Please consider sending your donation as a gift so that the costs of the transfers are not incurred by the children. Thanks! :-)

Just out of interest, do you know what is in the maths set?

Nope, but it was one of the first questions I asked back to Debrah. I also suggested that they might see if some of the women at LiA could make the school bags for the same cost and keep the money closer to home.

I chipped in and posted to Twitter. Good luck!

btw - I think it would be really helpful if there was a link to more info about the Butterflies in the intro to this thread.

By Akello Debrah (9),Mon,07 Dec 2009

A math set is a special tin which consists of instruments like a ruler,a pair of compass and much more. these intruments are used in a math lesson.

Linda, the bags made by the women in LiA are not the types of bags that I want to buy for the children.

Thanks, Ben. Debrah had written this to me in email as well and I will share with all of you what I sent her

Thanks for the information on the maths set.

With regards to the bags, you are perhaps, limiting yourself and the LiA women. They may not make the kind of bags that you have in mind right now BUT CAN they make them for you in time? It may be that they can not. There is a program that is very important for social entrepreneurs called Buy Local. When you buy local, you keep your money circulating and working locally. If you buy from someone out side of the community, you take money that was working inside the community out and put it in the pockets of people who can use it to help their own communities. If the LiA women can make your bags for you, you move the money into your own community paying the people there and then they can spend it in the community helping more or their neighbors.

Just to inform all - Debrah is very busy working as the animateur for the programme - 32 children were recruited from Kinawataka yesterday. This area is especially disadvantaged in Kampala, and many of the children do not go to school, due to lack of ability to pay fees. It's doubtful whether any of the children selected will ever have received a gift for Christmas.

Note also that we are running two 5-day activity sessions for these children leading up to the Christmas party and, as a launch for the Chrysalis Centre, which is based at Life in Africa. Chrysalis is to be used from January to support and stimulate children from the nearby Acholi Quarter, Banda and Kinawataka, who have little stimulus in their lives.

The other 32 children are from Banda and Acholi Quarter and are being recruited for the programmes today. The Acholi Quarter is an area for people displaced from Northern Uganda during the war times and has substantial crime and deprivation. Banda neighbours it.

We are also choosing those children specifically who are more needy from this communities, as we wish to use the programme as an outreach, finding those children, who are enthusiastic to learn and then finding ways to support them into school next year. It is possible that Debrah's new school fees support social enterprise (to be launched over Christmas) will be linked into this programme.

Debrah has brought over the first 16 children from Acholi Quarter, 7 x 9-11 and 9 x 6-8 years old. As I write, the older ones are doing painting and the younger ones are listening to stories. The younger ones also did colouring earlier on.

The idea of the programme is to provide ten different activities for each set of the children over the 5 days, to broaden their thinking and experience.

This afternoon, the Kinawataka children come and we will be doing some easy boardgames and some singing.

AFter the ten activities are complete, then the programme culminates in the Christmas Party.

Chipped in a little too, should show up soon.

Agree with Linda, if there's anyway at all to make bags locally and pay people locally, the money stays in the community.

Would some of you please consider posting this to your networks on facebook, twitter or anyplace else?

Please, please consider making a small contribution. Many small contributions will go a huge way. ChipIn: Butterflies Christmas Project http://tinyurl.com/ybej47a

Done (different wording, but same intent): http://twitter.com/neddotcom/sta tus/6608022605

Done (I borrowed Mark's wording)

I want to thank Nicholas, Mark, Christina and David Bale. I will throw in my bit when I transfer to Debrah - that will really put us at $115 now!

Just tweeted again :-)

Thank you to the contributors, on behalf of Debrah, who will be implementing the programme right now. I would suggest we need to consider together exactly how it would be best to proceed, since the date deadline is passed.

Should Debrah buy a smaller present for them, put the money gathered to another purpose - such as extra food for the Christmas Party - or simply refund the money to the contributors? The party is also on 23rd and thus we could extend the date a little, although Debrah will need time to acquire the items.

One thing I could do, if we extend the deadline, is write to the Butterfly mailing list with link to the ChipIn, although I had not intended this list to be used as a "fundraising" tool. Happy to do this, though, if it works!

Ben, if people have been following your program, I think they would be happy to know that opportunities to participate like this exist.... (or did you think they were on the list simply to watch you?)

If not enough money is raised, then Debra should do what she can for the party with what she's got, in my view. This is a real life lesson. I don't want the money back.

It would be nice, as a contributor, to see some pictures later and hear how she worked things out.

I have some pictures in my camera of the two early sessions and some which Gilbert took, which are good. At the moment I am technically challenged, with regards to photos. I will try to resolve this shortly and publish these on Facebook. Also, I don't think there is a camera available to take pictures of the party etc. Peter has a video camera, which I guess he could use.

I'll email the list imminently.

Christina Jordan said:

If not enough money is raised, then Debra should do what she can for the party with what she's got, in my view. This is a real life lesson. I don't want the money back.

This is my view. I will be happy with Akello Debra's decision on how to use the money although I was attracted by the educational aspect of the maths sets for the youngsters. Looking forward to an inventive solution.

Thanks all of you for your support. I have asked for an address and person to send the money to but have not heard back from anyone.

As of this morning, the internet expires at the Project and will only come back 27th December. I can contact Debrah via the mobile, as the Project now has a mobile phone, which Debrah currently is looking after. If anyone would like this number, then please message me.

I have left some money to tide over the Project in my absence (for travel, internet etc.) and plan to send over some more money for those few supported with school fees for next term in late December, so, if the money is sent to my Paypal account, with everyone's agreement, then I can email Grace to advise her to allocate some of the money left, to go to the Children's party and possibly avoid transfer fees.

I don't want to speak for Debrah, but perhaps the maths sets could be acquired as the present and any additional money could be put to buying a couple of turkeys for the party, which we believe we could acquire for around 20,000/- each ($10).

Sounds good, Ben. I will send it right away.

Debrah is onto it and should be sending a budget through shortly.

Thanks so much for all your concern and contribution towards the Christmas program and I really appreciate it. I am so pleased and happy with the way things moved on. I thought this was going to be challenging but I am happy, I made it.

The Christmas party was very fun and we had a lot of fun with the children. We had some party games, body art and we had enough to eat.

Since the money was not enough to buy school bags, I decided to buy for these children something that they can use at school. Most of these children live in very poor conditions and buying most of the scholastic materials is very difficult for them and their parents, so I decided to buy for them exercise books because in Uganda here, a child cannot go to school without exercise books and some schools go to an extend of sending the child back home if he/she fails to buy the books. The children and their parents were very pleased with it because when it is school season, these books are quite expensive.

I received 200,000 shillings for the gifts and this is how I spent it. I bought 25 dozens of books and each was at 7,000. Wrapping paper was for 20,000 Transport was 5,000

Total was 200,000.

Once again, thanks so much for your support.

Akello,

Thanks for letting us know how the party went and how you managed the money and the presents. I am very glad you all had a good time.

Hopping you have a successful the New Year.