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Watoto Wa Dunia: | ||
| From October through December, 2006, we will be supporting Watoto Wa Dunia (Children of the World), an Oregon based non-profit that is committed to educating and empowering women and children in Kenya and Nairobi. Their programs include sponsorship for children's schooling in Kenya, a micro-enterprise project for a group of 35 women in Kibera, Nairobi, and a new women and children's center in Kibwesi, Kenya. Please help in our effort to raise money for Watoto wa Dunia's vital programs. | ||
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Watoto was incorporated in 1999 and their first program, which they have continued to expand, was a sponsorship program for school-age kids. For an annual sponsorship of $336, you can give In 2004, Watoto recieved a $5000 gift which they were able to use to purchase 5 acres of land in Kenya and start construction on the Women and Children's Empowerment village. The Empowerment Village will provide housing and education for forty AIDS orphans, microfinance space for the women of Ndiwa Widows' Women's Group (Watoto wa Dunia's partner in the project), to increase water and food security for the women, the children, and the community as a whole, and to provide access to health care. The Empowerment Village represents the fulfillment of a long held dream of building a home for the community’s orphans-particularly AIDS orphans- and providing a means of economic survival and hope for more than 100 destitute widows. Watoto Wa Dunia does this all on the small operating budget of just $17,000/year (from 2005 annual report). They are working diligently to help the people of Kenya break the cycle of poverty and improve the standard of living. Even a modest donation or the small amounts earned through shopping and searching commissions will help greatly.
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Watoto wa Dunia is a very small Portland-based non-profit. It has grown out of an international group of volunteers involved in founding the CREDO Children's Centre in Kiaragana, Kenya in 1997. Through those experiences supporting and operating the centre, they developed a deep understanding of the issues facing Kenya, East Africa and the world today. In response, Watoto wa Dunia was created to offer a broad spectrum of programs to help impoverished children and families. 
a child such as Linet (above) opportunities that she would never have without help. The sponsorship money goes toward education, health care, clothes and housing. 88% of your donation money goes directly to the family's needs. In Linet's own words, "To say the least, I thank you. I say this because your effort has made my hope to start rising." In 2003, Watoto started a microenterprise program with a local group, with the aim of helping local women get started in a home-based business to generate income while their kids were in school.