Description
Orphaned and abandoned and children in third-world countries suffer from lack of sufficient or healthy places to sleep at night. Sweet Sleep works with indigenous staff, churches, and NGOs to provide beds and bedding to the most vulnerable children -- specifically those who are HIV+, those who have special needs and disabilities, and refugees. Throughout the year Sweet Sleep coordinates teams to travel to orphanages to build beds and work with the children we serve.
Domestically, Sweet Sleep works with the Department of Children's Services of TN to provide beds to children who are at risk of being placed in foster care. Additionally, through a partnership with United Way and Catholic Charities, Sweet Sleep will provide beds to 300 children in Nashville who are coming out of homelessness in 2018.
In 15 years, Sweet Sleep has provided over 27,700 beds to children in eight countries, including over 4,000 beds in Tennessee and Oklahoma.
Budget
200000
Category
Human Services, General/Other Human Services, General/Other
Population Served
US& International, Children and Youth (0 - 19 years), At-Risk Populations
Short Term Success
Prior to receiving a bed with mosquito net, children in Uganda typically suffered from malaria three to four times a month. The incident of malaria contraction after receiving a bed drops to nearly zero incidents at one-year follow up visits. Illnesses from sleeping on contaminated earth are nearly eliminated as well. In Tennessee, children are able to be placed in relative's homes or even kept in their own homes when the need for a bed is met.
Long term Success
In Uganda, because children miss fewer days of school due to illnesses, graduation rates can be expected to be increased. In America, because children are kept in family member's homes, their chances of drug and alcohol abuse, incarceration, or teenage pregnancy are reduced as compared to children who are placed in the foster care system.
Program Success Monitored By
Program success is monitored daily by indigenous staff in each country in which we work. Domestically, program success is monitored and reported by our partner organizations: DCS, United Way, and Catholic Charities.
Description
Sweet Sleep's Economic Development program is providing sustainability through our new cooperative businesses. CO-OPs are groups of 10 to 15 widows, single mothers, and caretakers who receive business training and startup capital to form a market-based group business. Each CO-OP is also provided a Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) that allows members of the group to borrow money to start smaller-scale individual businesses. CO-OPs provide immediate sustainability to the individual, and long-term sustainability to the group.
Two years since its inception, Sweet Sleep has launched 28 CO-OPs in Uganda, reaching approximately 420 households, and meeting the needs of more than 1700 children; needs such as school fees, meals twice a day, shoes, and clothes. And for the men and women involved, dignity has been restored.
Budget
141000
Category
Community Development, General/Other Community Economic Development
Population Served
At-Risk Populations, Children and Youth (0 - 19 years), Africa
Short Term Success
Cooperative businesses create peer accountability, which contributes to their near 100% success rate. Community is created among people groups that had traditionally been the most ostracized and isolated individuals. Almost immediately after creating business opportunity, the first thing parents report is that they can pay school fees. Next is that they can feed their children multiple meals a day, provide shoes and school uniforms, and seek medical care when needed. Once the necessities are met, parents begin providing beds, mosquito nets, forks, cups, and other luxuries and they talk about how healthy, "fat", and beautiful they and their children have become. Their dignity is restored.
Long term Success
When you empower the most vulnerable, or weakest 50% of a community, the ultimate effect is that the stronger 50% is eventually empowered as well through the economic stimulation of the entire market. Further, COOPs are located strategically relative to each other, each with complimentary but uniquely marketable skills, so that ultimately market centers are established among COOP clusters. In the long term, entire regions of the still-recovering and impoverished country will be empowered to thrive economically. Also, economic stability, and the ability to send children to school, means the next generation will be educated and have opportunities their parents did not have. They will learn through the example of their working parents, and as educated adults, will be able to provide for their own children, breaking the cycle of poverty that is otherwise so difficult to escape.
Program Success Monitored By
Sweet Sleep employs four indigenous staff members in Uganda, each educated in social work and business administration. COOPs are initiated at a rate of one COOP per staff member, per month. For the first six months, the staff closely monitors the progress of each group, making adjustments as needed. During the second six months, the staff allows the group more autonomy, while they focus their attention on newer groups, but they still monitor progress. After 12 months, the groups are fully independent and the Ugandan staff continue to monitor and check in on the groups periodically. American executive staff visit and evaluate the COOPs three to four times a year.
Examples of Program Success
Two years since its inception, Sweet Sleep has launched 28 CO-OPs in Uganda, reaching approximately 420 households, and meeting the needs of more than 1700 children; needs such as school fees, meals twice a day, shoes, and clothes. And for the men and women involved, dignity has been restored. Now, CO-OP members are giving back: recruiting, training, and sharing their resources with the weak and vulnerable in their communities, and branch CO-OPs are being formed from the earnings and savings of the original ones. CO-OPs are breaking the cycle of poverty.
In one example, a group of women with a sewing COOP recruited a woman named Margaret who was crippled by Polio. Thought Margaret could barely walk, and could not stand upright, she was forced to do manual labor to earn $1 per day to feed her grandchildren. The sewing COOP trained Margaret, and shared their capital resources with her. Now Margaret has a livelihood and can feed and educate her grandchildren.