Partners In The Horn Of Africa Donors

A Great Big Run For Africa - Sunday Oct 18, 2009

2009-08-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

The 5th annual "A Great Big Run For Africa" will be held on Sunday October 18th this year. The 100 km run from West Kelowna to Enderby is completed as a relay with a support vehicle. The proceeds help raise money for women's micro finance programs in Ethiopia.

Get involved! Run yourself or help sponsor a runner. This popular event has help immensely in raising the profile of Partners in the Horn of Africa in the Okanagan.

Contact Nicole Rustad at 250-212-0774 or Alison Moscrop at 250-764-0186 for more information.

A Great Big Run For Africa - Sunday Oct 26, 2008

2008-10-10T02:43:00.000-07:00

Download the Great Big Run Brochure and application form (Adobe PDF, 360K)
(Right click and "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" to save to your own copy)

A Great BIG Run for Africa was the idea of Alison Moscrop, Stephanie Moore and Crystal Flaman. Alison had been to Ethiopia to visit the projects that Partners in the Horn of Africa were doing. Alison was inspired by what she saw, especially meeting the women who had benefitted from micro loans and were making a better life for themselves and their children.

Awoken in the early morning by the sound of hundreds of people running along the streets of Addis Ababa the capital of Ethiopia, Alison learned that many people in Africa run as sport, training in whatever shoes they own (many with just flip flops) competing in races throughout the country. Upon her return to Canada, she wanted to do a fundraiser that incorporated running.

In 2005, A Great Big Run for Africa was born when Stephanie and Crystal, both friends and extreme athletes suggested that they run 100km to raise awareness and funds for Partners in the Horn of Africa's micro-financing program.

Today, A Great Big Run for Africa is completed as a relay, inviting anyone with a passion for helping to empower people to help themselves to participate!

The 2008 run is on Sunday October 26th. Come join the fun and make a difference.

For more information, please contact Nicole Rustad at 250-212-0774 or
rnrustad@shaw.ca

More on A GREAT BIG RUN FOR AFRICA - 2007

2007-11-30T09:39:00.000-08:00

From Diane MacKenzie:

Most charities just receive cheques from their supporters, and that’s about as close as the relationship gets. That’s okay. After all, it’s the money that fuels the fires, that builds the bridges, that buys the mulberry bushes, and funds the micro-financing bank so that the good work can take place overseas.

But there’s something different about Partners, something that draws in the supporters, making them want to be part of the core, to see the projects, to spread the word, to be creative. Maybe it’s the philosophy that every penny raised is used for development and not a penny for administration. Maybe it’s because each project in Ethiopia has 20% support from its countrymen in the form of cash or labour or materials.

Or maybe it’s because our projects are so simple and so life impacting. Like wells with clean water and bridges allowing villagers to travel to market or school in rainy seasons and schools and AIDS orphanages.

It was micro-financing that interested donor Alison Moscrop when she traveled to Ethiopia with her dad three years ago. She wanted to see this concept at work, to learn how a loan as small as $70 could help an impoverished woman trade in bananas or spices or farm produce. Such a tiny sum by our standards, yet enough to help a single mum with 6 or 7 kids feed and clothe her offspring plus send them to school. Just seventy dollars to change peoples’ lives. Alison attended Co-op meetings and traveled 18 hours by bus to remote rural regions of the country. She talked to the women and viewed their projects. She liked what she saw and committed to fundraise back home in Canada. Thus was born the Great Big Run for Africa. Knowing that Ethiopians were the best marathoners in the world, a runner herself, Alison created an event for women in the Okanagan to support impoverished woman in Ethiopia.

The rest is history. In 2005 Stephanie Moore and Crystal Flaman ran the 100 km route through the Okanagan valley from Westbank to Enderby. Their pledges brought in $7,000 for micro-financing. In 2006 12 runners and power walkers signed up and the run became a relay. Each participant was asked to sign up $500 in pledges. They did better than that – at the end of the day they had collected $35,000 from individual and corporate donors.

There’s more to the story. In 2003 a financial planner named Nicole Rustad met Ethiopian Mekonen Bayssie at a trade fair in Kelowna. A Partners' director, Mekonen told Nicole about the development work overseas and encouraged her to become involved.

Nicole was hooked. She too became a volunteer, taking on information sharing with power point presentations and becoming Chair of the 2007 Great Big Run for Africa. She knew 2 things were important for the success of the run – media backing and finding people to pledge. She also knew public education was crucial, and every radio announcement , press release and brochure spelled out the concept of micro-financing and its success in giving Ethiopian women a hand up not a hand out.

Just $70 to change a life!

October 13^th was a lovely clear day in the Okanagan. For the third year Kelowna Truck and Rental provided an RV for Alison’s husband Barry Moscrop to chauffeur along the route. This year there were 16 participants . Relay lengths varied, depending on the training and strength of each woman. Some ran (or power walked) 5 km; others went farther, up to 25 km. It was a long day, a 7am start time in Westbank, and it was after 6pm when the Enderby firefighters accompanied the team to the Partners office on whatever street.

Was there any money raised? You bet, $45,000 in pledges and Nicole expects to see over $50,000 in the final tally.

Nicole says this kind of event would be easy to duplicate in another community, and she’s available to assist. It doesn’t have to be a relay on a highway says she; instead the run could take place on a community walkway or track field. Call her at (250) 212-0774 or email her at rnrustad@shaw.ca.

Now, what about that other volunteer work Nicole was doing, those power point presentations? Yet again, one thing led to another.. A nursing prof from UBC attended one of Nicole’s talks and asked her to speak not once but twice to classes at UBC. Now Nicole is planning a group visit to Ethiopia in February, hoping to see some of the work she has helped fund. The nursing prof is going too, planning to meet folks at the university in Addis Ababa about setting up a nursing exchange.

Just one more thing. Nicole is very organized, no surprise, and the pledge and entry forms for the next Big Run are ready, for October 26, 2008. Would you like her to send you one?

(Diane MacKenzie is a retired Public Administrator and ongoing supporter of Partners.)

A Great Big Run For Africa ... and more!

2007-10-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

From Nicole R.:

This is fantastic - I am looking forward to being able to keep in touch with everyone who is working towards Partner's goal of empowering people!

October has already been a very active month for Partners in Kelowna - on Saturday, October 13th we held the 3rd Annual "A Great Big Run for Africa" and we are excited to report that we have raised over $40,000 towards Partners micro-financing projects! 16 runners completed the 100km relay that started in Westbank, travelled through Kelowna, Lake Country, Vernon, Armstrong and finished at the Enderby Partners in the Horn office with an escort from the local fire department!

A huge thank-you to all of our participants, fundraisers, generous supporters and sponsors (especially Kelowna Truck & RV)! The media coverage was also stellar which added greatly to our success!

We have already set next year's date - so mark your calendars all runners and wanna-be runners: Saturday, October 18th, 2008!

Anyone wanting to start a run/walk etc. in their own area, please let me know!

Other Partners news:

This week, I was invited to speak at the YWCA "Power of being a girl" Conference for local teens - they were wide-eyed when I spoke about the reality of most girls living in developing countries and many wanted to know how to volunteer!

Today, it was "Make Poverty History" worldwide and we set up a "Partners in the Horn of Africa" booth. Katherine Johnston, from EBA Engineering jumped right in to help out (despite on the mend from pneumonia!) and we generated some great interest.

Tomorrow I speak to the UBC-O third year nurses about the work Partners does. From the nursing students third year class we also have three nursing students working with me to do an information night about Partners at UBC-O in November - I'll keep you posted!

If you'd like more information about what's happening with Partners in Kelowna, please contact me directly at 250-212-0774.

- Nicole

New Blog for our Donors

2007-09-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

This Blog is for those who donate their time and/or money to Partners in the Horn of Africa.

Here we get a chance to tell our stories about fundraising, projects, visits to Ethiopia and anything else that might get someone excited about the PHA mission.