At Orphans to Ambassadors we believe that even the smallest changes at the individual level can make a world of difference in the quality of our global environment. If you carry your own reusable shopping bags with you, opt for your to-go coffee or herbal tea in a travel mug over the paper alternative, or hit the pavement every morning on your road bike to commute to work, you’re making our world environment exponentially better than it could be. We greatly appreciate you doing your part and hope you will continue inspiring others to take similar actions to improve our world environment.

At Orphans to Ambassadors we’re doing our part to improve the environment in some of the world’s most undeveloped and vulnerable regions of the world. Regions where firewood, coal and kerosene are primary fuel sources and where our solar power systems allow children to blow out the toxic and dangerous kerosene lamps and harness the sun’s power to light their rooms. Regions with orphanages where water is not available every day, because the local underdeveloped infrastructure makes for unreliable water systems; but our rainwater harvesting systems are keeping thirst and dehydration at bay. We strive to improve the world environment through every project we implement and each child we meet. The proof is in our mission: ”Orphans to Ambassadors provides disadvantaged and orphaned children the opportunity to rise out of poverty with sustainable education and practices. The skills, knowledge, and abilities that come from developing their own long-term resource solutions empower children and allow them to become ambassadors of goodwill and sustainability to other children and communities around the world.” – Jake Gentry, Founder. By equipping orphaned and marginalized children with the knowledge and skills to adopt sustainable, environmentally sound practices they not only improve their immediate environment, safety and health, but are setting a solid foundation for future generations to build on. We believe this wholeheartedly and are proud to report our environmental impact in 2012.

We invite you to follow this link to see how projects implemented by Orphans to Ambassadors around the world have impacted the world environment, and find out how you can help!

With so much more work to be done by so many different organizations out there, it can seem like a donation of $10 is intangible or even inadequate. But believe us, it’s not! We have went through our project’s financial records and found very tangible ways your donations can make a difference, with a $10 gift. If you choose to contribute to our work through a $10 donation it will purchase any one of these listed items for our future projects.

• 30 clay fired bricks for our fuel efficient rocket cooking stoves
• One 4 meter length section of PVC rain guttering, which is a main component of the rainwater harvesting systems we install on orphanages in rural Africa.
• 10 kilograms of high-quality chicken feed (enough to feed one chicken for 100 days)
• 2 (one month old) chickens for the chicken coop
• One 50 kilogram bag of high quality cement (used for the rainwater harvesting systems, the rocket stoves and the chicken coops)

Thank you for taking the time to be part of our work.

Jacob Hanks
International Project Manager
Orphans to Ambassadors

She was a pretty remarkable woman as far as I knew, watching out for and mothering 45 children who had lost their parents.  She stayed at the orphanage every night and took care of them around the clock, helping prepare every meal, getting the children ready for school, maintaining the house and keeping a watchful eye over the children at night to ensure their safety.  She was a mother to each and every one of those 45 children and did so with a loving heart and a smile on her face.  Given that there were 45 children in a small house with only 6 bedrooms, she opened up her room and allowed some of the kids to stay with her to make the living situation more comfortable for everyone, maybe except for herself.  She was a selfless woman who took on the responsibility of watching over children who had no one else to watch over them and she did so willingly without payment.  She is an inspirational woman and we are all wishing her a very happy Mother’s Day.

- Meghan Matson
Orphans to Ambassadors

Happy Mother’s Day from Orphans to Ambassadors!

We are looking to expand our Board Of Directors to help govern and represent our organization. Our goal is to recruit 3-5 new members to serve on the Orphans to Ambassadors Board of Directors.  See details below on this opportunity.

400 students forming a human chain to transport bricks for 2 new rocket stoves we built at their school in Rwanda.

• What qualities and skills are we looking for in a board member?

Someone with strong experience in one or more of these fields and can provide O2A guidance in these areas:

• Marketing/Public Relations
• Financial
• Human Resources
• Legal
• Strategy/Planning
• Expertise in nonprofit’s programs
• Technology/Engineering
• Knowledge of Sustainable/Green Technologies
• Program Evaluation
• International Development Work/Construction Management
• Someone who is local (in the Greater Seattle Area) and can attend board meetings in person

Orphans to Ambassadors will be hosting a Board Member Meet and Greet at Wine Tea Chocolate in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, WA on Thursday, May 16th from 5-7pm.

We will be speaking with potential board members about the organization and what we’re looking for in our Board.

• Please RSVP before Monday, May 13th by emailing Jacob Hanks, Jacob@orphanstoambassadors.org

If you have a friend or colleague that would potentially be a good fit, please extend an invitation to this event.
If you cannot attend this May 16th event, but are still interested in this opportunity please email Jacob Hanks at Jacob@orphanstoambassadors.org

The Harvest Home Orphanage projects in Fundong, Cameroon are complete!  The facility now has a large 3 room Chicken Coop and 100 chickens, a 4,000 liter Rainwater Harvesting System, and 2 high efficiency Rocket Stoves.

Here is our before picture of the chicken coop, the manager at the orphanage and the children cleared the site and laid the foundation before we arrived. They also made tons of awesome sun-dried blocks that we used to build the coop.

The chicken coop had three rooms, one for 50 meat chickens, or table birds as they say in Cameroon, one room for 50 layer fowl, egg chickens, and one room for storage.  We had the awesome privilege of purchasing the chickens, visiting the chicken farm where they came from, and of course, building the coop!  With lots of help.  Emma the manager was brilliant at construction, and it made the project easy as pie.  The kids were a great help as well, especially the older kids, they were awesome at construction and hard workers, they were an essential part of our team.

The coop will produce income by selling the eggs and the meat chickens,  this can help with school fees, food, or other things that the children need.  Some chickens and eggs can be fed to the children to improve their diets.

The 4,000 liter Rainwater Harvesting System consisted of four 1,000 liter tanks.  We installed rain gutters and connected the large storage tanks, to one of the orphanage buildings to collect and store rainwater.  We built reinforced rebar and concrete stands to elevate and support the tanks to create water pressure.

BEFORE

AFTER, (2 of these, 2platforms and 4tanks total!)

With this extra water supply coming from rainwater, collecting from the roof and gutters and storing in the tanks, the children and staff of the orphanage will be able to use this water to clean, do laundry, bathe, water plants, and a variety of other uses.  This will reduce the bill for their water pump, especially during the rainy season where they will be able to collect and utilize a lot of water that would otherwise fall to the ground and potentially cause erosion issues.  These tanks will even reduce waiting time experienced by children and staff waiting in line at the main water tap, because they will provide free on-site rainwater in their home’s two high water use areas, beside the kitchen, and beside their bathing and laundry area.

We built these two high efficiency Rocket Stoves to accommodate the orphanages cooking needs, and to fit to the two pot sizes they use to cook  the children’s meals every day.

BEFORE

These stoves will burn more efficiently than their previous stoves, and will save money on firewood, save time spent gathering, purchasing, or chopping firewood, and contribute less to deforestation.

These Rocket Stoves will also produce less smoke, creating healthier air for the children and staff to breathe, a healthier atmosphere, and cause less respiratory issues and pollution.

AFTER

We were also able to do sustainability education lessons with the children at their nightly devotionals, discussing natural resources and what it means to be sustainable.  We even did a staff meeting with all of the staff as well.  We talked about each sustainable project and it’s  purpose, and discussed responsibility and maintenance.  It was really cool to see the children already stepping in each day and keeping the chicken coop clean, making sure the chicks had clean water and plenty of food.  : )

I will be posting links to photo galleries with more photos very soon so check back for those!

We also will be posting some video footage on our youtube channel in the near future.

But for now you can check out our top 20 photos on our facebook:

Thank you so much for all of your support and for helping us to make these sustainable solutions a reality for this orphanage.

We have fallen in love with the people and children here!

The chicken coop is complete, except for some plastering on a few walls and on the exterior, but we do already have one room finished, complete with 50 table fowl (meat chickens!)

The rainwater harvesting system is in the works, gutters are completely up and the two reinforced concrete foundations are nearly complete. The four 1,000 liter tanks are purchased and on site, the whole system should be finished and ready to use by Wednesday!

The two rocket stoves are finished, other than some light cement finishing on the exterior. The children and cooks are impressed and excited to use them!(They have been cooking outside on small fires while we complete the stoves, so we know they are ready to get inside and fire them up.)

We have been able to have two lessons with the kids during their nightly devotionals, one that was an introduction to Orphans to Ambassadors, our team, and the definition and concept of sustainability, and another that was about the value of trees and water, why we need them, and how this relates to the projects we are implementing. We have a few more planned getting into some specifics about each project, the benefits, and maintenance. The kids are opening up to us more each day. : )

It will be hard to leave here, but the projects will definitely leave a lasting impression on the children, as well as the children on us!

It is hard to post pictures on this internet connection, but we will be adding links to many photo galleries and posting more pictures when we get home. : )

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie Mauvlyn Braun and Jacob Hanks