Milestones: Create for a Cause - Non-Profit Status

Gisimba Orphanage - Photo by Mitch Stookey

Happy to say that Create for a Cause is now incorporated as a Non-Profit!! (Type B) ;-D

Voices of Rwanda Presentation - NYC

Taylor Krauss of Voices of Rwanda will be at speaking at The Philoctetes Center.

Saturday, February 28th, 2009, 2:30pm
On Aggression: The Politics
& Psychobiology of Genocide
(with Taylor Krauss, Ishmael Beah, Helen Fein, Benedict Kiernan, and Henri Parens)
The Philoctetes Center
247 E 82nd St, 3rd Fl
New York NY

Create for a Cause t-shirts will be available for sale there and will be benefiting the Voices of Rwanda organization.

Gisimba Website Launch - Iowa State University

Here's another great group people that are trying to help Gisimba Orphanage as well! Their site also lists two different types of sustainable project proposals the orphanage is trying to get funded to earn money.

The website is a collaboration between Iowa State University students Teresa Atkins, Rebecca Braet, Jeanna Bauer, Angel Ceaser, Jessica Crawford, Mackenzie Quame; Rwanda peer and volunteer, Dominick Ntirushwa; Patron of the Gisimba Memorial Orphanage in Kigali, Mr. Ildephonse Niyongana ; Dr. John Musiime (Kigali Institute of Education) and Dr. Leah Keino at Iowa State. This was a Service Learning Program for ISU students who spent 2 weeks in Rwanda in May 2008.

The ISU team was introduced to the Center by Lisa Holmes of Washington State University. Lisa has also hosted a number of Rwandan youth including Dominick.

It is expected that KIE and ISU students will continue to collaborate and be of service to Gisimba Orphanage.

The Link is below:
http://sites.google.com/site/gisimbaorphanage08/

Ghana Soccer Star Donates to Gisimba Orphanage - Andre Dede Ayew

This is such a great thing that Andre did! Kudos! More athletes and celebrities should follow his example. This makes me smile. ;-)

Black Satellites captain Andre Dede Ayew visited the Gisimba Orphanage on Friday, January 31, 2009 to donate foot items worth $2,000 USD and also interacted with the kids to encourage them for the future.

The son of legend Abedi Pele took time off from his Africa Youth Championship duties on Friday to visit the orphanage but broke down in tears while interacting with some of the kids at the orphanage.

"Even though we have been here fighting for our country, I am also aware of the difficult things Rwanda has been through especially the kids," Ayew told Ghanasoccernet.

Gisimba Orphanage Update - Artfully Unforgotten

Gisimba's Cheerleader 

Heather and Kayo at Gisimba

A local primary school

With the funds raised at "GISIMBA: Understanding Through Art", Artfully Unforgotten, together with Create for a Cause, was able to cover the educational expenses, for the year of 2009, for eleven of the secondary students who are supported by the Gisimba Memorial Center Orphanage.  These expenses include those related to school fees, school supplies, transportation and hygiene products.  Total funds transferred to Gisimba Orphanage: $3500 USD.

Heather Metcalfe, the Director of Artfully Unforgotten, just returned from the orphanage a week ago to deliver the funds, as well as catch up on the lives of the children at Gisimba and their needs. In addition, she worked with some of the younger ones on their math and writing skills, played numerous games with the children and was able to visit the school attended by most of the children.

While there, Heather befriended Hiyaki Kayoto "Kayo", of the Japanese International Cooperative Agency. Kayo is volunteering at Gisimba until 2010 and is working on developing field trips for the children to businesses, as well as to the mountains.  In support of her project, Heather initiated relationships between Gisimba and Fed Ex, the Librairie Ikirezi Bookshop and Ravi Ramakrishna, a Professor at the Kigali Institute of Science & Technology. Hopefully, by visiting these institutions the children will be exposed to different careers and perhaps develop relationships that will help them in the future. The trip to the mountain will provide them with a much needed escape from the sometimes difficult life at Gisimba.

Create for a Cause's goal for 2009 is to raise another $2000 USD for the orphanage. Artfully Unforgotten is looking to raise a remaining $500 USD for a grand total of $6000 USD this year.

Gisimba Memorial Center - Kresta K.C. Venning

Kresta's photography book about Gisimba is ready now! Get it here.
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/559906

In 2005, Kresta K.C. Venning spearheaded two photography projects at the Gisimba Memorial Center with "Cameras Build Communities". The First Photography Project consisted of disposable cameras donated from friends and the Kodak SNAPFoundation. The Second Photography Project captures the children sharing Kresta's D70 camera. The faces on these kids as they look at the pictures they've just taken are priceless!

This year, Kresta has produced a second photography book, a collection of portraits that she took at the Gisimba Memorial Center in Kigali, Rwanda. Proceeds from this book, will go to fund the orphanage.

Kresta would like to return to Kigali, Rwanda, to offer a Third Photography Workshop to the orphans at Gisimba Memorial Center. She would like to establish a program that would help 15 orphans thrive, not just survive, by developing photography skills for life. Her reasons for passing on her passion for photography:

1. Photography gives a child another language with which to explore and experience his/her world
2. Photography is a marketable skill, one not offered in public school in Rwanda.
3. Photographs taken by workshop participents can be sold to raise funds to sustain the orphanage's ongoing needs.

Kresta has a Masters of Art(Photography), 8 years teaching experience, extensive international travel, including to trips to Rwanda where she led two photography workshops at Gisimba Memorial Center. Kresta's photographs have been widely published on-line, in print, video, and documentary by commercial businesses and not-for-profit organizations including The Lonely Planet, The United States Holocaust Museum, UNICEF, CARE, and The United Nations.

Much of her photographic work has been donated as she is deeply committed to raising awareness about AIDS, malaria, poverty, orphans, and genocide. Kresta is passionate putting cameras into the hands and lives of Rwanda children.