Rescued girls can attend school – at age 12 some are already mothers – and nurture their talents at the Maria Adelaide Center, which is among the ministries run by Catholic sisters who are part of ASOK. (Courtesy of Donald Miller)
Funding is one of the most difficult challenge facing non-profit organizations and initiatives. For sisters in Africa, it seems like no matter how hard they try, they’re always coming up short for funds, especially as the global recession affected the traditional Catholic charities that have supported them in the past. Previously, appealing directly to donors abroad has been complicated by draconian international banking regulations.
The Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya (AOSK) is a pilot project for a revolutionary program that will connect sisters in Africa directly with donors around the world. Global Impact, an international fundraising organization, will allow people to donate to AOSK through an easy, online donor form.
Sr. Joyce Meyer, PBVM, the international liaison for Global Sisters Report and a Hilton Fund for Sisters board member, spearheaded the effort to connect Kenyan sisters to people who want to support their programs through the website aosk.charity.org. Sr. Agnes Wamuyu Ngure, an Elizabethan Sister who is the executive secretary of AOSK, stressed that the biggest benefit will be towards improving the sustainability of their programming.
“We have had long-term friends and donors who contribute to the association,” said Ngure. “But now we are moving to a stage if we can raise funds for ourselves, we can increase our financial resources and better serve the sisters.
“We are hoping to reach many more people than we’re in contact with now, through the web and social media. We also want to tell them what we’re doing so they can support us – and so we can give them witness to the mission and what we’re doing.”
The partnership will benefit projects serving children, women and education in Kenya, including the women peacemakers project. Global Impact will hopefully roll out to partner with sisters in other countries in the coming year.
[Melanie Lidman is Middle East and Africa correspondent for Global Sisters Report based in Israel.]
Read about the women peacemakers project in
If you can train for war, you can train for peace