Project COLORS International

Tuesday, April 17, 2007




Project COLORS International
www.projectcolors.com

New Start Baby Food Project…..airline obstacles!

Spotlight Project: Young girls abducted in a Haitian raid receive precious care

packages from COLORS, delivered by volunteer United Nations staff!

Through a fortunate contact with United Nations staff in the Dominican Republic, Project COLORS was given a last minute opportunity to send supplies to young girls aged 12-17, unjustly imprisoned in Haiti. So a project was formed with funding and supplies from COLORS and help from UN staff to get the supplies through to the Haitian girls. Packages consisting of underwear, school supplies, feminine products, dry foods and small gifts were given to each of the girls. Beadworks and art supplies were also given to the group of girls so they would have something to do during their long and undetermined time in prison. Anti-fungal creams, antibiotic creams and aspirin were also supplied to trusted UN workers based in Haiti who have allocated the supplies to local Haitian doctors.

“….The excitement and joy you could see on each of the girl’s faces when they received the gift packages…it just breaks your heart how some small items that we take for granted every day could mean that much to someone else. It was hard to hold back the tears,” exclaimed Mirna Albaine, one of the UN workers that volunteered to take the supplies to the girls in Haiti.

Ingrid Amaya, who also volunteered her time to bring the girls these supplies, was inspired to try and start more projects like to get supplies to those in need. “We hope more people will help support projects like these…especially concerning education for these women and girls who have no access to any basic schooling.” Ingrid and Mirna both hope to use their contacts with the Haitian- based UN workers to start an educational program for the girls in the prison.

COLORS hopes that more people like Ingid and Mirna will use their connections and resources so more projects like these can be possible. If we have the chance to use our contacts and positions for the greater good, we need to utilize those opportunities and help make a difference where we see the need.
The story above is a perfect example of that.


New Start Baby Food Project…..airline obstacles!

It was a tense moment at the airport when an airline agent in the United States told Sunyata Choyce, director of Project COLORS International that the baby food collected by many Nova Scotia’s would not be allowed to make the journey to the children in the D.R. Apparently this was due to an embargo in the Dominican Republic restricting supplies plus the airlines own weight restrictions.
Despite all the phone calls and official letters appealing for the supplies to get through to the kids…there was still this final obstacle in the way of delivery.
The manager was apparently not available at the time …and it appeared that nothing could be done…. so the airline agent said.

Not ever one to take “no” for an answer, Sunyata politely told the agent the situation of the children….and then Sunyata starting hauling out the donations of baby food, diapers and children’s toys from her luggage. Sunyata’s mother, Terry Choyce, who brought the supplies half the journey from Canada, also made appeals for the supplies to get to the kids. The agent quickly stopped Sunyata from hauling out the supplies, went into the back, came out with a lady who punched in some computer code…a minimal overweight fee was charged, but the bags were placed on the conveyer-belt and loaded on to the plane!

Yes, the supplies got the children!


International project photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectcolors/

Thursday, December 21, 2006





Thank
You !!!




Emergency shopping spree for the children at the
orphanage and more on the way!

Dog project on the go!
  


Because of all the wonderful on-going support
that so many of you have shown for our current
projects in the DR, we were able to do an
emergency shop for the orphanage....
The orphanage has run out of toilet paper,
diapers for the babies, milk and other necessary
household items to run the home.

Charlene (the school teacher) and I (Sunyata) did
an assessment of their needs and bought not only
the emergency supplies but had extra fund to buy
extra food, milk powder, washing soap, cleaning supplies...
We also got lots of dog food for the on going
street dog project
that Jackie, the director
of the home has taken on in a major way.
(and now some cat food too;)
Here is Jackie’s letter to us: “Dear Suny, 
I pray that you are doing great.
First let me thank you for the dog food ,
the pampers they are great, and so are the
other things, specially the toilette paper you
know how it is in this home that gos so fast so
it is allways a blessing, may God in heaven bless
you for all this.
Daddy and I......Jakie”

~Thank you all for making the children’s lives more comfortable, and enabling us to do “spur of the moment” projects like this, when the need arises! ~

Update on Street Dog Project:

We are still treating the street dogs for parasites and assisting Jackie’s home with there animal rescue projects. Over 70 dogs have been medicated over the last 2 years! The Parasite medication has been generously donated by the Hope for Wildlife Society in Nova Scotia. Donations have also been specifically allocated to COLORS to help with the animals, so if anyone wants to help support this effort, please mention this with your donation!

The Street Kit Project still continues here in the DR.

For COLORS this project originated several years ago in South Africa. Many street kits containing basic supplies such as pens, pencils, notepads, tooth brushes, tooth past, small toys and crackers have been given out to people in need. Friends and volunteers of COLORS participate in giving these street kits out in developing countries. If you will be traveling during the holiday season, consider making some street kits of your own to give out to children in need.

In our next news letter, we will highlight a new “spur of the moment” project getting supplies to young girls abducted and imprisoned in a Haitian raid.

This story really deserves its own page! TBA.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006






Baby food, fruit program and local help!





*Report on the new
fruit program in
orphanage classes *




















“So far the Fruit and Water Snack program has been a success at the Orphanage.
The children are loving the fruit, it is like they never saw fruit before, which
is a little sad.
They really look forward to me bringing the fruit and water. The first day we had
bananas, some of the children had no idea how to eat a banana and if I would have
let them, they wouldhave even eaten the peel.
The children definitely know how to eat all of their fruit not like some of our
children in Canada who won’t even eat apples unless they are peeled.
I think that all that was remaining on the apples after they were done with them
was the little wooden stem at the top and that is because I took it off.
Regardless it is great to see the children having fruit and we are very thankful
to those who have made this fruit and water program possible.”
 By Charlene Marcinkoski (Orphanage School Teacher for COLORS)

*Local News* Last week a local Dominican contacted me about bringing supplies
to the children’s home. This was very exciting news since it is very rare for
the local Dominicans to help the children’s home. Most of the support often
comes from foreigners, like us (which is unfortunate since this help is
often temporary).
A car full of donated clothes and medicine were brought
to the children. The director,Jackie was very happy and thankful
to receive the extra help.


This is just one example of the work Project COLORS is doing, networking,
to bring other support people though local UN staff, embassy workers and
local Dominicans to continue assisting the children’s home.

Volunteer Spot:

Eeva: She is a new volunteer recruited from the UN to help with
new COLORS projects.
She hopes to gain support from her contacts
and friends in
Finland so she can also help the
children of Jackie’s Children’s Home.

Monika: A local dominican lady who has been doing beadworks
activities with the children.
The kids love making the jellwery and we are very thankful for Monika's time.

Project COLORS International
www.projectcolors.com


Thursday, November 23, 2006



Fill a bag with life saving baby food…the plane is leaving Jan 1st

Baby project…milk, cereals, pablum, children’s vitamins

www.projectcolors.com

Hey everyone in Nova Scotia and Florida,

We are going to start a “New start-baby food project”.

This is a new idea that Charlene and I have come up with to help with the nutritional needs of the babies at the children’s home (age 6 month to 3 years old)

Many of the babies are underweight, malnourished and have a condition called fetal alcohol syndrome (among other skin conditions and health problems).

These babies have been feed dirty water from the street most of their lives.

Some of the babies are almost close to death when they arrive at the home. Now that the babies are in the orphanage, the care is much better but they now need extra nutrition to help them grow and become healthy.

In an effort to help tackle this problem, COLORS needs assistance to obtain nutritional foods for the babies. Milk powder, cereals and other special baby foods; items such as these are three times more expensive here in the D.R. then in North America.

Good news:

My mom, Terry Choyce is meeting me for a week in Florida, then I am bringing anything she gets donated back to the D.R.

She is currently collecting this much needed baby food to bring with her. We are hoping to get enough to last the orphanage for at least the next few months to give the babies a jump start in nutrition. “The New Start-Baby Food Project.”

We are placing priority on these items so the babies will have a longer term supply of food once COLORS is out of the D.R. in late January (stocking up!).

What to donate:

Powdered baby milk

Pablum

Cereals

Chewable vitamins

*Any light weight baby foods with a high nutritional content

(Children’s light cotton Underwear and Socks are also needed)

What you or your group can do: Collect baby food

If you would like to start a project collecting baby food for the orphanage,

please contact: Terry Choyce (Nova Scotia, Canada).

http://www.projectcolorsinternational.blogspot.com

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Because of YOU!!!

Project COLORS International
www.projectcolors.com

Aug 2006

Great news everyone,

Our new project is well on the way!!!!

Not only on the way, but it is happening right now.

The response from everyone back in home has been truly amazing!

When I arrived at the children’s home they were so excited to receive the lice shampoos and funds for the water from all of you.

They jumped on the phone right away to call the water delivery truck.

While I was there, the truck arrived and filled up their very dry well.

Perfect timing, because they truly had almost no water. Crazy!

I got lots of photos.

I was happy that we could start implement everything outlined in our project goals so fast. Thanks to you!!!

The truck loads of water will continue to come whenever the water gets low until we come up with a more sustainable solution.

More lice shampoo and other remedies are on the way. It has actually been kind of funny dragging around my UN co-workers to help me inquire (in Spanish) about discounts on lice shampoo and hauling random home remedies for lice from the grocery store.

Shortly, COLORS will like to branch out again into helping the children’s home with food donations, school supplies and other needed items.

EVEN MORE EXCITING NEWS: We are seriously looking into the possibility of hiring a school teacher for the young children (who currently have no access to education). Meetings, budgets and contracts are in the works to try and make this a reality really soon.

Thanks again everyone for making all this happen so fast.

Regards,

Sunyata Choyce

Project COLORS International

choyce@projectcolors.com

www.projectcolors.com

No water .................. but lots of lice!


Welcome Back to Project COLORS International

www.projectcolors.com

Aug 17th 2006

No water .................. but lots of lice!

~Can you imagine a children’s home full of lice and not enough lice shampoo or water to remedy the situation! Not only can I imagine it, I’m seeing it,

but they are the ones living it each day.~

Greetings fellow COLORS supporters,

I find myself once again here in the Dominican Republic. Luckily I have had the pleasure to revisit the kids of Jackie’s Children’s Home which many of you helped support last year.

Wow, the babies are now walking and talking! So nice to see.

They have a bigger house now, however, the number of children has grown as well. Last year they had 25 kids… now they have over 40 small children.

As you all know, I often have the luck of walking into the middle of a crisis of some sort.

Yesterday, when I was visiting the children, they were in a mini state of emergency.

Lice, has taken over the children’s home (yes, again… fun stuff!!).

Not only that, but they are also out of water (even better!)

What a mess.

Since they have had so many children coming through that need various treatments for lice, fungus etc… they have exhausted their supply of these medications. The lice is so bad that many of the children must have their hair cut short (there were many new hairdos yesterday!!!!)

To add to the drama, they have also been out of water of several weeks now.

Twice a week they have to order expensive loads of water that are delivered to the house. This is 800 pesos (around $30 each)…. That is $60 a week, plus the purified drinking water ($40 a month), since the water in the DR is undrinkable.

Can you imagine a children’s home full of lice and not enough lice shampoo or water to remedy the situation! Not only can I imagine it, I’m seeing it first hand, but they are the ones living it each day.

However, believe it or not, this is an easy one problem solve!

This will be a one or two month emergency project. (I can start ASAP)

Through COLORS I would like to directly purchase the water to be delivered to the children’s home for the next month or two (while we wait for the landlord to fix the main problem or find a sustainable solution).

I can also purchase the lice shampoo right now.

· *If anyone wants to help with this project, please e-mail me so I can arrange the budget and time frame.*

· sunnychoyce@yahoo.ca or choyce@projectcolors.com

Welcome back again to Project COLORS!

Sincerely,

Sunyata Choyce


Project COLORS International

www.projectcolors.com

http://www.colorsinternational.blogspot.com/

* Fruit and snack program meets education with COLORS.

* “Water!”….

* Day trip with the orphans

Greetings everyone,

With the wonderful success of this years preliminary projects here in the D.R, we feel that it is due time to bring you up to speed on some of our new project plans and updates.

For November, are starting a new project incorporating snacks/fruit into the children’s classes. We also hope to gain on going support for our educational program and to extend our initial water program since there is yet again a dyer need for water for the children’s home.

On a brighter note, thanks to an amazing donation of medical creams and shampoos, the lice are under control and we now have a back up supply among other medications to tackle future problems! We have also started medicating street dogs again with anti-parasite medication.

Hands on in the field:

It was a fun girl’s weekend here in the D.R. Two of the children from the home (Jamie age 4 and Wendy age 5) were chosen to come and spend the weekend with ‘Tia Sunny’ and ‘Tia Charlene’. In a strange way, it was actually sad to see how truly happy and excited the girls both were to sleep in a real bed, in their own room, with a real bathroom, even if it was only for the weekend. For me, the sad part was the realization that this was a completely foreign concept to these kids because they never ever had these things before.

We took the girls to the beach and made the day as special as we could because who knows when they would ever get to do this again.

Street kits

With the two young children in hand, we also went around giving out our new “ street kits” filled with basic school and dental supplies, small toys and dry foods. We gave them out to other street kids and mothers begging. These kits were made from the donations brought back from my visit to Nova Scotia.

Thanks everyone for your on going support

and interest in our projects!

Project Plans

Fruit and snack program meets education.

Start date: November 2006

“It is a difficult task to learn if youre hungry or thirsty” highlights Charlene our new school teacher. This is why we have decided to merge our educational program with a new fruit and snack program.

It is not often that the children at the children’s home receive fruit in their diet.

By introducing this new program, we can not only ensure that the kids have eaten, but that they have eaten something healthy as well.

Based on funding, we hope to personally bring a piece of fruit to each kid at the orphanage at least once or twice a week. This will be done during the school program.

Budget

Ex. Each banana is around 5p X 40 kids = 200p

200p = around $7 a day for each kids to get a piece of fruit.

Total: $210 Canadian roughly each month (depending on how often fruit is brought into the classes)

*We are also hoping to sustain the educational program past my departure date in January. This costs 5000peasos a month (about $150-$170 can)

Water Project

Start date : November

How many times have I heard “tia… agua!” ….which translates to “auntie I want a drink of water!”

As we are now at the end of the completion of the initial water project, we are now faced with the recurring problem of water at the children’s home.

Ahhhh…..yes, again.

Such a basic necessity, but such a major problem in this country.

We still have some funding rationed out for this problem for the next few weeks thanks to everyone who donated for the two month lice and water project. However, longer term I am personally feeling the stress of the reliance on this funding to keep the water coming since a new solution has not been found for the children’s home.

We are hoping now to help supplement the cost of water based on the donations we receive from now until January.

*We are also looking into buying a special water pump called a “Ladrona , bomba de auga”, which can be used to siphon water from the street pumps and fill up their cistern well. This may help solve some of the problems.

NOTE: The truck loads of water and fees for any city water (if it ever works) for cleaning and washing is a separate project. It is also a long term and costly project.

To sustain this, the children’s home needs to create a partnership with a larger NGO to sponsor and facilitate it. If any company or organization wants to take this on, please contact me and we can make arrangements.

Current projects taken on by Project COLORS for November 2006:

*Fruit/snack program in school

*Street kits: for kids on the street

*Educational program: teacher for young children and supplies

*Purified water project: drinking water, water pump

*Street dog anti-parasite project: made possible by the Hope for Wildlife Society

*If anyone wants to help with these projects, please read below and e-mail me: choyce@projectcolors.com

Thank you all so much!

Sincerely,

Sunyata Choyce

www.projectcolors.com

http://www.colorsinternational.blogspot.com/

P.S. Check the website for updates and photos.
Apologies for any cross-posting!

For those who want to help, please read below:

In terms of help, any support for these immediate projects will go along way.

Remember, this is a small project; COLORS is not a registered charity.

A. Those who would like to donate through pay pal can do so through the COLORS website:

www.projectcolors.com then click on ‘donate’

B. Online line money transfers are another option.

C. Checks

1. Pledging an amount.

2. E-mail me how much you would like to put towards the project.

3. (Sunyata or Charlene) pay’s for supplies, water or food now on the donors behalf,

4. Actual pledges can be sent to my (Sunyata) families house.

5. My family is collecting funds back in Canada This way I have access to money through my own bank to buy anything needed (without a middle man or major fees).

(I have done this before here in the D.R and in South Africa to cut out unnecessary costs.)

6. Checks can be made out to:

Sunyata Choyce

83 Leslie Rd,

E. Lawrencetown

Nova Scotia

B2Z 1P8

Canada

There is also the Western Union option, but that is more costly for the donor.

*If you would like to donate to the children’s home directly, I would be more then happy to get you in touch with the Director. COLORS will not be responsible for any follow up on donations made directly to the home.

Thank you everyone for your on going support and interest in
these small but needed projects!

Cheers,

Sunyata Choyce

Project COLORS International

www.projectcolors.com

www.colorsinternational.blogspot.com

choyce@projectcolors.com

My number at the UN office is:

#1-809-685-2111 ext.232

Project COLORS International

www.projectcolors.com