Our Year in Action
“Love is the unifier that brings us all here. It is something that we can all agree upon — that no matter where we are from and what we believe, we know that love is transcendent. It is amazing to start an organization from that kind of love. Love that we can infuse into new communities and new projects all over the world. Thank you so much for being a part of our family and spreading love.”
- Nyla Rodgers, Founder and CEO of MAMA HOPE
We can’t believe another year has already flown by — but here we are! This year our full Annual Report will be published in December. In the meantime we want to make sure YOU know how you’ve helped Mama Hope grow and spread love in our fiscal year 2016–2017.
In this article we’ve compiled updates from our community partners, the Global Advocate Program, our work in media, the #Unforgettable partnership with French Montana, press highlights, our Guatemala impact trip, new brand partnerships AND what’s up next!
MAMA HOPE AT A GLANCE
We serve grassroots leaders around the world who are committed to building sustainable prosperity within their communities. We provide the training and funding to build economically, socially and environmentally sustainable communities.
To date . . .
This year . . .
. . . 5,997 people have received quality health services in Uganda (including 183 healthy babies born!)
. . . 2,068 students enrolled in our schools and education programs
. . . 36 sustainable businesses started to support our partner’s humanitarian projects
. . . 2 new school campuses + 1 boarding home opened their doors to children across East Africa
SUSTAINABILITY IN ACTION: COMMUNITY PARTNER HIGHLIGHT
You may remember that one of our most important objectives at Mama Hope is fostering self-reliance and sustainability in our partner communities. We are incredibly excited to report that in the past year ALL of our partners have launched sustainable social businesses that support their humanitarian projects!
A perfect example of this sustainability in action is St. Timothy’s School in Moshi, Tanzania. St. Timothy’s provides high-quality education for 476 children, 121 of whom would not otherwise have access. We began our partnership in 2009, and over the past 8 years we’ve funded their school, boarding home, clean water systems, a drip irrigation farm and a solar-powered computer lab. As of this January — because of income generated from sliding-scale tuition, boarding home fees and a school store — St. Timothy’s pays for 100% of their operational costs AND expansion, including . . .
- 2 new water tanks
- 4 new classrooms
- 1 perimeter wall
- 1 school garden
- 100% of school bus repairs
- 30 new bunk beds for the boarding house
. . . all of this accomplished with local income!
To zoom out, St. Timothy’s is only one of 18 community partners that we work with. Mama Hope partners employ 151 people full time in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Guatemala. On top of this full-time staff, our partners are constantly bringing on local part-time employees to help with consulting and building projects. In the past year we have invested in 36 sustainable businesses — each of which increases local self-reliance and ensures strong, long-lasting social impact.
PASSION IN ACTION: GLOBAL ADVOCATES
This year we took our Global Advocate Program to more communities than ever before! We expanded partnerships with the Desai Foundation in India, Crossroads in North Carolina and Common River in Ethiopia.
Highlight: Class 11 & Jania Massey
Class 11 Global Advocates raised $117,868 that went directly to projects addressing health, education, micro-enterprise, sustainable agriculture and women & girls issues in India, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana and the US. So far, Class 12 Global Advocates have raised $58,788 and are just returning from their field placements in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Jania Massey created a young women’s entrepreneurship and financial literacy program in the Grier Heights neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina. In doing so, she changed the way that local NGO Crossroads connects with the Grier Heights community. With her Global Advocate training she was able to open Crossroads to a collaborative approach that puts listening to the community member’s voices at the center of their work. She recently received grant funding to continue her program — Stiletto Boss University — for another year!
Jania is just one example of how we’ve expanded our impact into the US — we’re also partnering with conferences, universities, corporations and other nonprofits by providing in-person and virtual trainings in marketing, impact media, personal development, project management and sustainability. This year we impacted 3,968 women with our US-based trainings and events.
Our three pilot East Africa Advocates — James, Mercy and Aika — are coming to the end of their time with us after completing their year-long program, and we could not be more proud of what they’ve accomplished in Tanzania. They are proof of the enormous power held by young local people who have hearts for social change. Their strength of character, cultural understanding, energy and creativity have made big changes, like establishing a school as an agricultural training site for local farmers, impacting the lives of hundreds of girls through education, and distributing bicycles to secondary school girls who otherwise would have a very long or risky walk to school.
Now, as they transition out of our program, all three are headed into careers and lifetimes of impact. Mercy and Aika are banding together to found an organization for girls education and mentorship that will reach far and wide in Tanzania. James landed a job with USAID and NAFGEM (Network Against Female Genital Mutilation) and is founding his own organization, ‘Ndoto Hub’ which will to bring disparate community groups working on local solutions together to figure out answers to wider challenges facing their country.
We are so grateful to have been an incubator for their amazing ideas and innovations for change, and Mama Hope will continue to support our East Africa Global Advocates as they begin their next chapter!
STORYTELLING IN ACTION: HIGH IMPACT MEDIA
This year we took our Media Residency to the next level! Ryan MacDowell, founder of Montreal-based media company Legato Productions, and Will Niava, from Ghana, met working on a movie in Montreal. They joined the Media Residency last year, and met the MAMA HOPE family at the 2016 Sustainability Conference in Nairobi before traveling to Bawjiase, Ghana to support the mission of our partners at the United Hearts Children Center with beautiful photography and film work.
Kendelyn Ouellette, whose path before MAMA HOPE took her to Iraq over two summers photographing survivors of congenital heart disease, has been working closely with our partner Ingrid in Guatemala. Kendelyn will return in October to continue filming a documentary about Ingrid’s work building a sustainable community and re-indigenizing education, food systems and culture after Guatemala’s devastating decades-long civil war.
Our first Media Resident, Ryan LeCluyse, screened his Under the Tree documentary project in San Francisco and at the C2 Montreal conference. He also debuted a short documentary he shot in Tanzania,“Isaya & the Mlima,” at Big Sky Film Festival in Montana, where the film was short-listed for Best Documentary Short.
Our Stop the Pity campaign was recognized at the Reel Impact Film Festival, a night celebrating the best in social impact filmmaking and marketing, put on but our friends at One World. We even took home a prize for “The Women of Nyamonge Present: Netball”!
ACTIVISM IN ACTION: #UNFORGETTABLE
In February 2017, hip hop artist French Montana found the inspiration for his upcoming “Unforgettable” music video after finding a video of the Triplets Ghetto Kids, a Ugandan dance troupe, on Youtube. He flew to Uganda in March to feature the kids in the video.
Thanks to a connection fostered by our friends at Global Citizen, French and his team visited our partners at the Suubi Health Center as soon as they landed at the airport in Uganda. He met Suubi’s staff and founder, spoke with the community and learned about their work and the challenges people face, especially new moms and babies. French was moved by their journey and has committed to helping them, pledging $100,000 on the spot.
Since then he has been moved to using his celebrity as a force for good by becoming an advocate for global health and spreading the word via his viral #Unforgettable Dance Challenge with over 50,000 people dancing and raising awareness. Check out his CNN interview where he talks about his personal journey and the partnership with MAMA HOPE! Most recently, French got fellow musician Abel Tesfaye, The Weeknd, to join the cause and give $100,000 to Suubi. He even produced his own documentary about the trip to Uganda, and the Mama Hope team was invited it’s debut screening and a Facebook Live interview with French in New York!
MAMA HOPE helped Suubi founder Bernard Mukisa and his family to open the clinic in 2014 — bringing vital healthcare services to an underserved rural community of 56,000. With MAMA HOPE’s funding and support, Bernard brought maternal, prenatal and early childhood services to his community. Funding raised from this campaign will allow the small but vibrant health center to build a brand-new maternity clinic and expand their reach to over 260,000. Learn more here!
IN THE PRESS
We’ve been all over this year! Most notably, our founder Nyla was profiled in Forbes: “The Business Of Hope: What It Takes And How One Amazing Woman Inspired It.”
We’ve also further developed our partnerships with Global Citizen and Classy.org. Check out one of our recent features, “13 Inspiring Women Leading the Fight For Gender Equality.”
ADVENTURE + IMPACT
This Spring, Mama Hope gathered a group of women from across the US, Canada and Europe to travel to Guatemala for our first Impact Trip; a week of yoga, adventure and travel on the shores of Lake Atitlán. There, we met Ingrid Villaseñor, who is building an integrated holistic school, eco-farming and eco-tourism project called Tejiendo Futuros, or “Weaving Futures.” Ingrid’s years of experience working with the UN and other nonprofits across the country, her background in education and her deep passion for rebuilding communities that have devastated by decades of civil war have led her to this moment — founding Tejiendo Futuros. If you are interested in attending an Impact Trip to Guatemala or East Africa in the next year, let us know at info@mamahope.org !
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
Mama Hope partners with socially and environmentally conscious businesses led by women that impact women’s lives around the world. This year, we’ve worked closely with Alex and Ani, Soul Carrier, Wine + Moxxi and The Nest Collective. If you run a business and are interested in giving back by plugging into one of our events or campaigns, please email us at info@mamahope.org !
UP NEXT
- We’ve just launched Class 13 of our Global Advocate Program! Our Advocates have hit the ground running. They’ve already raised $36,200 for our partners in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda — including new NGO partners Running Chicken, Anza and African Healing Exchange. Thank you to CapCon for connecting us to these incredible organizations and helping us spread our impact!
- Our 3rd Annual Partner Sustainability Conference will take place in Tanzania in August. This conference is designed to equip our community partners with self-identified tools for success and to connect and learn from each other. This year, we will be focusing on embracing the learning process of failure, local strategies for resilience during times of lack, human resource management and environmental sustainability.
- We are gearing up for our next holiday gala — and looking for sponsors! If your company would like to impact thousands of lives around the globe and gain exposure to 500+ attendees, please reach out to us at info@mamahope.org!
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the bottom of this post. As a reward, please enjoy this video of our staff and partners across the world taking on the #Unforgettable Dance Challenge!
