The business is launched!!

Hello everyone! We have a lot of amazing news to share about École St. Albert Le Grand. Their small business has been launched, and the school has already used some of the proceeds to do their own improvements! This is a very newsy post, so here's a summary of what you're going to find below:

- A report out from our Indiegogo campaign, and a big thank you to our amazing funders!
- The business is launched! Have a look at what equipment was purchased
- A recent donation from St. Monica School
- May 3rd is the final fundraiser!!

Indiegogo Report Out

Our Indiegogo Campaign was run from May 4 to June 30, 2013 and successfully raised $3,425 which was about 50% of our goal. We were elated with the results! Although it would have been nice to have raised the full $6,915, we believe that falling short of our original goal was a blessing in disguise. It gave the school the opportunity to start their business smaller than originally planned to get their feet wet. More on that below.

Please click here to see the Indiegogo campaign - including the video pitch that the wonderful Kelly O'Dette created for us. 

We would like to whole heartedly thank everyone who supported the campaign both financially and by helping us spread the word. We would especially like to thank the following fine folks who contributed to the campaign:

Superstar of Bazou

- John Easson

Friends Of St. Albert Le Grand

- Madame Proulx

- Eileen Woloshyn

- Steve Woloshyn

Education Champions

- Anne Benson

- Jane Benson

- Mary Benson

- Sam Benson

- Debanjan & Aparna

- Glen St. School

- Jean Golden

- Will Hossack

- Jeremy Kraemer

- Keith Stansfield
- Whitney Woloshyn

Small Business Boosters

- Anne Lederman

- Julie Leung

- Carolina McDonald

- Erin Paul

- William Pipher

- Jeff Plotnikoff

- Quinlan, Gavin & Darren McManus

The Small Business is Launched!

In December 2013, our project coordinator Peguy purchased equipment in Douala to take to Bazou. (Why did it take so long for us to send the funds to Cameroon? Fair question. Njacko and Val had a baby in August 2013 and took a bit of a break to focus on family for a bit.) The school prioritized which equipment would be most beneficial to start with. They decided to put the tents and generator on hold for now, and purchased the sound system/mixing board, cordless microphone and stand, speakers and stands, and 100 chairs. Here they are!

     

When the equipment arrived, it was at the end of the school term (which is why you can see the children holding up their report cards in the above photo). The community gathered to celebrate, and the students performed. You'll notice that most of the students are wearing new blue school uniforms - the morale at the school is so strong, the school decided it was time for a change. Among the community, École St. Albert Le Grand is often now called École St. Albert La Belle!

   

Early this year, the school provided their sound equipment for a government engagement - it is by far the nicest equipment available in Bazou right now! The school has already put funds that they have earned with the business to good use. They have purchased drums for their marching band and installed ceilings in classrooms to help keep the rooms cooler in the hot sun.

Thank you St. Monica School!

This past February, Njacko had the pleasure of going to St. Monica School through the teaching he does with Mariposa In The Schools. When he was at the St. Monica, Njacko spoke with the children about our project with St. Albert Le Grand. The students were so motivated that they decided to have their own fundraiser for St. Albert!

They raised $675 by having their social justice group design and make Valentine's Day and Olympic themed buttons and magnets that they sold to the students at St. Monica.  They also helped to raise awareness about the purpose of their fundraiser through announcements and posters posted around the school.  

Way to go St. Monica School! Thank you so much for your support!!

Final Fundraiser - Saturday May 3

The Gladstone Hotel is graciously hosting our annual fundraiser once again on Saturday May 3. As we have done for the past three years, we will hold two fundraisers on May 3rd - an afternoon show for children/families, and an evening all ages concert.

This will be our fifth and final fundraiser for École St. Albert Le Grand, and marks the end of the 5 year partnership with this school. The funds raised will be given to the school to help boost their small business and to do any more minor repairs that they need right now.

We will be announcing the incredible lineup for this final year of fundraising in the coming week. Stay tuned!

Funds are being dispatched this week! 5 more days for Indiegogo Campaign

Hello again everyone!

Wow, what an amazing week we've had with the Indiegogo campaign! When we checked this evening, we have received $2,125 in donations from 31 different people! Not only that, we're told that the campaign has been viewed 397 times so far. Amazing! Thank you to everyone who is donating, and everyone who is helping us spread the word. We're getting closer and closer to our goal of $6,915 - there are still 5 days remaining in the campaign, please continue to help us spread the word!

We also just heard from another school - Our Lady of Providence - that they have completed a fundraiser and are getting ready to send in their donation. This will add to the $2,800 collected so far from the May 11th fundraiser!

We have been in touch with St. Albert Le Grand, and will be sending the school the first 750,000 CFA (about $1,575 CDN) to get this year's project under way. The focus this year will be to continue (and hopefully complete) the rehabilitation of the school buildings on the main school site (some photos of the buildings that are going to be rehabilitated are provided below).

We look forward to providing you updates this summer as the project progresses! We'll also be providing an update for you in July to report out on how the Indiegogo campaign finished.

We hope that you are all having an enjoyable summer!

Blessings,
Njacko and Val

2012 Project Update - Remarkable Progress!

Wow, we have had our socks knocked off with the latest photos that Peguy has sent us from Bazou. There has been incredible progress made this year, and the 2012 project is almost finished! And we have more good news - the school and the parent council have worked together to come up with an initiative that will help the school generate more income without raising school fees. More on that below, first here are the photos.

These first photos show the portions of the school before this summer's rehabilitation work.

There has been a lot of work done already this summer, and everything should be ready in time for the new school year. Here are some photos of the work being done. The first photos show the building rehabilitation.

Those of you who have been following the projects know that last year we constructed new latrines for the school. We also connected a water supply (which you can see in the 8th photo above, counting up), and this year they are constructing the handwashing station!

One last finishing touch to the latrines - a grab bar is being installed to make the latrine accessible.

As mentioned above, the school and parent council have come up with a way that we can help them become more financially secure. They have asked us to help them buy a tent, generator, sound system, and chairs so that they can rent this equipment to folks in the community for different funerals and celebrations. We know from first hand experience when we were in Bazou in 2009 for Njacko's parents' funeral that it can be quite challenging to find all of these things when you are planning your event. It can take a lot of work and time to pull all of this equipment together. Almost every weekend in Bazou there will be a different funeral or celebration, and we are really impressed with the school's idea. For our fundraiser this year (May 11, 2013), some of the funds we raise will be going towards this initiative as well as further improvements to the school. Our goal is to have all of the equipment purchased by the end of the five years and to work with the school to help them develop their business plan.

 All of this work and progress wouldn't be possible without all of your support, the support of various schools here in Ontario who have been doing their own fundraising, the support of all of the artists who have been generously giving their time and talents at our fundraisers, and the Gladstone Hotel. On behalf of the students and school in Bazou, we thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.

Blessings,
Njacko and Val

May 12th fundraiser a success!!

Hello everyone! We are still floating on air since the two fundraising events held on May 12th at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto! We raised $4500 at the fundraiser, including a donation of $200 from Glenn Street PS from a bake sale that they held for the project! We would like to thank everyone for their generous support - and thank those of you who are still sending in donations.

We would also like to thank Upper Canada College who has contacted us to let us that they have raised an additional $420 from their casual day held last week! Thank you UCC!

If you would like to contribute, we have a couple of options for you:

- you may mail a cheque made payable to Valery Woloshyn to PO Box 632, 31 Adelaide St. E, Toronto, ON  M5C 2J8
- you may send us an email transfer to Love@NjackoBacko.com. Please use the question: Where is the school? And the answer: Bazou

We had a wonderful audience for the afternoon family show. The children (and parents!) were singing, dancing, and playing along for all three performances! Here are a few photos:

Soli & Rob - alistairant.com

Charlie Kert - www.littlefingersmusic.com
You can catch Charlie and the ROCKgarden Party at Fringe!

Njacko Backo presenting African Voyages

Later the same day, we welcomed a full house for the evening concert. There were people who came from near and far...some all the way from Kingston, Maynooth, Brampton, Chatham, Prince Edward County, Montreal, Georgina, Bolton, Mississauga, Oshawa...

The energy for the whole concert was incredible. The audience was dancing right off the bat thanks to the grooves put down by Kome Manu (and Fojeba). When Sahara Sloan took the stage with Justin, she had us all captivated with her angelic voice. Finally, when Afroteque took the stage, the energy shot through the roof and the dancers took to the floor. We will have video footage of the performance in the next few weeks to share, however in the mean time, we hope that you enjoy these few photos:

Val and Njacko welcoming the room full of beautiful supporters

The beautiful supporters!  

Kome Manu - his new CD is available online at CD Baby

Sahara Sloan with Justin

Afroteque with Jane Bunnett

Ngasseu Kamga Sylvie - a HUGE supporter of the project
(she sold $880 of advance tickets for the fundraiser!)

June 15 @ 7pm Celina Carroll will be performing for a music meditation with Shakuhachi (bamboo flute) Master Debbie Danbrook at The Inner Garden at 401 Richmond St. W. Celina will be playing Berimbau and Kalimba. Website

The one and only Jane Bunnett! www.JaneBunnett.com

We will be in touch with the school in the next couple of weeks to finalize plans for this summer's work. We will be constructing and handwashing station and rehabilitating another portion of the school which is shown in the photos below.

May 7th Fundraiser a BIG Success! Thank you for your support!

We'd like to thank everyone who came out on May 7th to the Gladstone Hotel to support our new project with École Saint Albert Le Grand in Bazou, Cameroon. We would also like to thank the Gladstone Hotel for their generous support. With everyone's help, we were able to raise $1,972.36 and more pledges are trickling in! If we add this to the $1000 that we raised in December 2009 at our holiday party/plant sale, we have a great start for our first project with École Saint Albert Le Grand.

We are still accepting contributions to support our project (see description below). Please contact us at:
email: nbacko1121@rogers.com
phone: 416.836.8951
mail: PO Box 632, 31 Adealide St. E., Toronto, ON M5C 2J8, Canada


Cheques can be made out to Valery Woloshyn or Njacko Backo.

A special thank you goes out to all of the artists who generously donated their time on May 7th:
Muhtadi
Marni Levitt
Jacques Yams
Toumkak
Diana Braithwaite & Chris Whiteley - June 9 CD release
Amara Kanté
Amadou Kienou
Steafan Hannigan & Saskia Tomkins
Njacko Backo & Kalimba Kalimba




More about our project...

In January 2009, Njacko Backo and Valery Woloshyn travelled to Bazou, Cameroon, to celebrate the lives of Njacko’s late parents, Tchoumi Christine and Nana Mathieu. While in Cameroon, Njacko and Val visited École Saint Albert Le Grand, the school that Njacko attended as a child, to deliver some school supplies that were donated by friends and family in Canada. During the visit, the couple was inspired to do more to help improve the education of the youngest members of the community. At the time, the school was missing a roof on about 30% of the buildings which meant that their classes were crowded into the parts of the school with the roof still intact. The latrines behind the school were falling apart, and the buildings in general were not in good condition.

Late in 2009, the school and the community worked together to replace the missing sections of roof on their own. This was an important first step to protect the mud bricks of the building from further weather damage, and demonstrated the commitment of the community to the school. However these newly covered rooms are still not ready for the students.

Our first project will be to repair these rooms so that the students can return to these parts of the school. Following that, we will work with the school to prioritize the next projects to be completed over the next five years. Future potential projects include: repaired or new latrines; providing water supply and hand washing stations; drinking water system; rebuilding the school as the original construction has started to fall apart.

Currently we have no plans to become a registered charity. 100% of the donations we received at the recent fundraiser and future fundraising initiatives will be going to support the construction of room repairs and future projects. We thank you for your understanding that we cannot issue tax receipts. We also thank you for your trust that we will use the donations to the best of our ability to support the children in Bazou. We will not be using the funds to travel to visit the school. We will have a family member monitoring the work and progress, and will use this blog to share updates as they are available.



Thank you again for your interest and support. Please do feel free to ask any and all questions you may have about our project!