This is a guest post by Kara Estep
Peace Corps Volunteer in Community Youth Development
Tsetserleg, Arkhangai (Mongolia)
Kara, who we mentioned last month with her Mongolian Helmet Project, is also working to provide better facilities for children at her local summer camp. Here is a little bit more about her project.
Could you tell us a little bit about your project?
The big project that I've spent a lot of time helping my counterparts with is helping get our new summer camp ready. Last year my agency acquired some camp facilities that had been out of use for about five years. Before that they had been privately owned. Unfortunately, over these five years of not being used the facilities became quite dilapidated. In addition to figuring out how to repair the buildings and grounds, my agency needed to learn how to run a summer camp, as they hadn't previously done so. I spent much of the spring working with them on grant proposals. In addition, my coworkers and I also attended trainings about how to run a summer camp.
This specific project that I received funding from Water Charity for was for the building of four new outhouses (latrines). The old latrines were one of the things that had been left in very poor condition. It's not a very glamorous project but it's obviously something very necessary for the health of the children. Fortunately, I found Water Charity, an organization structured to help with projects just like this one.
How did you hear about Water Charity?
Actually, Water Charity found me. Somehow they found the blog that my husband and I write and they posted a comment on one of our posts telling us about their organization. I think they're fairly new so they're trying to get the word out to Peace Corps Volunteers. They're set up just for PCVs because they recognize that sometimes there are small community projects that need funding quickly. The funding limit is $500. The turn-around time from submitting a short application (only a few paragraphs) to getting funded is about a week. Water Charity gives PCVs the funding before they've even secured the funding themselves. After funding the PCV they post the project on their website and try to secure funding for it.
Thanks Kara!
To learn more and help out with Kara's project, please visit her page at WaterCharity.org.
Also if you are a Peace Corps Volunteer and want to create your own project, learn more here.
