I am so pleased to announce that SEEDS has won The Awesome Foundation-Lusaka Grant.We received this message on September 3,2014 “Thanks for applying to the Awesome Foundation Lusaka! We love what your organisation is doing and we’re really keen to support you and your goals so I am writing you to let you know that your submission was selected as the most outstanding idea in August.
There are many chapters of The Awesome Foundation around the world but we received our $600USD for SEEDS from the Lusaka chapter.
Have a look!
http://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/chapters/lusaka
Thank you so much to The Awesome Foundation for all the great work you do!
This came at a most appropriate time as our borehole was not working. Two weeks after I came home from building our Tree Nursery and Resource Garden ( May 2014) I received a text from Fredrick that the bore hole pipes had collapsed and they could not use it.
This bore hole was vital to SEEDS as it was our means of watering the tree seedlings and vegetable garden. Not to mention that it also serviced many people who had come up from the flooded plain to live during the rainy season (Oct.-May) and were waiting for the waters to subside so they could go back to the plain to grow their gardens (July-Sept) .
Fredrick had to buy water in big blue drums to water everything. Money which he didn’t have.
I was here in Canada trying to source the money to pay for the repairs.
The Awesome Foundation has come to our rescue so now we can get the bore hole repaired.
When I was in Mongu it had crossed my mind to open a SEEDS bank account for our manager Fredrick and assistant manager Matindo. I would have but I ran out of money while there. It is so hard not to give and we had a lot of things to accomplish.
As time was getting short and Fredrick had to use the water he bought to keep the vegetable garden a live, the tree seedlings suffered. Eventually I told Fredrick to start giving them away to people who could look after them.
Unfortunately there were many that died. I am hoping that when the rains come in October they will start to sprout again. At least we will reuse the black planting bags from the seedlings that don’t survive
Here are some of the tree seedlings when they were in good shape.
The Awesome Foundation understands the logistics of doing things in Zambia so they kindly sent the funds to Fredrick via the Shoprite ( only grocery store in Mongu) delivery driver. When there is a will and no postal service, there is a way!
Fredrick received the money on Sept. 16th and immediately went to make arrangements to repair the borehole.
So we shall hear from Fredrick and hopefully receive some pictures when the borehole is repaired.
Here are the pictures of the seedlings that we were unable to water. This is why we need that bore hole water during the dry season!
Thanks again The Awesome Foundation-Lusaka!
