Walk in Love International: April 2013

In January of this year the WIL Team finally felt confident that we were able to move forward and achieve our next goal: opening up a community center. The community center is a place to hold our women empowerment groups as well as provide a safe place for single mothers and widows to bring their children while they are at work. We will operate as a daycare as well as a child development center. We have space for all of our programs to run from the same place!

The center is a very large 5 bedroom house with a large front room, dining room, kitchen, large panty, 2 full bathrooms and a one car garage. The house is on a good size plot and has a front and back porch spaces. There are also 5 rooms on the outside of the house that will be used for vocational training, a WIL Community Library, WIL Gift Shop where women can sell their items, preschool classroom and a room for storage. There is also a lot of outdoor space for a play ground, community garden and sensory play area for the children.

Since moving into the community center WIL Running costs have gone up significantly but we knew this would happen and it needed to happen for us to help as many women and children as possible. We now employ 8 staff (including 4 tailors) that run the day to day activities at the community center. Reuben and Rehema are the on-sight directors. They live at the center and oversee all the programs alongside myself. They also teach all the adult educational classes, women empowerment classes, a few of the vocational classes, and help out with the kids. Agnes cooks, cleans and when she isn't very busy she enjoys playing with the babies. Mayassa is our bib (grandmother) and amazing nanny. Our staff all work so well together and we could not do it without every single one of them!

I, the director and founder, do not receive any salary. I run the center and fundraising as a volunteer so that all the money is going directly to the people who need it the most.

In order for us to continue our work we need monthly sponsors. Our running costs are at $1,100 per month with 9 children and 15 women. This includes rent, electricity, water, salary, diapers and wipes, food, clean water, security, gas, charcoal, and basic maintenance.
When you become a monthly sponsor your receive quartly reports and a WIL calendar.
Please choose how much you would like to donate by using the drop down menu and click on the subscribe button. This will take you to paypal and you can enroll in automatic monthly donations. You can be a monthly sponsor for as little as $15 per month!
Thank you for your support!

Here are some pictures of the center when we first moved in:

Left:The front room that will be an indoor area for the children to play in, hold classes and take naps.

Right: Some friends of WIL helping us clean up the house when we first moved in.

Rehema teaching our first English class
in the new center

Master bedroom

Master bedroom storage

Master bathroom

Extra (3 identical) room storage

Second bathroom with
separate toilet, shower and sink
and storage areas.

Extra Room

Front Room

Dining room that will be used as a changing station. We
hope to be able to build at least 2 changing tables in
the near future.

Our very large kitchen. We only have a stove top in the kitchen
and have plans to build an outdoor stove oven to cook
breads and cakes in.

We have a very large pantry that will hopefully be full
of food for the kids at the center as well as children that will be participating in
our food program.

Our outdoor wash area where we currently hand wash all the laundry
and diapers. We are hoping to raise enough money for a washing machine
to make sure our Nannies are focusing on the children and are not
overwhelmed with laundry all day.

Our back porch

Front of the Center

A view from the driveway of the front yard

We have 5 outdoors rooms that will be converted into a WIL Library,
vocational training rooms, preschool room and a WIL Gift shop where
women can sell their handmade items. We will need to raise $1500 to finish these rooms
before we can start any of the outside projects.

Inside of one of the rooms.

This is our side yard. I would like to convert this into a sensory play area with a small pool, sandbox
etc.

We have matoke (like plantains) banana and papaya trees sprinkled
throughout the property.

Future sensory development area

Front of the center

Future site of our play ground. We would like to build a playground
for the daycare children as well as the children in the community.

This is where our community garden will be planted.
We have a group of community members who will plant
and take care of the vegetable we plant here and will then
be able to take them home to eat or sell.

We have a large variety of beautiful flowering bushes and trees

Parking area and front gate

This will be a parking area for visitors

Our garage that will be for the tailors in the tailoring program.

Our front room.

Since moving into the community center WIL Running costs have gone up significantly but we knew this would happen and it needed to happen for us to help as many women and children as possible. We now employ 8 staff (including 4 tailors) that run the day to day activities at the community center. Reuben and Rehema are the on-sight directors. They live at the center and oversee all the programs alongside myself. They also teach all the adult educational classes, women empowerment classes, a few of the vocational classes, and help out with the kids. Agnes cooks, cleans and when she isn't very busy she enjoys playing with the babies. Mayassa is our bib (grandmother) and amazing nanny. Our staff all work so well together and we could not do it without every single one of them!

I, the director and founder, do not receive any salary. I run the center and fundraising as a volunteer so that all the money is going directly to the people who need it the most.

In order for us to continue our work we need monthly sponsors. Our running costs are at $1,100 per month with 9 children and 15 women. This includes rent, electricity, water, salary, diapers and wipes, food, clean water, security, gas, charcoal, and basic maintenance.
When you become a monthly sponsor your receive quartly reports and a WIL calendar.
Please choose how much you would like to donate by using the drop down menu and click on the subscribe button. This will take you to paypal and you can enroll in automatic monthly donations.
Thank you for your support!

Enjoy some pictures of our kids! If you are interested in sponsoring child please cheek out our Sponsor a Child tab at the top left hand side of the page.