News (Summer 2007)
Senator Bob Casey Honors Leon Sullivan
On Monday, April 23, OICI staff joined with friends and colleagues in the chamber of the United States Senate to be present as Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey read a resolution in honor of Reverend Leon H. Sullivan. At a reception following his remarks on the senate floor, Senator Casey formally established the Leon H. Sullivan Internship Program, open to college students from Pennsylvania to gain access and exposure to the activities of the United States Senate. Each year, one applicant will be accepted as a paid intern for a six week period during the summer. This year’s internship will run from July 1st through August 15th. Said, OICI President and CEO Ernest Jolly, “We are deeply gratified by this recognition of the legacy of Leon Sullivan and are inspired to rededicate ourselves to the goal he served throughout his life: creating opportunities for self-help.” Click here for the text of the resolution. (Pictured above: OICI President & CEO Ernest L. Jolly speaks with Senator Casey at reception.)
Ghana HOPEImagine a 10-year-old boy on the streets of the city of Accra, Ghana, trying to sell odds and ends—whatever he can find—just to earn enough money to buy food for the day. In a country where HIV/AIDS is widespread, children like this are left to fend for themselves because the disease kills their parents and shreds their social safety net. The HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in Ghana is 3.4% and it is believed that more than 200 new cases and 130 conversions to full-blown AIDS occur daily. Even when children do not contract the disease themselves, it can have devastating consequences by leaving them orphaned and alone. OICI’s Ghana Hope program works to improve care and support and provide economic opportunities to Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) and People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). Ghana Hope provides economic and nutritional support in the Eastern, Ashanti, Greater Accra and Western regions of Ghana, representing the heaviest concentrations of HIV/AIDS cases in the country.
 Upon the program’s inception, OICI began strengthening front-line community support for OVCs and PWLHAs: home-based health care providers, health workers, traditional healers, counselors and “queen mothers.” (Queen mothers are women in respected leadership positions within the community, who frequently take on the burden of supporting and caring for orphaned children.) Another pillar of the program is the provision of vocational training and start-up capital for OVCs and PLWHAs, to give them new chances at economic productivity and self-sufficience. Skills training is further supported by basic literacy and life skill courses and job placement services. To improve nutrition among those living with HIV/AIDS—so vital to maintaining their resistance to parasitic infections--OICI distributes nourishing food rations through community organizations and provides lunch to trainees. Ghana Hope has helped meet the nutritional needs of approximately 17,000 OVCs and PLWHAs across the country.
You can help give AIDS orphans a fighting chance. Every contribution helps.
• $54 purchases start-up tool kits to enable one trainee to enter the workforce.
• $130 pays one student’s school fees for a year.
• $8,000 will fund a school bus for 30 children for 262 school days.
(Pictured above: Food and clothing items donated by Kingsway International Christian Center to Orphanage Africa, one of our HOPE parters.)
Click here for more information on this project and our other work in Ghana.
Local Student Raises Money for Sierra LeoneUpper Darby High School student Claire Duncombe has helped raise more than $1,200 to support education and training programs of the Sierra Leone OIC (SLOIC). On Friday, January 26, the Drexel Hill school opened its doors to host a benefit coffeehouse; approximately 150 people from the school community and surrounding area drank coffee and tea while listening to the sounds of local bands Anonymous and Note To Self and soloist Natalie Butts.
Claire was inspired to help after hearing about the terrible conditions in Sierra Leone—such as impassable roads, electrical shortages and widespread malnutrition—following 11 years of civil war. Claire’s aunt Claudena Skran got involved with the work of SLOIC—ultimately joining the Board of Directors and taking on the role of spokesperson—during her year in the country as a Fulbright Scholar.
After some brainstorming, Claire coordinated help from classmates and school staff, including English teacher Ms. Shanna Huth. Friends pitched in to help with advertising and food contributions. Local Starbucks and Swiss Farms franchises donated products. The evening’s musicians performed for free.
On the evening of the event, the school cafeteria was transformed into a performance venue. Upon arrival, guests were greeted and provided with information about Sierra Leone. “Many of the kids were blown away by the music, but Sierra Leone was not forgotten,” Claire says. Between musical performances, members of the crowd chanted “Africa!” repeatedly in recognition of their larger purpose.
Established in 1977, SLOIC contributes to the country’s economic development by providing Sierra Leoneans with marketable skills and expanding work opportunities and helping both individuals and groups towards self-sufficiency. SLOIC has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, training them to become successful farmers, carpenters, masons and tailors and equipping them with essential tools.
Claire Duncombe hopes that the money raised at the coffeehouse will alleviate some of the financial strain on the organization. “[Sierra Leone] has survived a horrible civil war and is on the way to recovery. As a people scarred by war but working towards a positive future, Sierra Leoneans need our support now. Without help at this crucial period, the road out of poverty will be that much harder.”
Click here for more information on the Sierra Leone OIC and how you can help.
OICI Receives $3 Million from the Central Bank of Nigeria
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has awarded OIC International a five-year $3.1 million contract for the establishment of zonal entrepreneurship development centers in six northwestern states under the Nigeria Entrepreneurship Development Centers Initiative (NEDCI). NEDCI, which will operate centers in Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfawa, is modeled after OICI’s highly successful Nigeria Job and Business Development Services Initiative (JOBS) program, initiated in Kano and Cross River states in 2004. Like JOBS, NEDCI will provide job training and business development skills to unemployed youth aged 18 to 35 years. The overall goal of this unique collaboration between CBN and OICI is to promote broad-based economic growth and empowerment at the community level. The three core intervention areas of the project are microenterprise development, employment generation, and social enterprise development. NEDCI’s strategy represents the synergies between the bank’s mandate to stimulate economic empowerment at the grassroots level and OICI’s philosophy of community self-help. |
