NHA School Prepares for a new School Year

Nazareth House Apostolate School completed yet another successful year of education in June 2011.  

As we prepare for the opening of the next school year in a few short weeks,

Pa Foday & NHA Teachers prepare to handout 2010/2011 Report Cards and Awards

we want to share with you

the joy 

James and Mako give this young boy an award

and pride in a job 

James gives this young lady an award

well done

What a fabulous year this has been

the students, 

teachers,

Pa Foday hands out report cards

staff,

Handing out report cards

and parents of Nazareth House Apostolate

Proud students, excited to receive their grades

all performed 

Sanu hands out report cards

an outstanding achievement

Proud parents review their child's report card

in accomplishing another 

remarkable School Year. 

As report cards were handed out

the students anxiously peered over their grades.

smiles grew broader and broader as 

Albert distributes report cards

the children, teachers and parents 

Roo supervises the distribution of report cards

realized what a remarkable fulfillment

and accomplishment that they have attained.  The students are remarkable

and this speaks for the tremendous job the teachers are doing.  

proud parents review their child's grades

It all starts in the home

these children are all fortunate to have parents that know

and understand the value of education.

They want the best for their children and when it comes to education, our hard working teachers 

. 

 know how to provide it.

The parents are delighted to see the good marks 

their children are making.  They see 

this as the hope of the future.

We at Nazareth House Apostolate want to make sure

that you know

Roo participates in handing out report cards

how important 

a work you are doing through Nazareth House Apostolate

for the students, teachers, parents 

of Kabala. 

Your prayers and donations to NHA, not only 

provide education 

but gives an entire community HOPE!

The NHA Team is the best, working together from shore to shore

Making a difference!

Thank you.   Please continue this most generous and honorable work.  

If you haven't committed to a monthly donation 

to NHA 

for the purpose of maintaining 

HOPE

in Kabala and outlying villages,

Please consider doing so today.

NHA

185 Captains Cove Drive

Taylorsville, KY 40071

or 

use your credit card via the Paypal link on our website

www.nazarethhouseap.org

ST LAURENCE HOUSE NEWS & NEEDS

LUCY & ANN MARIE PREPARING TO GO TO TESTING. THIS IS A BIG DAY IN THE LIVES OF THESE CHILDREN AS ONCE TESTING IS COMPLETE THEY TAKE A STEP FORWARD TO HIGHER EDUCATION.

FIRST PICTURE SHOWS KADIJAH AND ROO WALKING TO THE TESTING AREA, FOLLOWING PICTURES ARE OF LUCY AND ANN MARIE (DRESSED IN SCHOOL UNIFORM); LUCY & ANN MARIE WITH CLASSMATES AND FINALLY ALL OF THE STUDENTS.

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EMAIL RECEIVED FROM JAMES TODAY. HE ASKS FOR SOME ASSISTANCE AS DUE TO THE ECONOMY DOWNTURN, OUR DONATIONS HAVE BEEN CUT DRASTICALLY.

Dear Mama Hicks,

The word on Aunt Nancy is encouraging and we continue to pray for her everyday. We wont like to see he transcend on away from us so soon. Thanks for being around her through all this.

I am still struggling to get pictures uploaded here. I had even reduced the picture size to the smallest size in my last pictures but still cant get it up. The problem is with the server i guess. I am spending more and more time and just cant do even one. Before it was not like that. I will try again later today ok.

Please see if you can send us small money to cover some of our bills. Both the electric and water rates are very very high the last few weeks. This morning again they sent us a whole lot. I hate to ask but i just cant meet that at this moment.

Depends on if post comes and brings medications in well this week, i am planning on making a trip to give out some of those medications and update pictures of the school.

Prices are flying everyday here on food stuffs, rice and now petrol etc. Its crazy to live here these days. I am finding it harder and harder to help out others.

I am still around on internet so maybe we will hook up in a chat some how. I am working on the pictures -trying to send them to you.

More later.
James

Malaria, up close and personal...

I have had some personal experience with the debilitating disease of Malaria, having had recurring bouts of it myself - as well as having held tiny babies as they suffer through it. If they are lucky they recover, many babies, already weak from hunger, cannot survive an onset of it.

I know well the snowballing effects of the illness. The horrible symptoms are enough to deal with... but it also keeps you from working the farm, providing a living to support your family, and doing your daily routine. In Sierra Leone, for most, that "daily routine" is an act of survival - scrounging for food,shelter, water and/or fuel for you and your family. When someone is knocked down due to malaria, the whole family suffers because it takes everyone (parents and children alike) working together to get through the day. If the family foot is affected, the family body can't walk.

To me, here in the States, it is an inconvenience - but I can be treated. I have shelter, I have clean water, I have healthy food. Imagine suffering this dreadful disease without a proper bed, no shelter, barely enough food and drinking only from a jug of water filled with bacteria. It is incomprehensible and no human being should experience this - let alone on a routine basis, time after time.

Nazareth House has no cure for malaria. We are aware there are methods out there of curbing it and preventing it. We are also aware that those actions of prevention are bottle necked somewhere and not made readily available to those in need. What Nazareth House is able to do is care for those who suffer it. Your donations will provide bednetting ($10 per net), food, shelter, medications to lessen the symptoms. Better still your pledged monthly donations will continue this aid month after month.

Nazareth House is in the middle of a campaign to purchase a compound in the capital city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. This center will house a medical clinic, a small orphanage, our storage & distribution center for rice,medication,supplies, a Home for the dying, a guest house & teaching center and staff quarters. The compound is vital to our continued and necessary expansion work in Sierra Leone. It make it possible to bring ministry to those we've had to turn away because of lack of facilities. In Louisville there is a group that will teach your group how to build a water supply center to serve a village of 10,000 people. We want to begin having people trained and sent to do this work (A clean water source is invaluable to survival), but until we have the compound with its guest house to reasonably safely accommodate a group during their stay, it cant happen. What an experience this would be for a group of College Students - to build a water supply and help out 10,000 villagers! How often is an opportunity like this presented to you...to make a real difference when the world around you is becoming more and more self centered? We must acquire a 4-W vehicle for access to distribute needs to villages in up country where roads are treacherous. The school we are building in Kabala is closer and closer to completion. We are accomplishing big things with very little. Our goal is $500,000 to complete the compound project. Not a million dollars, not two million dollars --for what we are providing from the compound, the cost is extremely low. Its up to you to get the word out to share your experience with Nazareth House. Scroll through the many photo albums of documented work that YOU've made possible, spread the word. We can do this, we can make a huge difference. Ask someone for their support today. Remember those who are suffering from the horrible effects of malaria and consider what you can do for them. It would only take 1667 people giving only $25 per month - less than a dollar a day - to meet this goal. God bless you.

High Food Prices hit poorest countries hardest

I found this article tonight and thought it worth reading, especially since I now see that Sierra Leone's rice has risen 300%!!!! Thank Goodness Pa Foday is growing rice in Kabala. I think we need to promote efforts to expand his rice crops if we want to be able to afford to feed the people. I can't believe it 300%...wow...

Here's the article:

From The Times
April 8, 2008
Food prices rise beyond means of poorest in Africa
By: Jonathan Clayton in Johannesburg

It has been called a “perfect storm” - a combination of apparently unrelated events that have come together to trigger soaring food prices. Millions of people, particularly in developing countries, are affected by rises that have caused riots and many deaths.

Increased energy prices, competition between biofuels and food, rising demand from economic growth in emerging countries and the effects of sudden climatic shocks, such as drought and floods, have combined to cause skyrocketing prices in some of the world's poorest countries, such as Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.

Peter Smerdon, Africa spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), told The Times: “The people hit hardest by this combination of factors are those living on the razor's edge of poverty.

There is not one single country in Africa not negatively affected. Indeed, most countries in the world are affected.”

The “perfect storm” has arrived as global food reserves are at their lowest for 30 years and commodity markets volatile and vulnerable to sudden spikes and speculation.

The situation is exacerbated by the falling value of the dollar, the currency in which all main commodities are traded.

In Sierra Leone, the price of rice has risen 300 per cent and in Senegal and much of the rest of West Africa by 50 per cent. Palm oil, sugar and flour, all imported, have also surged.

Two weeks ago Josette Sheran, the new US head of WFP, made an extraordinary emergency appeal for $500 million (£250 million) to 20 heads of government to offset the increased price of food commodities.

As ever, the world's poor - those who spend between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of their budget on food - are hit hardest. These groups include rural landless and small-scale farmers, but the biggest impact has been on the world's increasing urban poor.

Mr Smerdon added that, dangerously for governments, it is not a question of availability as one saw in previous drought-induced famines. “People can suddenly no longer afford the food they see on store shelves because prices are beyond their reach. It is about accessibility and it is hitting hard populations who are reliant on the markets.”

African governments are watching nervously. Food riots have been reported in recent weeks in several countries. At least 40 people were killed in protests in Cameroon in February. There have also been violent demonstrations in Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Senegal and Burkina Faso, where a nationwide strike against any more food price increases started yesterday.

Experts say that the only way out for Africa is greater self-sufficiency and alternative sources of energy to cut demand for imported food and oil. They praised an initiative by Sierra Leone to start producing rice from next year and to ban imported rice.