Reaching the Goal for African Children Inc

Throughout Africa, far too many children are in desperate need of the fundamentals of life: food, shelter, clothing, schooling, and security. Much of this is caused by natural phenomena; for example, the country of Namibia has just experienced its worst drought in 30 years, destroying crops and livestock, as well as backup reserves of food. The government of Namibia was overwhelmed by the crisis and was unable to get food and other needed supplies to all who needed it. In addition, rampant disease from such things as HIV/AIDS and malaria continue to take their toll on children, striking both the children themselves and their parents. Living conditions in many places in Africa are characterized by their extreme poverty, lack of running water, lack of employment opportunities, and a generally depressed environment.

These conditions inevitably lead to children taking to the streets to try to find food and shelter, looking for some kindness to sustain them or stealing when they have to. Many drop out of school at an early age, or never go to school at all, ensuring that the cycle of poverty continues.

Our long-term goal is to rescue as many street children in Africa as possible, provide them with food and shelter, clothe them, get them enrolled in school, and in general, support their efforts to live decent lives.

We are starting with one district in one area in one country: the settlement of Kehemu in the town of Rundu in the country of Namibia. We know this area and are very familiar with its situation. We have set up a network of people in Kehemu and Rundu to help us identify needy children, distribute the money and the other resources we send, and then monitor the children's progress.

We visit the area often, in order to maintain strong ties and support. In addition, we are in very frequent touch with both our partners and the children themselves through means such as Skype, email, and Facebook.

In addition to making sure that we are distributing our charity's resources to the right people in the right ways for the right purposes, we are also dedicated to maximizing those resources through fundraising. We use personal contact, direct mail, and email to inform our donors and potential donors, and we maintain a highly informative and impactful website.

These are all expandable strategies, as long as we work with the right people in Africa. As our fundraising grows, we plan to expand our work to reach as many children as possible. Our yearly target is a 10 percent growth rate.

We are a very small organization, having just begun a short time ago. But we are very dedicated to our task. We keep very accurate records, stay in constant contact with our African partners, closely monitor the progress of each child being helped, and keep our expenses to the absolute minimum.

We believe that our experience in living and teaching in Africa has helped inform us as to the tremendous needs of the children, and that this is invaluable in keeping us motivated to succeed.

We started by supporting 11 children in Kehemu, including making sure they are eating regular meals, living under shelter, wearing clean clothes that are not rags, and going to school. As our fundraising increases, the number of children we support increases.

We are trying to be more creative about fundraising. We use the Amazon Smile Foundation and iGive to raise funds as a side benefit to online purchasing. We also tried a new approach this past year involving partnering with another organization to collect old shoes. This worked moderately well, and we will continue to look at other options.