Monday, February 11, 2013

It Takes a Village and the French Connection

My 2 most favorite places on the globe right now are France and Africa. So, you can imagine my surprise and my joy when I received an email and a phone call, from a student at a French business school in Saint-Etienne, France. The students were interested in helping us raise money for the new medical clinic in Guinea Bissau.

Saint-Étienne is a city in eastern central France. It is located in the Massif Central, 50 km southwest of Lyon in the Rhône-Alpes region, along the trunk road that connects Toulouse with Lyon. Population 180,000. Inhabitants of Saint-Étienne are called Stéphanois in French.

photo source
Here's a little bit of my conversation with on our newest fundraiser (Kawtar) about the project she and her classmates are organizing for It Takes a Village.
We are going to do our best to make a change in Guinea Bissau!

We are 6 students of a business school in Saint-Etienne, France. We have to set up a humanitarian project, so we decided to create some events and activities within our school, and make everyone participate, so we can collect some money and send it to you to help your project.

We named our little group " ESC'poir Africa" (ESC'poir is a word that comes from 'espoir' and it is a french word that means Hope).

I was the one who heard about the project several months ago. A friend of mine showed me the video of Hasan Salaam and I really liked the concept of 'Music is my weapon'. When my school told us that we have to create a project, I don't know why but I automatically thought about you. I ran over the page where I saw the video, the description of the project and the contacts, and showed it to everybody so we could do something for you. They were all very enthusiastic about it.

We created a Facebook page too. It is called ESC'poir Africa.
let's add your country's flag to our list

The "ESC'poir Africa" project will run for the next 2 months (until the end of their semester) and they have promised to send us pictures as they organize their events. The only request that the students have, is that we send them project updates.

Another perfect example of the kindness and generosity of people and how ordinary people can make extraordinary differences!

I've even been invited to visit Saint-Étienne, see the school and meet the project members!

We Thank You in advance Kawtar and "ESC'poir Africa"! We'll definitely keep you in the loop about what goes on with the building of the medical clinic.
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 If you would like to help us build the medical clinic, please click below or use the link on my sidebar! Thank you!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, thanks Devon, I have heard that when you do something small to help others God will multiply it. It seems that this is proof.

Toni said...

Amazing! How wonderful is this?! I agree with Willie-- positive things attract other positive forces. and you are one wonderful positive force in this world!

Unknown said...

With 31 days to go, we have reach $1,100, this is great. We are $400 away from our goal of $1,500. I'd like to thank all of you that made a donation and shared the link below with your friends and family. For those that have not had time, please take a minute, a $20 donation will provide medication for a family of 4.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/it-takes-a-village--37/x/2331211?c=home