contact with the officials authority 

thank you for your response, I will log your info and get back to you in the future. If you think of any further suggestions till then, I would be glad to hear them.

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Good morning to you and thank you for the email. Wow, thats something really good that you would like to do. I am based in South Africa, do you have an idea where in Africa would you like to do this?

after the responses I've received so far I am leaning towards driving down to Kenya from Bulgaria next year and setting up a village in Syria, Egypt and the other countries in between. Start there so far and expand to the rest of the continent from there. Have a year to research this. Any suggestions you might have would be great.

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hey there!

i am gonna send this all my friends, lets see if we can get some response for U!

i love the idea!!

i am afraid this couple of month i cannot help i am broke, but after that i would love to send U little bit money at least…

talk to you later, take good care, good luck!

hey Ilkin, good to hear from ya. No need to struggle with cash but passing onto friends is great cause it can lead to great things! I guess I already told you that I drove through Turkey and spent two years on the Turkish side of Cyprus? Love the people!

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Climate Friendly web enquiry    

Thanks very much for your email. I’ve also had a quick look at your website and it sounds a great idea.

However, unfortunately, we are not really in a position to help with either the tree-planting or laptop idea right now. Re tree-planting, although we too love trees, I’m afraid we have no expertise in this area as we only sell credits from renewable energy project verified by either VCS or Gold Standard. I wouldn’t really know where to look for sponsorship – perhaps the EU or World Bank? Or a corporate sponsor with interests in telcos and a desire to integrate something like this into their CSR strategies?

Sorry I can’t be of more assistance but it’s just not really our area.

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Thanks for your email and your interest in myclimate. Unfortunately we can't support you as your project ideas don't fulfil our criteria (http://www.myclimate.org/en/carbon-offset-projects/project-standard.html).

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Wanted to respond separately for this one. This is awesome – I’m glad you’re getting excited about this – that’s when good stuff happens ;-) I think immediately you just need to start moving and getting the word out. Later, think you want to take further steps to keep expanding the name and establishing your record. I.e. set up a non-profit. People are going to want to see something in return for their investment to you. Also, you probably want to be aware (and suggest) that people claim against their tax when they donate to you. I think you need to be an entity for this. Other thought in terms of expanding the word is that you can put together some brochures and talk to the churches on what you’re planning. I think if a church endorses you, it gives an added level of credibility. Anyway, these are just ideas. I think you’ve got a good plan, you probably want to do a combination of networking with like minded people, and just start moving. Things have a way of clicking together once you do so.

Let me know how this goes and if you need help!

heybro, thanks for the encouragement and will try to charge something more to the market rate. In the past I guess I always felt I was serving God better by charging a lower price, and assumed that everything would just fall into place, but I guess if I charge a fair market rate to regular clients and dedicate my resources and spare time to charity, I'm doing better. Gotta get into this frame of mind more.

Anyway, been getting really interesting responses concerning the Africa thing and slowly formulating a plan. Will update the website with all the responses, as search engines like this, and I think people will see that I'm actually doing something and enjoy the reading. Once that is done I figure I will have accomplished stage 2, which is to get a better idea of how to go about this and create some strategy.

Yes, I definitely want to be very transparent and show the first name, amount and date of any contributors, and then exactly where all the money will be spent. Not sure if I know what to do to become a registered charity but certainly is a good idea.

Perhaps if you could forward my email or post it at your church etc. for networking purposes only. Right now I'm trying to build things up from the bottom. Sure if someone wanted to donate I'd take it and store it in a special account I have set up for that, but for now I'm primarily interested in ideas and contacts to relevant organisations.

Man would it be SO cool to drive down to Kenya. All my people in Africa suggest that I contact the governments in every country to get their approval. Then they can help and maybe supply support in some way and they say I should be safer. I've also got some contacts for a Norwegian organisation which could donate used laptops, so things are happenin! But a year can certainly go by quickly so I want to keep on this.

Thanks for the input bro! k

Glad to man J don’t worry about the non-profit – when you feel you’re going to need it, I can help you with it. I’ll think about how to word this to the church audience. I think right now it’s more an informal “hey, my bro is doing xyz” to put the seeds out and potentially get some interest. When there’s more substance, I can approach with something more actionable. I could then use that as a template for approach to other churches or organizations in Europe. Let me know how this goes. I’ll try to help you as I can. Btw, we got Gracia a new laptop so her old one is up for this. You said you’re thinking open source? I could invest some time to help you put together an installation profile for your computers (I’m assuming you want to template it such that when you have to get into a support role down the road, it is easy for you to know what went wrong and fix it). Anyway – sounds awesome. Let me know how this goes!

yah, my eventual vision is that I/we etc. would set up the template computers with all my knowledge how to teach oneself PHP, get translations, design websites etc and everything to employ oneself, like I've been doing all these years, and then find translators to translate it locally for each country/language. It would be in English and then the other languages, so they could teach themselves English as well - very important obviously. I would be "on ground" to help them on hand, at their location. Would be so cool if I could get involved and hang out in little villages like that. Will send you a link to the website once I update it with all the info I've been collecting from others. Quite interesting stuff! :0)

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worldbank.org

Public-sector projects are financed through IBRD loans or IDA credits to governments that are members of the World Bank Group (WBG). The WBG lending arm for the private sector is the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest multilateral source of loan and equity financing for private sector projects in the developing world. The IFC participates in private sector projects financing in the developing countries and helps private companies in the developing world mobilize financing in international financial markets. To apply for IFC financing, please consult the following web page:

http://www.ifc.org/proserv/apply/application/application.html

Furthermore, we advise you to consult the African Project Development Facility (APDF) and African Management Services Company (AMSCO) websites. 

The African Project Development Facility (APDF) is a donor-funded facility which provides a full range of services to the African SME sector. It includes business advice and services. For additional information, please consult their website at:

http://apdf.ifc.org/index.htm

The African Management Services Company (AMSCO) supplies experienced managers and technical personnel to small and medium-sized private companies in Africa. Customized training services to local managers and staff are offered to upgrade their skills and improve performance and productivity of their company. For additional information, please consult their website at:

http://www.amsco.org/

Should you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Umou
Public Information Services Team
The World Bank: www.worldbank.org

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[email protected]

Thanks for your question. As much as it pains us to say it, we're probably not the best people to answer it. Because we have a small support staff, we try to focus on our real area of expertise: TerraPass, our carbon reduction projects, and our customers.

The good news is that the web is a great place to find everything you're looking for. Here are some pointers to sites that we use most often:

http://www.grist.org

Grist is an accessible source of environmental news and commentary.

http://www.realclimate.org

RealClimate is a blog written by actual climate scientists, intended for a general audience. It can get pretty technical, but it's an incomparable resource for getting up-to-the-minute analysis of scientific topics.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/

"The Discovery of Global Warming" is an online book that provides a fantastic overview of global warming. Check out the "links" section of the site for further pointers.