March 6, 2019
Announcements
Pres. Tom: The opioid crisis will take 650,000 people in the next 10 years if effective action is not taken now. See the flyer for the 3 remaining opioid conference dates. The closest opioid conference date will be in the Wentworth-Douglass Hospital conference room on Jun 3rd ... Dan Hussey, past Assistant District Governor, of the Rochester Club passed Sunday ... Frank R and Heather have decided to build a home in FL and will return from their latest RV trip just long enough to sell their home here in Lee.
David: A reminder that Marina's Miles 5K is coming up in one month on Apr 6th. Please sign up for the available slots.
Program
Katherine Kolios spoke to us about the Portsmouth non-profit RAIN for the Sahel and Sahara. Since 2001 the group has been working in Niger, a west African country about the size of the northeast U.S. 40% of the population has access to clean water, and 35% have electricity. And most of that is in the large cities of the southern, rain-favored third of the country. Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world (at 7.6 children per family), is 19% literate, and is last of 189 countries in the UN's index of Human Development.
RAIN works for the most part with rural (southern third) and nomadic (middle third) people to diversify food and livelihood sources, and to help the people learn new skills. The goals of the organization are to partner with the people to improve food and water security (gardens and well drilling with solar-powered pumps) in the 12% of the country which is arable, to build a body of entrepreneurial women (now at 200) who gain their leverage through a mutual loan office and become models for their daughters, and to develop a mentoring group of women (now at 114) for students (75% of whom are girls) in the government's elementary and middle schools.
Member queries uncovered that Niger is relatively secure internally, although it does have problems with militant groups along its borders with Nigeria and Mali. Cell phone service is intermittent. A majority of the population is Muslim, which prohibits the charging of interest on loans. This is why the loan program which supports the entrepreneurs is not third-party but is owned by them.
Megabucks: $220
Editor: Ric
