We are very excited about the new direction that we are headed in here at Direct Abundance;  it has always been our dream to expand beyond our work in Belize and now that dream is becoming a reality with the start of our new Jamaican initiative.  This dream began with a recent trip that founder Joanne O’Brien took to Jamaica in late September, 2011.  On this trip, Joanne met Terri Shomo, who had a 25+ year unfulfilled dream to help the people of Jamaica.  After returning from Jamaica, the two women decided to take a leap of faith and plunge head-long into a program of action in this beautiful country.

Jamaica is a very beautiful country, filled with breathtaking beaches, turquoise water, balmy weather and friendly, open people.  But Jamaica is also a VERY poor country.  The average income for a Jamaican family is under $4,000US a year, and this is for a family of 4-6.  The minimum wage in Jamaica is $1.40 an hour and the unemployment rate is over %35.  The vast majority of Jamaican homes have no running water and no indoor plumbing.  Although primary school is free, children must wear uniforms that are not provided or they cannot attend.  Also, transportation is NOT provided.  Books, paper, pencils and other supplies must be purchased by the parents.  This can add up to a cost of $40 to almost $100 a month for each school student, forcing many mothers to make the hard choice between buying rice and sending their child to school.  Most Jamaicans have no cars, no medical insurance and no retirement plans.  Despite all of the hardships that they face, the Jamaican people remain friendly and open.  Direct Abundance, with your help, can make a huge difference in the lives of the people of Jamaica!

65% if Belize is without safe sanitation.  Limited sanitation progress is being made in San Mateo and around the country.

One of the strategies to combat the poverty problem in Belize is protection and conservation of the environment.

DirectAbundance has been planning a three stage project for the community of San Mateo:

1)  The first stage is the gathering of information on the community.  We have toured the area with wastewater garden experts, spoke with community members and gathered information that will assist in the implimentation of the composting toilet and wastewater garden project.  We had assistance through volunteer groups to map out the area.

2)  The second stage is the education and awareness about their environment and the impact the community has on their environment.  We will be conducting information sessions within the community with a focus on coral reef and mangrove preservation,  and sustainable solutions to deal with sewage discharge. The youth in the area will become leaders in their community and help build a model system.

3) The third stage will be the formation of community members to begin to support others in the area that show an interest in building, maintaining and sustaining a composting toilet and wastewater garden system.  This community group will be active in the second stage, participating in the education and training evenings.  This group will also be active in the problem solving and further planning of the project.

It is our goal this project will create sustainable jobs for the community through planning, building and maintanence of the systems.

It is our hope the wastewater gardens will generate a secondary income to the families through the sales of plants and flowers to local businesses and tourists.

“Direct Abundance is a small organization with a huge heart, massive passion and strong determination to improve the lives of young people living in poverty in developing countries.”
Eleanor Edwards, President, Positive Possibilities
eedwards@positivepossibilities.ca
www.positivepossibilities.ca

“We are overjoyed to know that you will be helping our community in such a big way.I cant explain the overwhelming sense of gratitude and love we feel knowing someone cares enough to do this for our children and in existence our community and country.” -Deborah Reid – Brown Red Cross,  St. Ann’s Bay Branch, Jamaica

“As Local Manager of Holy Cross Anglican School in San Pedro, it was my pleasure to work with the dynamic folks at Direct Abundance.  Direct Abundance has as it’s sole mission to improve the quality of life for the residents of San Mateo – one of the poorest communities in all of Belize.  Since Holy Cross is in the San Mateo community, we have seen first hand the hard work and commitment of Direct Abundance.  I commend this organization to you and support their efforts to improve the San Mateo community.”  Francis Wilson, Founder/Manager Holy Cross Primary School, Belize

“After attending a presentation by Direct Abundance at Humber College I have to say you women are amazing.  I feel so motivated and inspired.  The presentation got me thinking of so many ideas I want to acomplish.  I feel lke I can do this!” -  Student, SSW Program, Humber College

“The knowledge that you both shared with us empowered me to make a difference.” - Student, SSW Program, Humber College

 If you find it in your heart to care for someone else, you will have succeeded.
Maya Angelou

You cannot do a kindness too soon, because you never know how soon it will be too late.
Proverb

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
John Wesley, “Letters of John Wesley”

Continually give, continually gain.
Chinese proverb

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill

Charity begins at home, but should not end there.
Scottish proverb

Unselfish and noble actions are the most radiant pages in the biography of souls.
David Thomas

Wow! What a trip . What an incredible eye opener! I am sitting in the Miami Airport on my way home to Toronto after an 8 day stay on Windsor Road, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. I stayed in a small shanty town, on the south side of town, one of the poorest communities in St Ann’s. For the past 8 days I have not seen one C…aucasian person. I have walked miles up highways and mountains and squished into taxis with people sitting in each other laps to get a lift to the next town. I have walked into people’s homes that all they had was one room, a bed, with a piece of foam, and a few buckets to wash their clothes by the rivers edge. When it rains they get wet because the boards are not fastened properly. I listened to children cry at night, either because they were hungry, sick or tired after a long day of work and chores. I ate my dinner with my hands, and had fresh ackee and plantain delivered to the door daily by a Rasta man who climbed the trees everyday. Each morning I have bathed in the cold river water, and got used to bathing in my panties without a shirt on, as I saw the occasional fish or frog swim by. I ate dinners that were cooked on coals, and heard coconuts roll off the roof at night. I watched an 81 year old man carry water from the reservoir and cut grapefruit out of the tree. I have not used a flush toilet, a blow dryer, a washing machine, a refridgerator, or watched a television in more than a week. But, I did meet some very wonderful people, and was able to see we really are all the same. If you take all the stuff away we all want the same thing. We all want to have acceptance, friendship, and love. We are all human regardless where we live, what we have, or who we know. I have been impacted by the poverty I lived in for the past 8 days. I have so much needless stuff, do you? Do you have any kids clothes that you might throw out? Men’s Clothes? Women’s Clothes? I am asking all my friends in the Ontario area, please send me your good, quality used clothes. I have a whole community in Jamaica (approximately 200 people) that are in need of pretty much anything. We take for granted what we have, not even recognizing that there are others that really have nothing. And you know the funniest thing, they wake in the morning not even knowing if they will have dinner that day or not, but they still are grateful for what they have…………… ARE YOU?

Hello everyone!
It is the time most of us wait for. When we can shed our winter layers and enjoy the warmth of the sun after what seemed like a cold and long winter here in Canada.
I just returned from Belize and I left Joanne still putting the pieces of the puzzle together for the success of the San Mateo Project. I cannot wait to hear what she was able to accomplish while there!
Although the first build didn’t happen, we were able to spend a tremendous amount of time working with the community and collecting information that was necessary. My research has discovered that 90% of sanitation projects fail if we avoid the planning and information gathering step of the project.
Building stronger relationships with the people is as valuable as installing the first system. This week we were able to look at every home in the area, document what we found and make sure everybody was counted and considered for a system. I am so grateful we were able to spend a great deal of time with the people living in San Mateo, answering questions and sharing information.
Part of the information that needed was to map out the area. I got a realtors map with all the plots marked out and learned that one of our volunteers was a cartographer at one point in his life. This allowed us to do a walk through of the neighborhood and mark valuable information on the map. We were looking for things like if lot was filled, house height, number of dwellings on the lot, cistern, town water, electricity. This will all factor into where the first build will go because we need to find the areas with the highest probability of success for the first couple of builds. Later in the week Kim, for the San Mateo Empowerment Project was able to also send us an additional, more detailed map.
I was also able to get the attention of a possible investor for the project. He will visit the first installation and if he likes what he sees, he will help with the funding of the project! This is great news for us!
I had a great conversation with Consolidated Water Belize about our project and they agreed to help out by donating 55 gallon drums for the project! Another piece put in place!
On a drive through the community, I spotted a gentleman fixing a broken water pipe. When I stopped to talk to him, he was wonderfully open to talk about the situation in San MAteo. The community of San Mateo pays more then double the price of water to their community! The town of San Pedro pays $.21 a litre where San Mateo pays $0.53 a litre. He sees the unjust in this and is willing to help move our project forward anyway he can. Another piece in place!
Joanne and I were able to connect with people and businesses that are willing to donate gift-in-kind for a summer camp we are hoping to pull together for the youth of San Mateo. This camp will be in partnership with Caribbean SEA (Student Education Alliance) http://www.caribbean-sea.org/projects_discharge.htm and Lee’s Reef Project ( http://www.leesreefproject.org/?page_id=3 ) Both of these organization run school programs in St. Lucia and Netherlands Antilles with a focus on coral reef preservation. We are hoping with the knowledge we share with these students, we will be able to create strong leaders in their community that advocate for a healthier and safer environment. We are planning to involve the community through street theatre and tee-shirts done by the kids!
Now is as good a time to help support DirectAbundance!
Your Friends,
Heather and Joanne

Happy World Water Day!
If you have a drink of water today without the concern of botulism, cholera, E.coli, dysentery or typhoid fever, give thanks.

If you took a five-minute shower today, give thanks. A five minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

If you flushed a toilet today, give thanks. More people die as a result of poor sanitation then in car accidents

If you feel healthy today, give thanks. 2.5 billion people in the world don’t have access to basic sanitation, making it responsible for millions of deaths and illnesses worldwide.

Every minute one person dies in the world due to lack of basic sanitation

If your child went to school today, give thanks. Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. That’s 5,000 children die needlessly every day from waterborne illnesses

If these thoughts never occurred to you today, give thanks. The World is facing “silent emergency” as billions struggle without clean water or basic sanitation.

Water and sanitation should be seen as a basic human right.

Forever Grateful,
Heather and Joanne

Hello Friends!
I believe spring is just around the corner for all of you who live in the great white north!  Hopefully we will feel those warm summer breezes soon!

This is just a quick update about DirectAbundance and the project in San Mateo.
Carol Stenfield from Ecovita has joined our team for the sanitation project in San Mateo.  Ecovita is a sister company to David Delporto’s Ecological Engineering.  She has loads of experience implimenting and building the systems we are planning to build and I am so grateful for her time in helping make this a success!
 
Carol Stenfeild (Ecovita-http://www.ecovita.net/bajabox.html), David(Ecologicial Engineering-http://www.ecological-engineering.com/index.html) and I have been moving forward in our project.  We are so happy to have Chayan Williams from San Mateo join our group.  He has offered a lot of insight and knowledge in the planning stages and helped form the community group that will eventually take over the building of the composting toilet systems once we get the project off the ground.  Boy! When I started this journey I had no idea the amount of details that would need to be worked out and because of that our timelines are getting pushed back, but we all agree we are only going to only move forward when everything is set for success.  Carol and David are overly generous with sharing their knowledge and expertise in this and are continually revising and improving the plans!  I am so excited!  Everyone is doing their part to make this happen and I can’t thank everyone enough. 

We continue to work with Humber College and are planning a second presentation with them in March!  How lucky are we!!!  They are awesome and planning a fund-raiser for the composting toilets AND a school supplies drive for us to take down and deliver to the childrens homes, womens shelters and needy schools!

We also have another great person who has joined our team and whats to help Holy Cross Primary School.  Daniel Bida founder of ReGenerate (http://www.regeneratebiogas.com/) is an expert in Biofuel and is wanting to help offset some of the schools feeding program costs by designing a biogas distributer that will use the methan gas released from food breaking down to fuel the stoves!  Totally Cool!

Everyday I count my blessings!  Thank you all for making this possible!
Hugs,
Heather and Joanne

Hello everyone!
We hope everyone has been able to take time with family and friends over these past lazy summer days.

DirectAbundance is still working hard to support our current projects and pursuing new and exciting opportunities. We recently have been contacted by GoVolunteering who wants to partner with us in developing and implementing opportunities for all of you to participate in. We are working together to build volunteer holiday packages in Belize. We are hoping offer everyone a balance between volunteering and a vacation so you can experience the best of both worlds. It is guaranteed to change the way you holiday! Cathy is working hard to have this ready to offer you in 2011!

I am preparing to return to Belize to meet with a Waste Water Garden representative from the Planatary Coral Reef Foundation in the end of August. We are hoping that he will offer the experience and knowledge to begin the development and building of the WWG at Holy Cross School. This is the first step of many to build a healthier community in San Mateo. This garden will then be used to grow fruits and vegetable for the food program, as well as offer an outdoor education opportunity for learning about the importance of the preservation of the environment.

We just finished a ‘Loonies for Learning’ Fund-Raising Campaign to send grade 8 students attending Holy Cross to High School. We believe the way to break the cycle of poverty is through education and we are excited to continue to offer High School Scholarships to children living in extreme poverty. We hope you will take the time to donate to such a worth cause.

Joanne is continuing her dedication to the families suffering from domestic violence. She has taken the information she has learned from the front line workers at her conference and began to fight for what they need to provide better services. She is working at compiling a national service directory that will be given out at the next conference n January. She is passionate about helping those who lives with their lives in danger and the hands of the ones they love. If you feel you can be of assistance, please feel free to contact Joanne. She would love to hear from you.

Again, to all of you, we thank you for your endless support and taking the interest in what we are trying to do for the people with the quietest voice.

I hope you have all enjoyed our wonderful weather lately! A definate sign the warmer weather is on its way!

 A thank you to University of Toronto for inviting us to represent DirectAbundance at the Health and Human Rights Conference. This was a wonderful opportunity to meet volunteers face to face and discuss our goals and vision and meet other wonderful people who are working endlessly to speak up for those with the quietest voice. My hat’s off to everyone.

Again many thanks and keep spreading the word of what we do.