Archive for the ‘Empowerment’ Category

Leaving an Impact

Posted: March 21, 2023 by Patrice Miles in African School, C.A.R.E. Africa, Child Sponsorship, Core Values, Egbe, Egbe Nigeria, Empowerment, Fundraising, Miles In Missions, Nigeria, Orphans, People of Egbe, Sponsorship
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There are many ways we can impact lives across the globe and truly make a difference. DonorSee is one of those platforms and what a blessing it has been to the ministry. A couple of months ago, I did a blog on how DonorSee emerged as a platform and eventually upscaled to impact hundreds of lives in 38 different countries, see Why DonorSee?

It has been two years since C.A.R.E. Africa came on board the platform, and now we have a community that is familiar with the ministry and has given us the opportunity to impact the lives of our children, staff, and the community at large!

You truly get to see lives transformed and improved on DonorSee. We have been able to empower some of our caretakers through the community from DonorSee, maintain our ministry vehicles, send our children to computer camp, and even assist with several community needs. I have included pictures of some of those funded projects below.

Ever since C.A.R.E. joined the platform, we have been able to raise $81,093, of which many of you reading this have contributed to that number. We are thankful that we can utilize a platform such as DonorSee to positively impact so many lives.

Would you like to see more of what God has been doing at C.A.R.E Africa through DonorSee? I have included links to some of the projects that are currently still waiting to be funded on DonorSee.

Check out these new videos on DonorSee

Do join us in this journey of impacting the lives of families in Egbe Nigeria and beyond!

C.A.R.E. Africa Core Values, Empower

Posted: August 18, 2022 by Patrice Miles in African School, C.A.R.E. Africa, Child Sponsorship, Core Values, Egbe Nigeria, Empowerment, Miles In Missions, Nigeria, People of Egbe, Seamstresses
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By Jolene Eicher,

Over the next few weeks, we want to share C.A.R.E. Africa’s core values with you. We hope it will resonate with similar values you use in your own life and that of your family/friends.

EMPOWER
Empower describes the process of change wherein an individual with a prior inability to choose has the access and freedom to make choices (Kabeer, 2005).

The solution to slowing poverty isn’t about how much money you can give or about inserting western interventions. It’s about providing people with the tools to build their own better future.

Here are some empowering tools C.A.R.E. Africa is providing:

EDUCATION
Over the past 7 years, we have provided orphaned and impoverished children with an education that gives them opportunities to become future leaders in their country and across the world. We equip them with biblical values and basic skillsets needed to become strong, independent young adults.

The SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
This allows some of C.A.R.E. Africa’s most promising students to continue their education through the post-secondary level. This higher education provides them with skills needed for life-altering employment so they can lift themselves and their family from the depths of poverty. Once selected, scholarship students receive full financial support including tuition, books, room and board, clothing, requirements, and health care.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING and MICRO-FINANCE
The empowerment of vocational training such as tailoring, barbering, and computer/information technology provides success in a challenging economy. It is ideal for those students who are looking for a way to become gainfully employed in a small business.

Bank loans are almost impossible to obtain. C.A.R.E. Africa provides micro-finance loans to young adults and the women of C.A.R.E. Africa. We become “the bank” and provide the loan to start and grow small businesses. Small businesses are the lifeblood of African economies and a significant way to empower those looking for a way out of poverty.

Hopefully, you can now understand why EMPOWER is the first of the four core values in the mission objectives of C.A.R.E. How we are empowering the children and women of C.A.R.E. is not much different than what we do with our own children, family and friends to help them secure a successful future.

View all empowerment programs at https://donate.icareafrica.org/projects

I’m going to be evicted.

Posted: August 9, 2022 by Patrice Miles in C.A.R.E. Africa, Egbe Nigeria, Empowerment, People of Egbe, Sponsorship
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By Jolene Eicher

She walks to the edge of town looking for wood to chop.  If successful, she will have a load to carry to town to sell.  She will buy food for her 6-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.  It has been a while since they have had anything substantial to eat.  She was thinking about her children when it happened.  He was a young boy learning to drive a motorcycle so he could become okada (motorcyclists who carry passengers for hire).  He lost control and she didn’t hear him coming  The impact threw her to the ground causing serious injury to her body.  

I am interviewing Momma Bose (pronounced “Boice a”) on June 20, 2022 – eight months after the accident.  She still can’t turn her head without severe pain.  She tells me that she boils water to make a hot rag for her neck.  Momma Bose can no longer chop the wood that kept her family fed.  If it wasn’t for C.A.R.E. Africa she doesn’t know what would have become of them.  C.A.R.E has helped pay the hospital bills.  They have prayed for her and provided food for her son and for her daughter, Olarinde Bose, who is in the C.A.R.E. program. 

I recall when her daughter, Bose, first came to school at C.A.R.E. Africa several years ago.  She was angry and she was a bully to the other kids.  There were many conversations about what to do with this child that clearly liked no one and no one liked her.  Momma Bose proudly tells a story of a different child today.  She tells me that just this morning she witnessed Bose kneeling on her bed of flattened cardboard speaking to God in English to help her mother with the pain and not be so sad. I asked Momma Bosse why she is sad.  She tells me that she and her children are facing eviction at the end of the month.  I look around this one-room concrete floor that contains all she owns, a thin foam mat, a few pots, and some clothes and I ask how far behind in rent she is.  “Two years” Momma Bosse quietly responds.  I look to the C.A.R.E team who calculate it to be about 16,800 Niara (local currency).  We are all silent.

I ask the C.A.R.E. team what can be done.  “We can pray,” they say.  The team gathers around Momma Bose to pray for her neck pain, for new work she can do, and for God’s provision regarding the rent.  On the drive back I am thinking about the huge debt Momma Bose owes and the pending eviction.  I get out my calculator to see what the conversion of 16,800 naira is to American dollars.  My eyes cloud with tears as I stare at a number that is unachievable for this sweet momma – it is $28.00.  My heart hurts to know that I eat out lunch with my husband for an amount that would prevent Momma Bose and her son and daughter from being evicted at the end of this month. The suffering could be eased for so little an amount.  I shake my head at the wealth I never realized I have.  

Your contributions to support C.A.R.E. Africa allow them to provide for those who are sick, injured, hungry, unable to find work, don’t have the fees to attend a school or are about to be evicted.  Please don’t ever think you don’t have much to give.  For the cost of a pizza delivery perhaps you could keep a family from becoming homeless or feed a family for months or purchase a real mattress.  Whatever you can give – it is not wasted- it is like wealth for those who have so little.  Please think of Momma Bose and pray for her neck to be healed so she can be pain-free. Thank you for reading.     

From Executive Director, Patrice Miles. We are excited to let you know we were able to get donations for Mommy Bose’s rent and mattresses and have put her on a monthly food plan. Bose, her daughter, currently has a sponsor but would you consider sponsoring Mommy Bose so we can continue to keep her on the feeding plan and also empower her so she can start a business and be able to sustain herself one day? For $39 a month you can sponsor Mommy Bose’s feeding plan or you can donate towards her one-time need for empowerment of $300.

Sponsor Mommy Bose $39 a month or one time $ 468 here https://donate.icareafrica.org/sponsorships/mommy-bose

Donate any amount to Empower Mommy Bose here https://donorsee.com/project/15662