Hi all,

 

 

I hope everyone is doing well!! I just want to give those who keep up with the blog an update of what I’m doing with the projects! The two ongoing now are:

 

 
The University funding for Peter Kennedy Owusu is going well, we have enough funds and pledges so fund the three first years at the University for Development Studies, in his degree in Business with a specialization in Accounting. All that is left is 500€ / $712 / 1000 GHc to fund the final year! If you’d like to make a donation specifically to this scholarship, make sure you notify me.

The Construction of a Maternity Block at Kumasi, which we are getting ready to start (first by a competition with the local youth of who can clean up the most in the construction area!!). I haven’t been able to spend much time to this project, as I have taken on a new job with the NGO Projects Abroad, and am simultaneously taking university classes! The good news coming from that is that this project might be helped by Projects Abroad … I’ll tell more about that later, for now it’s bureaucracy time... :)

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I want to let you all know that following individual donations have led us to an estimated 5560 € / $7877 / 4855£ of funds raised for the Maternity Block Project!!! I am very excited about all your goodness and consideration, and this means we’ll soon start seeing concrete results!

 

A special thanks to my parents, Karen and Gerard Planche, who have tirelessly supported all my projects in as many ways as I could imagine!! Even when they came to visit and saw that the previously constructed well was damaged by a Coca-Cola truck, they fully funded and supervised the fixing of it, and made a nice little brick construction to protect it! :)

Another special thanks to Estelle Candau, who organized a 80’s themed dinner party in London which helped raise funds towards this project!!

 

Some of you have asked for further details about the project. Here is the link for the project description in the form of a proposal:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BwRwp7QSDS-qMjQyMjFiNjktMWIxMy00MDlhLWFjOGEtYTA1ZjUyYTQzMWM5&hl=en&authkey=COLo3rgO

 

Email me if you have any questions!

rainbow.planche@hiu.edu

  

Since doing the well project at Kumasi Children’s Hospital (see articles below), I came to know the staff, and I speak with some regularly. Over time it became increasingly clear that the next project falling into place was a much bigger one – the construction of a maternity block in this hospital.

The current situation is a sad one and it’s even more heartbreaking to see it personally. The building is evidently small compared to the needs and number of mothers and their children. Unfortunately, many are forced to leave nearly immediately after giving birth due to the next patients coming in, this added to the fact that the population is just generally increasing. For this reason the qualified staff has to hurry the work and has extremely little time for pre- or post-labor care. This leads to a number of orphans left in the care of the hospital, and many unfortunate although preventable maternal and child deaths.

I developed the project after speaking to several architects and contractors. We determined several phases:

- Evaluation of the land

- Preliminary Sketch and meeting with the hospital staff and ACWA.

- Production Design

- Establishment of supervision and estimate of Costs

- Fundraising

- Execution of the project.

Many thanks to those who have been encouraging and incredibly enthusiastic for this project!!

June 2010