Village Roundup: January 2023

Founder's note

Every month I sit down and put together a brief roundup of notable events that happened within Kwanda to share with villagers.

If you're reading this as a villager, everything you see here is made possible by your commitment to philanthropy.

Something I always ask myself is: "If everyone acted as I did, would the world be more interesting, kinder and love-filled?". I'm excited to be marching in that direction through this platform and with all of our villagers.

I hope you enjoy January's roundup. It's been a strong start to the year for us.

🛖 Proverb of the month

Do not call the forest that shelters you a jungle.

🚀 We're looking for growth / marketing people to join Kwanda.

We're about to start pushing heavily on the funding of projects, and we'll need the capital to keep up with that, so we're also looking to make a push to get more villagers to join Kwanda. We'll need some growth / marketing expertise on the Kwanda team to do that.

Are any villagers with experience in growth / marketing willing to join the team and volunteer a few hours a week to help grow Kwanda? There's also a path to compensation if we can get tangible results.

If this sounds like you, please reach out to us at work@kwanda.co, and we can provide more information.

🇺🇬 We're donating £2,400 to buy sewing machines and starter kits for 12 girls in Uganda.

Earlier this month, we voted 'Yes' to funding Youth Link Network's sewing program, which provides girls who are not in education, employment, or training with technical skills in sewing and financial literacy.

Tomorrow (Monday), we'll be wiring the funds over to them and tracking the updates here.

🧘🏿 Under our partnership with The Empowerment Group, three people are now receiving free therapy.

This month we announced our partnership with The Empowerment Group, who will be a collaborator in our ongoing efforts to subsidise or deliver free mental health treatments to those who can't afford them.

We kicked off the partnership by giving them £1,500, which they have used to place three people in therapy. These beneficiaries began therapy sessions on the 16th of January and are scheduled to complete them by the 24th of March.

📱 Apple pay support is coming to Kwanda

🇸🇱 Micro-loans in Sierra Leone have been a huge success

I'm going to be speaking with Munafa tomorrow about extending or continuing this project long-term, of course, subject to vote by villagers.

🇿🇦 Kick-off delays to our water pipeline repair project in South Africa.

Unfortunately, there have been some delays in kicking off this work due to recent unrest in the community. However, materials have been sourced, and the machinery needed to dig the trenches is on standby as we wait for things to calm down.

🇳🇬 Having to cancel our proposed project in Nigeria

In January, we voted 'Yes' to launch a project in 🇳🇬 Nigeria to purchase 15 computers for two poorly resourced schools in Lagos.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out with our potential partner, and we can no longer move forward with this initiative 😔. Launching our first partnership in Nigeria would have been nice, but we'll find another opportunity soon!

🪶 Signing off

Thanks for taking the time to read through this roundup.

If you think the work we do here is helpful, please spread the word, and help us reach more people. The power is in our numbers.

Take care!