KIDS FOR KIDS New Projects

Latest news from Darfur:

KIDS FOR KIDS is not only the only charity created specifically to help the children of Darfur long term, but the Trustees have now signed a three year Project Agreement for a minimum of £500,000. This will provide the training for 30 new KIDS FOR KIDS villages, PLUS the provision of goats and donkeys to 10% of the families in each community - enabling over 64,000 people to stay in their homes.

The training we provide is essential if our projects are to be long term. Communities run them themselves, selecting (with our guidance and using criteria we agree together) committees which are answerable to the village as a whole. Training covers accountability, book keeping, animal husbandry, running a revolving veterinary drug scheme - and much more. This ensures long term sustainability.

We are now seeking support for all the other things we need to give these new KIDS FOR KIDS families, - over 10,694 of them - living in desperate conditions, enabling them to to help themselves.

VILLAGES SPONSORED INDIVIDUALLY - because the aim of our combined projects is to transform each individual community you can now sponsor a whole village. So far four villages have been entirely sponsored by donors in the UK and Saudi Arabia, and the funds for four more are being raised.

Additional to the major Core Commitment of £500,000 we have already agreed two further projects, one for tree seedlings and the other for blankets. Our Chairman, Patricia Parker, was horrified to find that many families now have no bedding at all. We are seeking 2 blankets for each family, in all our 52 villages. This, on its own, is an enormous amount of money to seek. The first agreement is for 3000 blankets for 1500 homes.

CAN YOU ADD TO YOUR SHOPPING LIST £27 FOR TWO BLANKETS PLEASE!

We are aiming to provide goat loans (we lend 6 goats for two years, after which the family passes on 6 first born offspring to another family, and so on, providing an asset for the whole village) donkey loans and all the things on our Gift List (please see the How to Help page).

The Core Project will help 64,162 people in 10,694 families across 30 new KIDS FOR KIDS VILLAGES.

This is in addition to the existing 22 KIDS FOR KIDS VILLAGES. 

The Core Project covers our basic training and assistance both for new and existing areas.

It is not easy at the best of times ensuring projects run in such a remote region, and the continuing violence creates endless problems. Recently for example there was no telephone or internet communication outside El Fasher, North Darfur.  Can you imagine what this would do to the economy, say of Edinburgh, if communications broke down.  There is no railway to El Fasher and it is hundreds of miles by road to Khartoum.

It is not just the economy which suffers, it is families.  Not to hear if you are away from home that a child is born or, tragically, that violence has touched your family, and that you need help - is a frightening consequence of this severance of communication.  Darfur is so isolated telephones and computers are vital in the towns.  People walk miles to make a 'phone call.

BUT the worrying news is that the price of animals is still going up. This is very bad news for families in Darfur. Goats in November were fetching £22.50 during the Trustees' visit. In February 2008 it was even higher with a Nanny goat in Fasher fetching £35. IIf we are to be able to fund all that we have been asked for we will have to raise the donations we ask for. £15 is no longer the market price, even when prices are at their lowest.