Our Programs
A HOUSE FOR MARIAM
Having experienced these appalling living conditions first hand, Louise returned to Los Angeles and began raising funds to construct a new home for the family. The response from OBC supporters was fantastic and in a few months we were able to employ a subcontractor to complete the work on the new house.
Mariam, her Jjaja and her siblings now have what many of us take for granted – decent shelter. HIV positive Mariam now has a chance to grow-up and to live a long, healthy life. She takes her daily meds in the evening and when she hears the birds sing in the morning. She wants to go to school to get knowledge. Now she will be able to do that and she thanks you from the bottom of her heart.
Like many families in Africa impacted by HIV/AIDS, Mariam’s Jjaja has lost 10 of her 11 children. She is struggling to raise her grandchildren and provide a daily meal – not three just one. Many children no longer have families and are forced to fend for themselves or live in child headed households. By donating or buying a bracelet you enable us to assist many children like Mariam.
In less than a year, your bracelet purchases, and donations helped raise $4000 to build a home for Mariam! Thanks to your support, Mariam and her family are now living in their much needed new home.
On a visit to Uganda in 2009, OBC founder Louise Hogarth met AIDS orphan Mariam, her four siblings and their grandmother. Since the death of their parents to AIDS, Mariam’s elderly Jjaja (granny) had been caring for the children with hardly any money. The family was living in little more than a mud shack with a sparsely thatched roof.
The nearly pitch-black interior of the little house was reminiscent of a cave. The shack provided little ventilation, especially in the baking heat of the Ugandan summer, causing frequent respiratory ailments and general bad health for the family. The makeshift dwelling was also in danger of collapsing during the next rainy season.
CRAFTER TRAINING PROGRAM
Women living with HIV/AIDS handcraft the bracelets offered for sale through the Orphan Bracelet Campaign. The OBC currently employs and manages 60 women operating out of 12 groups of crafters (co-ops) in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. When bracelet sales increase we employ additional crafters in Kwazulu Natal and the Free State. Each group participates in our training program.
During the initial months and on an ongoing basis, the OBC provides these co-ops with the tools, materials and training necessary to establish small micro-businesses. Before their training begins, we conduct an initial skills assessment to determine each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. Some of the topics covered during the training program include: managing a bank account, establishing legal entities, protecting their businesses against theft, and establishing other income streams. Several groups of crafters have gone from having no personal banking experience to applying for loans, to starting second businesses such as local laundry services and sewing school uniforms.
By purchasing these bracelets you are providing a living wage to these women, as well as two meals a day for children participating in our feeding programs. Bracelet purchases also establish permaculture gardens in communities and schools and provide housing to select orphanages.
PERMACULTURE GARDENS
The Orphan Bracelet Campaign has six permaculture gardens for four different community groups helping children. Your bracelet purchases pay for seedlings, fruit trees, permaculture training, tools and equipment needed to support the nutritional needs of these children and to increase the self-sufficiency in these communities.
These gardens not only provide essential nutrition for vulnerable communities and children, they also improve the self-reliance of these communities.
Emmanuel Food Center
Located in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the Emmanuel Food Center feeds 400-700 children daily. Though some of these children are not orphans, their families are desperately poor and they are classified as vulnerable by the South African government. Although government supports programs to help vulnerable children, they don’t directly provide funding for food programs. The OBC helps to supplement these government programs through the building of permaculture gardens, that provide an additional food source. We have built three gardens in various locations to help feed the children.
African Gospel Church
The OBC runs its own daily food program for up to 200 vulnerable children from the African Gospel Church near Port Alfred. To assist this program we established a large permaculture garden on the church grounds. Many of the children who come here for food are HIV/AIDS infected and require up to three meals per day to maintain good health.
Molly Bam Orphanage
Molly Bam, commonly known in the Alexandria Community as the Alex Angel, has been operating this orphanage with the help of her husband Niels for more than 18 years. They care for abandoned, abused, orphaned and physically challenged children without the benefit of funding from the South African government. The OBC planted their permaculture garden which helps to feed up to 100 orphaned children and another 100 children from the village every day.
Granny Gladys
Gladys is one of the grandmothers the OBC supports. She cares for six orphaned children, most of whom are not related to her. We built a small garden for Gladys, which includes fruit trees, to help her feed these children. In addition, we recently built a much needed roof for their house.
GRANDMOTHERS WE SUPPORT
In South Africa thousands of grandmothers have become the sole caretakers of grandchildren from their own children who have died of AIDS. Some of these grannies have lost all their children and so take care of a collective of grandchildren, often with measly or no income at all. The OBC supports two of these remarkable grandmothers through your donations and bracelet purchases.
Elmina, is an OBC bracelet crafter. On her own she supports ten children. What makes her case even more inspiring is that none of these children are related to her. Although Elmina earns an income through the bracelets she crafts for the Orphan Bracelet Campaign, this is not enough to meet the needs of the children in her care.
The money we receive from bracelet sales provides a small monthly stipend to feed Elmina’s extended family. Elimina can be seen with OBC founder Louise Hogarth in the photo collage. To her left are some of the children she takes care of. Bracelet making is a family affair in Elmina’s home and a time to get the whole brood around the dinner table.
Elmina and her kids making bracelets
Gladys (top photo collage: second from left) is Pinky’s grandmother. This AIDS orphan has become one of the faces of the OBC and she featurs on many of our posters and promotional materials. Gladys takes care of Pinky and Nosipo who was orphaned at age two. Thanks to an OBC financial donation Gladys was able to take Nosipo to a clinic where it was discovered that she was suffering from 80% hearing loss. The OBC further offered financial support for the operation to correct this and Nosipo now has perfect hearing.
Through your donations and bracelet purchases, the OBC hired a builder to build a much needed new roof for Pinky & Nosipo’s home, after their roof began leaking severely. We also donated a washing machine to help ease Gladys’ daily work load. With ongoing support from the OBC the family tends their own permaculture garden, which includes fruit trees. Their garden supplies much of their daily fresh food requirements.
MOLLY BAM ORPHANAGE
With the money raised from bracelet sales the Orphan Bracelet Campaign supports the work of several orphanages. OBC recently completed building a new wing at the Molly Bam Orphanage in Alexandria, South Africa. The OBC provides monthly financial support to the Molly Bam orphanage, which cares for abandoned, abused, orphaned and physically challenged children. The orphanage supports up to 80 children, 15 of which are infants.
The new wing for the orphanage includes a large living room, two large bedrooms and a bathroom designed especially to care for the many babies taken in by Molly Bam. The large bedrooms are necessary to accommodate the many rows of cribs required by the orphan babies. At a total cost of approximately $9,400 (ZAR 72,000), the new wing also includes a kitchen for food preparation.
In addition to the new wing, the OBC also planted a permaculture garden at the orphanage. The garden helps to provide a healthy diet for the children while teaching them how to grow their own food. Labor to build the garden was provided by locals, but bracelet purchases helped to fund the tools, supplies, seedlings, water tanks and other items necessary for this sustainability project. The total cost to establish the garden was approximately $730 (ZAR 5,600).
The OBC also recently facilitated the donation of a computer to the orphanage and soon the children will start a computer training course.
PINKY’S HOUSE GETS A NEW ROOF
Through the food program in Port Alfred, the Orphan Bracelet Campaign staff learned of a local woman named Gladys, who cares for six orphaned children. One of these children is Pinky, Glady’s grandchild whom she has cared for since infancy and who is featured on one of our postcards.
According to OBC staff, Gladys’ house was in need of a new roof. The roof leaked profusely during the rainy season. There were pots, pans, tin cans, etc., in every room of the house, used to catch the falling rainwater. There was not a dry spot in the house, including the children’s beds. As a result, the children were often sick and unable to attend school.
Thanks to your support, Pinky and her family now have their new roof and a dry house, too. And she is back in school. In addition, we planted a small permaculture garden for Gladys, which includes fruit trees, so they will always have food to eat.
We also gave Gladys a washing machine to help with the never-ending laundry required to clothe six children.
With the help of your bracelet purchases we continue to provide monthly financial support to help Gladys with expenses for the children she so unselfishly cares for.
Gladys excited over new roof sheets