2016 Grant Recipients

1. Catalyst Foundation Community Education Center
Ninh Thuan, Vietnam $2500 Grant for Project Backpack

This small, desperately poor village hamlet contains a tiny minority group: the Raglai. They are 100 families with 177 children who face debilitating discrimination. There is malnutrition and a low level of education. As a result, the children are at high risk of being trafficked.

Our grant will enable ten children to attend school. We will be providing them with school materials, a bike to get to and from school, food and routine check ups with a clinic/doctor.

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2. Mission for African Mothers, (MAM)
Kampala, Uganda $3990 for Single Expectant Mothers Economic Empowerment Project

Last year, we supported MAM’s efforts to help new mothers, ages fifteen to thirty, create a decent, sustainable future for themselves and their families. They live in the shanti towns in the Kawempe division on the outskirts of Kampala. One of our partners, Finance Trust, trained them in business management, entrepreneurship and loan management. The twenty women created a joint business of tailoring, making uniforms. The profits were then divided among them.

They also taught the skills they had learned making paper beads, necklaces and baskets to other girls and women. Now more than fifty are involved in the work.
More and more want to participate.

The knowledge obtained from tailoring as a business model will now be replicated in starting individual small businesses. Some of the mothers chose to invest their money into their own business plans; others chose to invest in their children’s education. In addition, our women are learning to save for the future.

Going forward, we are providing the supplies, materials and tools to enable the women to expand from tailoring into liquid soap making and cake baking. There will be continued micro-loans and insurance for the babies.

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3. Philippines Humanitarian
$1000 schooling of five children

Philippines Humanitarian (PH), an all-volunteer, certified non-profit organization, was brought together by the common desire of private citizens to provide educational scholarships and opportunities for disadvantaged children and their families in impoverished areas of the Philippines. One important component of the scholarship program with Philippines Humanitarian is that many of the scholars come back after graduating to volunteer the foundation. In fact, the current librarian/caretaker of the community library was once a scholar of the foundation.

Rhealyn Iya Mae de Leon (center, back row) is 11 years old and a 4th grade student. She wants to become an English teacher. She is shown here with her grandmother, her mother, and her two younger siblings.

The Jewish Helping Hands grant money will be used towards helping children in the Payatas Community. Extreme poverty, crime, drugs, poor sanitation, and precarious employment are the primary community concerns. A distinguishing feature of the area is the Payatas Dumpsite, the largest open dumpsite in the Philippines. Most of the Payatas residents earn a living either as garbage scavengers, construction workers, or drivers. In 2000, a massive trash-slide triggered by heavy rains buried thousands of homes and took many lives.

The students who go to Payatas Elementary School live in the area immediately surrounding the Payatas dumpsite and come from very poor families. While education is free in the Philippines, many students lack the money for school-related expenses. Jewish Helping Hands is awarding a grant of $5,000 to sponsor 5 children over the course of 5 years ($200 per child per year). The money these children receive will enable them to purchase uniforms, books, school supplies, and shoes.