| Dear supporters,
Since 2007, we’ve been partnering with Liberian community organizations to help them be agents of positive change in the lives of the vulnerable children they serve. We’ve been assisting organizations to deliver quality services, create jobs and contribute to strengthening the communities they belong to. Over the years, we’ve strived to find the best ways to assist community leaders, without creating patterns of dependency. 
Thanks to your support, for example, we’ve been able to work with the Carolyn A. Miller school in the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana and in Monrovia to design and implement a school nutrition initiative (SNI). The SNI is about more than providing daily meals, though. We’ve been strong supporters of the Carolyn A. Miller school, and Niapele has been assisting them in navigating complex bureaucracies over the years.
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HapFam and the Carolyn A. Miller School receive world encyclopedias from Mission to Liberia >> read more Stump the Press! A Trivia Fundraising Event for NewLiberian.com - October 7th in San Diego, CA >> read more |
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| Happy Family Center for Children with Disabilities The Niapele Project is proud to support HapFam, the first Liberian community-based organization focused on the needs of children with disabilities. Founded and staffed by parents of disabled children, this community center offers these typically marginalized children a chance to get an education, and learn how to socialize and play with peers. HapFam focuses on teaching autonomy and “life-skills” to their students, and emphasize the role of parents and community in breaking the taboo around disability. Read more |
School Nutrition Initiative In 2009-2010, we provided daily meals to the 400+ students of the Carolyn A. Miller School and 60 MCF scholarship students at loca schools in Monrovia.
This initiative is based on the principles of utilizing local resources: the food crops are sourced from small-holder farmers in Liberia; the Liberian kitchen staff is trained by a local nutritionist. The daily meal is meant to cover 1/3 of the nutritional needs of the children, and has been designed to respect traditional Liberian fare and offer the students all of the macro and micro nutrients they need.
Niapele is working to make this successful pilot project an adaptable model for community-based school feeding programs in Liberia. Read more |
Malaya
Malaya is a women-led organization in Bong Mines, a remote town in central Liberia. Many in the former mining town lost their livelihoods as a result of war, and faced chronic poverty. This organization was created by a group of local men and women wanting to empower women economically so that they could once again contribute to the development of their community and educate their children.
Malaya has a group of women farmers who work together to produce and sell food crops to generate enough profits for reinvestment.
Our work with Malaya focuses on improving their capacity to manage their agricultural activities and become reliable suppliers. Through this, we support a holistic approach to helping vulnerable children, one which embraces the notion that whole communities - and particularly women - must be lifted out of poverty for children to grow up in dignity. Read more |
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| Fostering sustainable community-based organizations
During the 2009-2010 school year, the School Nutrition Initiative employed five people and provided a daily meal to 400 children every school day. The Carolyn A. Miller school is a small grassroots organization and it has in fact struggled to stay open over the years. The SNI has been a cornerstone of their stability, and has acted as a strong incentive for school attendance. The parents consistently report on how important the SNI has been and how much this means to a community where parents often have a difficult time putting food on the table.
We also helped launch the first community-based center for children with disabilities, which is managed by the parents of a disabled child. Niapele finance the rental and renovation of a dedicated building for HapFam, and we’ve been consistently supporting them financially and through capacity building.
As of September 2010, HapFam is welcoming 16 children ages 2 to 18, and they have finalized their non-profit organization status and accreditation as a service provider under the National Union of Disabled Organizations.
Helping foster sustainable community organizations in post-conflict environments is a complex and timely undertaking, which requires patience and flexibility. We continue to learn from experience, and seek to integrate the lessons from trial and error into our work. But we are proud of the accomplishments of our partner organizations, who, in spite of difficult constraints, continue to have a positive impact. |
Working towards long-term impact with local ownership At the heart of all our work lies the notion of sustainability, and we believe that our flexibility as a small organization keeps us on track by enabling us to be responsive and adaptive. Working toward long term impact with local ownership with resource constrained community organizations requires patience and a willingness to be open and attentive.
Our strategy has to evolve based on the realities in the field, and also the reality of our fundraising. The School Nutrition Initiative has been a very successful pilot project with the Carolyn A. Miller school. However, there are challenges that we need to manage. We are commited to delivering a program that the school and community can manage and implement and take complete local ownership. This fall, we need to pause the provision of meals for a semester to ensure that all stakeholders are engaged and able to contribute. Real change - Zuannah's Story
We continue to support HapFam, a small organization full of potential that is truly changing lives. When classes res umed last week, the director of HapFam reported that the father of one of their students, Zuannah, had developed a new-found respect for his son. Where previously Zuannah’s family had considered him a burden, there had been a slow, progressive turn around: Zuannah’s father bought him a pair of shoes, something he would not have spent money on before. HapFam is demonstrating that fighting stigma and discrimination at the community level is an effective means for change, and Niapele is working to promote this model and encourage the replication of these efforts. Zuannah
In order to accomplish all of these objectives and continue to work in the spirit of partnership and sustainability with community-based organizations in Liberia, we also have to spend time focusing on strengthening our own operations and structure. We need to invest in human resources in Liberia and some minor program capital assets: renting a decent office, buying a vehicle, offering decent salaries to our field staff. These are the critical underpinnings of our work, and it allows us to continue making a difference and deliver quality programs in Liberia.
None of the work accomplished over the last 3 1/2 years could have happened with your support. Your generosity makes it all possible. Thank you.
Penelope and The Niapele Project team.
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| For mail-in donations, please send a check made out to "The Niapele Project"
243 5th avenue, #412
New York, NY 10016
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