Super Achievers! Sarah Liparulo & Samantha Parry

Sarah Liparulo & Samantha Parry wanted to make their senior project at Lakeland High School in Pennsylvania really count. When Sarah first sent and email to ASAP early in 2008 she was frustrated and discouraged. Her enthusiasm to contribute significantly to an organization that helps to empower impoverished women in Africa were repeatedly ignored until she contacted ASAP.

Since that day, Sarah and Sam have raised $1,245.04 for ASAP Africa! According to Sarah, "We could have picked a simple, easy project to do to help us graduate, but we chose to take on the world. It brings tears to our eyes when we realize how much money we have raised."It wasn't easy, and even through personal crises and bureaucratic delays that would have disillusioned many, Sarah and Samantha never gave up!

At ASAP we are elated that two seniors "on a mission"will contribute significantly to ASAP's work to improved the income and household security of women in Zimbabwe, where the collapsing economy and cholera epidemic are devastating an already impoverished nation.

Winter Newsletter Available

The 2008-2009 Winter Newsletter is up for viewing on the ASAP website. You can access the letter here or from our website, www.asapafrica.org. Read about all of our recent activity and plans for the future.

New Grant Funding Partner!

ASAP is pleased to announce the receipt of a EUR 20,000 grant in support of ASAP's Village Savings and Lending pilot project in Malawi from the Catholic Organization for Relief and Development Aid. Cordaid serves all aspects of development cooperation: emergency aid, structural poverty alleviation and healh care, working closely together with local organizations. ASAP looks forward to working together with Cordaid to help those in rual Malawi improve their own lives through micro-finance and entreprneurship projects.

ASAP 2007/2008 Annual Report

All of us at ASAP Africa are pleased to share our 2007/8 annual report with you.

It is a time of desperate need in Zimbabwe today and we need your help more than ever. We hope you will add ASAP to your Christmas list this year as we work together to make poverty history.

Giving Thanks

The Thanksgiving holiday has said its goodbyes and we are now all gearing up, sweeping our chimneys so the old man in red does not develop respiratory issues as he slides down them to deliver our iPods, cell phones, and in my case, new hubcaps. I'm sure as we were all sitting around our tables with family or friends taking in an average of 3000 calories (according to www.acefitness.org), there was too much happiness to think about parts of our planet where people don't fret over burning the sweet potatoes, but whether they'll have enough water to make it through another day. One place on our mind at all times at ASAP is, of course, Zimbabwe. According to recent articles, the citizens of a country once known as the "breadbasket of Africa" are now resorting to finding bugs on sticks, even termites to aid their hunger. Mothers are desperately pleading for help to feed their malnourished children, but their cries are increasingly answered with silence. To exacerbate the food crisis, cholera and anthrax are making their way through the country threatening humans and livestock. Due to unbelievable hunger, some are still ingesting the infected meat, making the severity of the outcome largely unknown and dangerous.

One may ask themselves whether this is all due to politics, but at this point the situation is so hard to unravel the important thing is getting these people help. So while most Americans ate their fair share of yams and sipped on egg nog before going and spending a total over $40 billion in stores on "Black Friday" (which is well over the $2 billion GDP of Zimbabwe in its entirety, and that figure is likely exagerated), those in Zimbabwe were wondering why they do not have the abundance such hard working people deserve. All of us having access to read this blog, or to clean water and sanitation, should be so thankful and so happy for the many things we are given in life, and keep in mind over the holidays those that are unable to rush the entrance of department stores for sales on HD TVs and other electronics whose operational techniques are mysteries to most of us that own them.

The following were referneced in this post:
CIA World Factbook- Zimbabwe
The Independent- World News