This message comes as I am moving from my ‘personal’ journey funded by donations, rent and a small amount of income, to funding a charity that has a robust infrastructure that can hopefully carry on until FGM ends! Below are some highlights of what I and 28 Too Many have been up to, as well as future plans! Below that, there are details of the 3 ways you can get involved! In addition to getting my newsletters, if you’d like to pray read Option 1; if you’d like to give to my personal support read Option 2; and if you’d like to give to 28 Too Many, read Option 3!

With regards to media coverage, we were published in the New Wine Magazine and the Church of England Newspaper, added to an award from Inspire Magazine and Tearfund’s Inspired Individual ‘scholarship’…we seem to have taken off! We now have 8 volunteers, focusing on Operations, Communications & Research; 4 country researchers (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania & Ethiopia) and 1 regional researcher based in East Africa. We were also amazed to receive 2 grants, and 2 donations – all in March! This has helped us decide to register as a charity, so we have a solid base and good governance for using our funds wisely!

This year will see 28 Too Many achieve its initial first year plan: Map the practice of FGM & presence of relevant charities in 4 countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania & Ethiopia); Create a database to share knowledge, expertise and contacts; Publish 3 academic papers on FGM; Teach, share knowledge & lobby across the UK and select other countries. We now want to build a solid infrastructure to enable 28 Too Many to achieve its goals to end FGM across Africa & Europe.

Option 1 – Following the stories/praying for me and 28 Too Many!
Join up to my e-prayer bulletin sent out quarterly by Reem (rsharouni@gmail.com). Do ask her or me for a prayer card or bookmark!
Follow our blogs and Facebook page (facebook/28toomany). Please ‘like’ us so others learn about our work via your networks. We have over 135 ‘likes’ and would like 1000 by the end of the year!
Follow us on Twitter @28toomany.

Option 2 – Funding my support!
As I celebrate a jubilee birthday this year (!), I’d like to make my dream of ending FGM in Africa by 2023 come true before I retire!

With a personal financial model made up of rent, and 2 weeks of paid work (Methodist Church; Diocese of London; coaching in Africa), the rest of my income comes from donations. This has increased to 4 churches and 17 personal donors. This funds 80% of my costs – and I’d like to realise the last 20% as I aim to stop all paid work by March 2013 as 28 Too Many already takes up all my time!

Please consider:
a regular donation to my personal support via CMS website (www.cms-uk.org), Stewardship (www.stewardship.org.uk a/c 20040144) or via one of my Link Churches. Donations can be by credit card, cheque or standing order. These are increased by 25% with gift aid. No amount is too small….£1.60 a month from each receiver of this email would meet the 20% shortfall!
donating £2.80 a month instead of a coffee out? (that’s 10p per country!). Cash or cheques still attract gift aid via CMS – and I can personally deliver 10p’s from a jar!
A one-off donation – annually, as a bequest or to mark an event.

Option 3 – Funding 28 Too Many
Although up to now all our work has been undertaken by volunteers, that cannot last forever, as we seek to run a professional, robust and sustainable charity. This year we plan to:
Register as a charity with the Charity Commission.
Visit Tanzania for research of our fourth African country and develop in-country networks.
Produce our first brochure.
Invest in an IT platform/database to share our research findings.
Upgrade our website to make it more interactive.
Produce sustainable campaign material and a banner for talks, marches etc.
Ensure volunteers, interns and trustees have their expenses paid.
Employ one key post holder to run our operations and a part-time bookkeeper/auditor to manage our finances.

Whilst some of these expenses can come out of the four start up donations, we will not be able to grow without sustainable regular income.

Please consider:
Making a one-off donation to contribute to these start-up projects (do specify if you want to!).
Holding a fundraising dinner; event; film night; clothes sale; eBay sale, bike ride or marathon run etc with proceeds going to 28 Too Many. We can supply t-shirts/running tops etc!
Making a donation via Paypal on our website.
Donating via Just Giving (being set up soon!).
Donating your time (volunteering!) or knowledge (IT, research, web, legal, finance, trustee etc!).

Thank you to all of you who have given so much already to my journey – in support, friendship, ‘in kind’, love & generosity!

With love, as ever
Ann-Marie x
Ann-Marie Wilson
Founder/Director
http://www.28toomany.org

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Ann-Marie Wilson]

Prayer requests summary:

1- Please pray for the boys in Kenyan prison who are never visited by their families and feel very lonely, please pray specially for the very young boys in prison.
2 – Please pray for 50 children currently been inducted into the Tunza programme.
3 – Please thank God for the children’s new school uniforms in one of the prison. Tunza works at, this has really changed the atmosphere and encouraged the boys.
4 – Please pray for 7 boys, 3 from extremely poor families, who are currently doing vocational courses. Please pray they will be successfully reintegrated into society.
5 – Please pray for the use and expansion of Tunza Farm Project. For it to be a wonderful place for the boys to have fun, receive instruction and feel the start of the reintegration process into society. Please also pray for the school holidays they spend there.
6 – Please pray for wisdom and emotional strength to Patricia and the volunteers.
7 – Finally please pray for Patricia’s english language course. May it help her communicate clearly.

Please find below the complete prayer report.

THIS IS WHAT THE LORD HAS DONE.

I want to let you know that God as been very good to us over past one month, and Tunza is making good progress in helping the boys.

We have visited the juvinile prison and we have very good relationship with the officers, my first meeting with the boys, officers and teachers was very good and I found that the children there are very needy and most of the boys have never been visited before. Since they in prisons located at a very long distance their parents either cannot make the journey or the family is so poor that they cannot afford the bus fare to visit their children in prison.

Because of my plans to help the juveniles who are in school in the prison, we have enlisted 50 juvenile children into our Tunza programs. I was requested by the prison management to became the official sponsor of the school, a position that I accepted. I requested to be allowed to change the prison uniform so that the juveniles attending school could have real uniforms.

The prison department, after consultation with the Commissioner of prison, allowed me to buy a different uniform for the juveniles attending school, and this has transformed the face of the prison. I’m very happy now, the uniformed boys feel different and the school feels more real for them, we have 50 Tunza boys in the school with new uniform. The top government officials were very impressed with the school and the boys during the Board meeting. This has encouraged me.

In terms of reintegration of juveniles in prison, I now have four boys in high school, who are very bright children from poor families. All these boys come from single parenting houses and during the juvenile release board I was requested to help another three of the most needy cases to find vocational training. We are working on their profiles before they are released to us. Now the 4 boys have joined high school and we are waiting the release of the other 3 boys soon, please pray for us and for these the boys.

We had a four days retreat with some boys in our Tunza Farm House for talks and induction into Tunza Project Programmes and with help of the Tunza Volunteers it was very good to see the young ones sharing their stories with tears flowing. The boys went out to play football with the youth in the community, very early morning jogging, playing tennis and lighting african bonfire in the evening. Volunteers who came to spend time with the boys and give them advices on how to conduct themselves in the african community. It was a test of how things will be in Tunza Farm House in the future, it was a very exciting time – we also had a young englishman called Reuben from the UK, who was very good with the boys.

Our Tunza Farm House is still under construction, with help of Reuben our volunteer from the UK who is making good progress. Already Reuben and the Team have finished working on the plastering the walls and this week they will be working on the windows and the floors. We noticed that this house will be very important to Tunza, and therefore we are trusting God for finances/ funds to complete it by August this year as the boys come for vacation during school holidays.

Our volunteer from South Africa has started well, connecting with the boys institution in the Coast, last week he started doing daily visits to prison after we introduced him officially to the prison management. I’m very happy that now he can go in alone do some work with the boys in the institution, he bought some books and pens for the school and football balls. We are looking forward that he will continue working with us. Please could you pray for all the volunteers serving with Tunza.

Please also remember me in your prayers I have also gone back to school to study English as a language. I’m doing an advanced English course to sharpen and improve my english communication skills, the course will take 3 months.

Thank you very much for supporting me and the Tunza Family.

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Patricia Mbithe Kyama]

1) Please pray for a X, he has become a christian and is facing a lot of opposition from his family. They are threatening to chase him from the community. Please pray for strength and for God’s help to him.

2) Please pray for the students Vincent works with. They need help to top up the school fees.

Thanks

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Vincent and Grace Munyosi]

Thank you for your prayer support.

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Alexander McLean]

We give thanks to the Lord for this. Please pray for this conference and workshop.

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Manju & Lawrence Singh]

Please click here to read more: http://kitega-cc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=134:april-2012-news&catid=79&Itemid=616

Let’s keep David and his work in our prayers.

[Posted by Monica on behalf of David Clemy]

We just heard from Celia that she had an accident sometime back and her left leg was left badly injured. She has been down and right now is moving on crutches.

She is down for maybe another 2 months.

Please could we all pray for her to be able to walk again and get better soon…

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Celia Kaala]

We are very happy with this holiday and it will be a big military parade. However, the freedom that we got is very fragile and can explode at any minute with a new war.

Any kind of war is horrible for every side and first of all for people.

- Please pray for peace in my region and pray there will be no more deaths and disabilities because of wars around the World.

Today on the 9th May, during the parade I will pray for peace and no more war.

- Please join me in praying for strength for all those who are fighting for peace in every conflict zone.

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Vardan Tadevosyan]

My 
prayer is for God to provide for his need since the mum is unemployed
 and the rest of the extended family are in other IDP camps and 
finacially unable.

My task number two is to look for support for 19 women who are
survivors of sexual violence living in also in camp for displaced persons. 4 of them
 are serious cases that need urgent psychological assistance. The women
 and girls went through rape during post election violence in 2007, 
they have never received proper and comprehensive support
care/treatment.

Please pray that doors will open for me to be able to assist them in the
best way possible in terms of medical, counselling and legal aid. The
 camp has 1000 people living in precarious conditions and with no support or food aid.

Please pray for this people and for my work.

[Posted by Monica on behalf of Wangu Kanja]