Happy Holidays from TTLF!
This Holiday season families will gather throughout the United States and Canada to celebrate and be together. Across the ocean, high in the mountains of Lesotho, the same gatherings will take place. The town of Mokhotlong, where TTL is based, comes alive at this time of year. Family members return from distant cities where they have gone in search of work. And for a brief time, families are reunited to celebrate the Holidays. Sound familiar?
At TTL, our mission is really about families helping families. A small number of families and individuals in the United States and Canada, motivated by the desire to help those less fortunate, have come together to support families in the remote mountain districts of Lesotho. In fact, the numbers are pretty amazing: just a few hundred individuals and families in the United States have managed to help over 700 children and their families in Lesotho directly through the work of TTL.
As a supporter of TTL, you have been a key part of this family-to-family connection. Your support doesn’t disappear into a faceless bureaucracy. Instead, it goes directly to support children and families in Lesotho. No frills. No waste. As TTL’s resources grow, so does its ability to directly serve individual children. And TTL has now served more than 700 children. It has over 200 active clients, and as of the date of this letter, 11 of its sickest clients are living in its safehome.
At TTL, our motto from the beginning has been “One Child at a Time.” We are not trying to solve the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Lesotho. But we are trying to help individual kids survive and thrive in rural Lesotho. We choose this approach because we firmly believe that every individual life is worth saving, regardless of the lengths we must go to save it.
We are writing you today to ask for your support. This Holiday season, as you and your family gather together, will you consider making a gift to the families of Lesotho?
Give your gift here.
Taxi Fare
People who are just learning about TTL
frequently ask about our role in the lives of children after they leave
the safehome. All of our safehome babies become outreach clients when
they are reunified with their families, meaning that TTL still supports
them with monthly food packages and monitors them to make sure they are
continuing to make strides in their growth and development. When we are
confident that these children have the care and resources to continue
progressing without TTL's assistance, they are "graduated" from these
services. However, even when they no longer require our check-ups and
nutritional support, TTL does its best to ensure that the health needs
of these children are met.
To illustrate TTL's efforts to be an ongoing source of support to the children we reach, below are Leboneng and Nako.
Leboneng,
now 6 years old, was in the safehome from 2006-2007. Nako, 3, stayed
with us in 2009 and 2010. These boys are no longer part of our outreach
program, but they stop by TTL once a month to get the taxi fair TTL
gives them to come to Mokhotlong Hospital to pick up their ARVs. The
boys live in the same area and arrive together with their caregivers,
who cannot afford the cost of transportation. How much money does TTL
spend on making sure Leboneng and Nako get these important drugs every
month? Just over $2. The adage "a little goes a long way" comes to mind.
Although the availability of ARVs in Lesotho
has vastly improved in the past couple of years, access to the clinics
and hospitals that provide them can still be a challenge to those living
in rural villages. I can't say for certain what would happen if TTL did
not provide this assistance to Leboneng and Nako, but it is a real
possibility that they would not get their ARVs, depriving them of the
chance to live healthy lives in spite of HIV.
- posted by Meghan on Friday, December 16th at touchingtinylives.blogspot.com
Welcome to Our New Board Members!
We are very happy to announce that we have welcomed two new board members to TTLF and two new board members to TTLF Canada. These four individuals bring a great breadth of experience and interests to the boards, and we are excited to see what new ideas they bring to the organization. Please see a short bio for each new member below:
Kevin Rector
Kevin Rector served as a 2010-11 TTLF Fellow at Touching Tiny Lives in
Lesotho, focusing on organizational administration and donor outreach.
A native of Ellicott City, Md., he received a bachelor's degree in
print journalism from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the
University of Maryland in 2007, and currently works as a reporter in
the Baltimore area.
Amy Hutton, M.D.
Amy Hutton practices full-spectrum family medicine in Chelan, WA at the Lake Chelan Clinic. She completed her residency at the Family Medicine Residency in Billings, MT, which specifically trains doctors to practice in rural settings. She received a BA in Sociology University of Notre Dame. She is married to Jon Hutton and has two daughters, Cara and Camille. She began her involvement with TTLF in 2008 after starting Chelan for Africa, and traveled to Mokhotlong in May 2010 and February 2011. She is currently the Medical Director for TTLF and is planning to lead twice-yearly medical support trips to Lesotho.
Noella Milne (TTLF Canada)
Noella Milne is a partner at Borden, Ladner, Gervais, LLP, a Canadian law firm. She received her B.A. with a major in Law at Carleton University and received her law degree from the University of Toronto Law School in 1986. She has also served on the boards of UNICEF Canada and the Children's Aid Foundation. She was the recipient of the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in 2010.
Sheilagh B. Johnston
Sheilagh B Johnson is the retired Executive Director of the Children’s Aid Foundation, a national organization supporting and advocating for high-risk children and youth. Prior to her 25 years in child welfare, she worked in the corporate and government sectors and as a senior university administrator in Canada and in the US. She has a long history of commitment to social causes, and continues to be an active volunteer devoting her time to work with children and youth, young single mothers, adults with intellectual disabilities and sustained funding for universities and colleges. A native of Montreal, she received her undergraduate degree in classical literature from the Universite de Montreal and has done graduate work in social work and business administration at both McGill University and the University of British Columbia.
Thank you to Webkinz Foundation and the Estate of Dominic Giorgini!
Special thanks to two amazing donors. We were privileged to
receive two large donations last year from the Webkinz Foundation ($75,000) and
the estate of Dominic Giorgini, through the generosity of the
executor of the estate, James Roaldi ($100,000). These gifts, along with the
generosity of our other donors, allow Touching Tiny Lives to continue its
lifesaving work in the under-served rural areas of Lesotho. We want to
acknowledge this generosity and on behalf of all those we serve, we thank you
most sincerely.
For additional information about Webkinz and their charitable involvement, please see the information under Our Support Community.
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