A Letter...>from St. Jude's School

Hey everyone,

Just so you all know that the students at St. Jude are REAL, and are AWESOME, here's a letter my brother and I just received from our sponsored student.  Enjoy!

Dear Katherine and Carl,

I think you are fine all of you together with your parents and your friends.  I hope you will continue been fine by the power of our God.  Myself, my parents, and my young brothers we all fine together with our friends.  I am going well with my studies and I am happy to study in this school of St. Jude.  I am in grade six in this year of 2011 and next year I hope I will be in secondary.  My favorite subjects are science and maths.  We also study a lot of subject which are: Maths, Science, English, Social Studies, P.E, Kiswahili, P.E, I.C.T, and Library.  My favorite games are football, basketball, high jump, and volleyball and my favorite player in football is Wayne Rooney and the team which is playing is Manchester United which is the most club I love which is in England.  My favorite animals are lions and giraffe and they are all found in our national parks in Tanzania.  Some of the national parks are: Serengeti, Ngorogoro, Manyara, Tarangire mikumi and Kilimanjaro national park which has the highest mountain in Africa.  Welcome in Tanzania and see our tourist attraction.  

   God be with you and all the blessings follow you.  Let the word of God be with you and always remember to read the Bible.

                                                           From your Sincerely Child,

                                                                               V

What I especially enjoy about this letter is the amount of time he spent talking about football (soccer to all you fellow Americans), and that he mentioned P.E. twice in his list of classes. And of course how he loves Jesus.

Boundary Waters- More training complete!

My Bro and I spent some time in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.  Canoed 18 lakes in 4.5 days. Fun. And tiring.  Great for the rhomboids (look it up).

I worked on my paddling skills...

My ability to absorb wonderful views...

Sunset photo-taking skills...

navigation skills...

canoe portaging skills...

falling into lake skills...

teeth brushing skills...

and my bonding skills!

 Overall, we had a great time, and I would go back.  It was more great prep for being outdoors participating in physically exhausting activities, sometimes in inclement weather!  We had two great storms while we were up there, and heard some excellent rolling thunder. 

SIC VIDEO!

Watch this video if you want to know how HUGE the HIV/AIDS problem is in TANZANIA. 1 in 20 people in TZ is HIV postive.

Organization #2: Support for International Change

The climb is getting closer!  On our last conference call as a group, we got to talk to Kati, from Support for International Change, a health organization that works exclusively in Tanzania.  SIC was founded in 2002, and has been working hard in rural Tanzania ever since, with an EXTREMELY LIMITED budget.  It's amazing what these folks accomplish with so little.

SIC is a health organization, working to reduce the affects of HIV/AIDS on the rural population in Tanzania. They do this several ways:

1. The "know your status" campaign.  Working alongside Tanzanian community health workers, SIC seeks to educate people on how important it is to know their status.  Knowing your status is the most simple, cost efficient way to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.  A similar campaign was carried out in the USA from 2007-2010, and 29,503 people tested positive for HIV, and 18,432 of those people didn't even know they were infected!  If that is true of the United States, think of how much more people in developing countries are unaware they have the disease!  Here's the link to the study in the USA: USA HIV Testing Campaign.
2. Linking rural areas to HIV treatment centers and testing.  Even if people in TZ know they have HIV/AIDS, a lot of times access to treatment is limited.  Support for International Change helps transport people into cities or towns to get access to treatment.  If there are enough people in a rural area who need tratment, SIC will bring the treatment to them.
3. Mobile Health Clinics.  SIC has purchased several Land Rovers that they use to do rural HIV testing and perform other health services.  Some folks in Tanzania live hours and hours away from any sort of healthcare, and for many people, an encounter with SIC is likely the first time they've had medical attention.

In regards to how 3 Peaks 3 Weeks and the Peaks Foundation aids SIC in their work, Kati said something to this effect:

"3 Peaks 3 Weeks gives us enough financial support every year for us to be able to think long term about different projects.   Our organization is very small, so many of the donations we receive are small as well.  We are usually financing projects week to week.  With the money the climbers raise, in the past we have been able to purchase Land Rovers to create mobile health clinics, and have also been able to expand into different regions in Tanzania and reach more people.  Our important efforts would not be able to happen on such a scale if we did not have the support of the Peaks Foundation and their team of 3 Peaks 3 Weeks Africa climbers."

SIC MISSION: To limit the impact of HIV/AIDS in underserved communities and to train future leaders in global health and development.  (I can't think of many mission statements better than that...)

SIC WEBSITE: http://sichange.org/

THE POWER OF INVESTING IN WOMEN

Here is a AWESOME article from Forbes magazine that really shows how important it is to invest in women and girls.  Highlights from the article:

• Only 7% of philanthropic dollars are given specifically to programs for women and girls
• 70% of people living in poverty in the world are women
• Investing in women can change the outcome for her entire family: women are more likely than men to put money they receive back into their own household.

The Peaks Foundation is one more organization that is reaching around the globe to support issues relating to women and girls!