Thank you so much for joining us to celebrate our 10th anniversary! So many of you came, so many of you contributed, so many of you rejoiced and urged us on. We share here a few photos, stories, and gifts.
Our Party
Good Food and Lovely Music and Special Guests and YOU: guitarist Mark Johnstone, vocalist Karen Yvette Jones, pianist Kathleen Scheide (not pictured).
Maman Monique’s daughter Nana Katanda came to represent her.
Celebrating Elsie
On behalf of the gala organizers, Ida Cahill and Susan Lidstone, long-time supporter of Woman, Cradle of Abundance Christo Claassens presented founder Elsie Tshimunyi McKee with an award.
Karen Oleri, one of the six original board members, came to celebrate with us.
Celebrating our Partners
Elsie shared some stories of the amazing courage, determination, and successes of our partners
Makongolo Dina was starving, forced to sell herself to survive until she found FEBA. Now she has a future. “I like to sew because in the future that will allow me to support myself. If I have my work, I will not wander here or there, or prostitute myself to have little money. I will be able to take charge of my life myself.”
Maman Jeanne Marie Boombu is the sole breadwinner for her blind husband and orphaned grandchildren. She made such good use of the microloan FEBA gave her, and always repaid on time, that she now has a 2nd larger one and can expand her business. She is so thankful!
Neema Kachondo Colette, an orphan, attended Goma’s Community Charity School (supported by Hands Across the Water, our youth division). She aced the state exams which conclude 6th grade and HAW has given her a scholarship for secondary school. She is delighted!
Markets and Auctions
Lovely jewelry, bags, dolls, & Maman Monique’s book offered guests happy ways to shop for Mother’s Day gifts and support our partners’ creativity.
Thank you’s! to Cheryl Ciaranca and family for tending the market, to Anne Skalka and Melanie Johnstone for managing the credit card desk, and Prestons for showing the FEBA fashions.
Auctioneer Paul Skalka led a very lively event. A quilt of the gala logo by Michele Tuck-Ponder almost brought the house down. Susan Lidstone (behind the scenes artist) shows her beautiful stained glass. Thank you, Paul, Michele, Ida, Susan!
Fund A Need and Donations
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
To everyone who contributed to building up, enabling the work that our wonderful partners are doing. There were so many generous donations = $2,785, so many welcome gifts to Fund Needs = $6,425. We thank you so much for all the school supplies, the food support, the sewing machines, the microloans, the roofing for families who have lost everything in the floods, the seeds for the farms and gardens!
YOU ARE WONDERFUL!
UNESCO Honors FEBA!
VERY EXCITING NEWS! The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has chosen FEBA as one of the two schools in Kinshasa that it will support.
UNESCO is focused on vocational education. Its selection of FEBA recognizes that among all the nonprofits working to teach young people viable careers, this small, woman-initiated, woman-run group has a record for producing the highest qualified graduates in national professional exams for tailoring. UNESCO has encouraged FEBA to expand its offerings, something which Maman Monique has long wanted to do.
Now, thanks to Bryn Mawr Presbyterian’s Richard Shaull Grant, FEBA is preparing to open a Computer Science Institute. This will bring 21st c. professional opportunities within reach of the poorest of the poor: young women will lead the way in a field dominated by men.
More News Coming
A group of friends will be visiting FEBA in Kinshasa in late July. We look forward to bringing you exciting photos of the new Computer Science Institute, the Sewing School with 20 new treadle sewing machines given by Nassau Presbyterian, AND MORE!
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