Sarah and Rachel have been doing a good job continuing to raise funds for projects in Ethiopia. They have been rolling pennies, selling home-made greeting cards etc. They raised over $300 for the neighbourhood micro-loan and credit project that we started in Bahir Dar. Demelesh, our right hand man while we were in Bahir Dar continues to monitor and run this program. He makes loans available to the poorest of the poor to start their own micro businesses. He has had close to 100% repayment of these loans and it has been a life saver for many.In the meantime I have been beating the bushes trying to find funding for some of the other projects.So far we have rasied over $18,000 for the Gumuz agro-forestry project.Through the rotary club of Barrie we have the promise of funding for the People Living with AIDS project . I have a presentation to make the first week in March concerning that. They have already sent over a member to see and verify the project. The Christian Salvage mission from Hamilton has agreed to provide and ship a 20 foot container of books from Canada to Djibouti. Now, I just need to find the funding for the inland transport from Djibouti to Bahir Dar. This could be as much as $5,000. We helped set up a community library through KHC while we were there but the shelves are nearly empty.I am the official project support officer for Devxchange and we are expanding to some exciting new projects including a reconstruction project in South Sudan. http://www.devxchange.org/SUDAN%20.html We have some new partners coming on board who are currently in Ethiopia. Heather and Elias and the Entoto Outreach team and they are looking for volunteers. Lots of them- So if you have young people and university students who are looking for ways to make a difference - here is an opportunity- put them in touch with us. Heather and Elias are partnering with a local organization- Beza International http://www.bezainternational.org/
