wfn.org | SDOP Committee Funds Projects Totaling $732,763

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

6-October-1997 
97378 
 
    Self-Development of People Committee 
    Funds Projects Totaling $732,763 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
 
ST. LOUIS--Meeting here Sept. 19-20, the National Presbyterian Committee on 
the Self-Development of People (SDOP) approved the funding of 16 projects 
totaling $732,763. The money for the projects comes from the One Great Hour 
of Sharing Offering. 
 
    The approved projects are: 
 
    Gri-Ataru Women's Co-operative Food Farmer and Processing Society, 
Volta Region, Ghana: $12,500 to buy 100 acres of land to cultivate maize, 
cassava, rice and cowpea, build a storage house and improve farming 
methods. 
 
    Shia Women's Co-op Livestock and Snail Project, Volta Region, Ghana: $ 
15,370 to develop farming and livestock production on a 50-acre property 
provided through local chiefs and the government. The farm will produce 
yams, cassava, goats, sheep and snails. 
 
    Launch Out into the Deep, PEJAMJO,  (from Peter, James, John), Sagay, 
Philippines: $29,129 for a fishing project in which members will make their 
own boats and fishing gear and purchase motors so that they can fish for 
themselves. 
 
    Likpe-Nkwanta Cooperative Food Farmers and Processing Project, Hohoe, 
Ghana: $15,350 for a project to increase food production and sales of crops 
through cooperative farming efforts and using better technology and 
fertilizer. 
 
    Apra Community Women's Income-Generating Project, Apra, Ghana: $21,970 
toward a diversified, agro-based industry for the production and processing 
of farm produce, including poultry, gari processing, cassava chips and 
mushrooms. 
 
    Farmers' Self-Help Project, Hohoe, Ghana: $3,053 for a group of farmers 
who have a cassava farm and oil palm plantation. The project is to extract 
oil from the palm nut and make soap. The cassava will be used in making 
gari and medicine. 
 
    Rural Rice Growers, Likpe Kukurantumi, Ghana: $10,000 for a 
rice-growing project using modern technology to increase the yield on 150 
acres of loaned land. 
 
    Self-Development of People through Dairy Unit, The Sangam, Tamil Nadu, 
India: $9,556 for 40 unskilled, part-time employed, low-caste, day-laboring 
women coolies who have organized themselves into a group seeking to provide 
each member with a milk cow for supplemental income through collective 
marketing of their milk. 
 
    Construction of 107 Wood Stove Chefinas, Association of Intergral 
Agricultural Development, Kakchiquel of Cerro Alto, Cerro Alto, Guatemala: 
$5,330 for the building of 107 fuel-efficient wood stoves. 
 
    Ecumenical Church Loan Fund (ECLOF), Geneva, Switzerland (intermediary 
partnership): $400,000 for the granting of loans outside Switzerland to 
churches or institutions that promote the life of the church in cases where 
affordable credit sources are not available and to foster human development 
in general and, in particular, to promote socio-economic justice and 
self-reliance for the alleviation of poverty. 
 
    Community Organizing Project, People Escaping Poverty Project, 
Moorhead, Minnesota: $60,000 for empowering welfare recipients to impact 
welfare reform in North Dakota and strengthen members of the group by 
utilizing technology. 
 
    Social Organization Development Agency, Moorhead, Minnesota: $40,000 to 
develop leadership among African refugees in the Fargo/Moorehead area and 
provide an outlet for African crafts and materials as a self-help project. 
 
    Centro Cultural of Fargo/Moorhead, Inc., Moorhead, Minnesota: $28,485 
for an Hispanic community project that provides a setting to safely discuss 
current issues such as pesticide exposure, workplace safety, institutional 
racism, discriminatory housing practices, unfair wage payment practices, 
education and legislative agendas. 
 
    Economic Survival Program/Organizing and Training Project, Coalition 
Against Poverty, Fall River, Massachusetts: $30,000 for low-income women to 
organize themselves and their low- income and AFDC-recipient neighbors into 
a powerful political force that will shape their economic future by 
securing their entitlement to job training, child care, health care and the 
right to vote, and by empowering them to have a voice in the setting of 
future public policy as it pertains to welfare cases. 
 
    Marion County Self-Help Organization's Multiple-Use Farm Equipment 
Project, Columbia, Mississippi: $27,020 to purchase farming equipment that 
will be utilized by members of the Marion County Self-Help Organization in 
working their respective farms, totaling 101 acres. This will eliminate the 
need to pay outside farmers, with equipment, to work their land for them. 
 
    El Hormiguero Project, Hereford, Texas: $25,000 to improve roads in the 
"colonias" so families living in these communities may get to town and 
their children to school. 
 
    SDOP provides members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and 
nonmembers the opportunity to help establish partnerships with poor, 
oppressed and disadvantaged people in the United States and around the 
world, which helps them to develop toward their own potential, 
self-determination and human dignity. 

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