Past Projects
Mali
Kabaya Health Center
In collaboration with the village of Kabaya women’s association and the rest of Kabaya’s inhabitants, World Connection provided financial resources and management of the construction of a rural health center in Mali. Construction of the center based on Malian government blueprints completed in just three months after breaking ground.
Front yard school (Kalanso Maison Traore)
Started with a blackboard and chalk and sparking the interest of a 3rd-year university student in education to teach mainly illiterate young men who hung out in front of the house smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. Only expecting a couple of people, we were surprised to see seven youths show up for the first night. Night after night, the group students showed up for classes outside in the front yard of the house with only two neon bulbs to light up the board. One month later, 15 youths came to the house, five nights a week, with their notebooks and pens to write the alphabet, their names, numbers, days of the week, and more.
Benefit Concert for Musicians in Mali & Photo Exhibit of Face, Places, and Musicians
As a result of the 2012 coup in Mali, artists and musicians were no longer allowed to perform at weddings and baptisms, and therefore lost their means of income. Because the situation was so dire for them, on May 30th 2013, World Connection produced a multimedia event to raise funds to purchase rice and millet for musicians and their families. More than 11.7 tons were distributed.
Operation Coup de Balai
(Project Sweep of the Broom)
A weekend of neighborhood clean-up and youth soccer competitions culminating with a free concert in a neighborhood in Bamako, Mali. The concert included performances from local artists and skits from theater groups relaying messages pertaining to the importance of cleanliness with regard to health and well-being. Participants included over a thousand students from six schools.
Health Messaging through Music
While attending a CD release party of a local musician, a famous Malian producer of a top-rated televised music program offered World Connection’s President Andrea and her guitarist brother, Chris, the opportunity to record for the show. Andrea turned to her brother and said: “hey! how about if we do a song with a health-related message?!”
Six days later, Andrea, her brother, and local musicians were in the studio recording and filming a newly written and composed song with a message about maintaining cleanliness in and around one’s environment to improve the health of the community. After two takes, the song—Sanya (cleanliness)—aired on national television and generated more than one million viewers that same night.
Orphanage Support
World Connection promoted a US-based benefit concert to help sustain the operations of an orphanage in Bamako, Mali, and raised more than double the annual operating budget for 60 infants.
Guatemala
Women’s Empowerment and Training Program in San Lucas Tolíman, Guatemala
This micro-business training prepared a group of local Mayan women on the basics of creating a catering business in order to generate their own income.
Health Outposts in the Highlands of Western Guatemala
To provide access to basic health care to the Mayan Mam populations in the remote highlands of Western Guatemala, World Connection together with local partner AFOPADI and community members completed the construction of two health outposts in Tumiche and Pisuche in May 2003.
These small facilities provide a space for private consultations and training sessions for community members. Without these facilities, they would have to travel over difficult terrain to receive any kind of medical attention.
The villagers’ contribution included all labor and hand-made adobe bricks.
Mexico
Multi-purpose Kitchen Facility
The indigenous women of Puerto Morelos, Yucatan, Mexico, have been working hard at learning and remembering what their ancestors did with the natural gifts of the forest.
In partnership with local organizations, Lumm K’aa Nab, World Connection assisted in constructing a multi-purpose kitchen facility that serves these women in bringing lost traditions and gives them the possibility of increasing their incomes.
Zambia
AIDS-Awareness in Zambia
World Connection collaborated with Ukani manje, a local Zambian project, to conduct a workshop to further the continuation of recording, videotaping, and disseminating songs with AIDS-awareness messaging.
