Valentines Day Sale

The U Vic Group is hosting a sale at the University as follows:

Location :  Clearihue Building Main Lobby
 
Time Tuesday February 12th. From 10AM -3 pm
Items for sale include African Aids Angels, Valentine treats and bookmarks.

Come and buy a meaningful gift for that special someone

 

AAA Transition

African AIDS Angels will be going through a period of transition with the departure of Carol Sherwood. We are trying a new approach, with responsibilities divided among various volunteers, so that not too much is falling on one person’s shoulders. We ask for your patience during the transition period. The following people are undertaking various tasks:

• Marcia Thompson will be the overall and volunteer co-ordinator. She can be reached at marciathompson@shaw.ca but will be away until Feb. 3. She will be assisted in this by Laura How at laurahow@uvic.ca, tel. 778-440-1460.
• Brian Price is the treasurer, and will also look after the blog, web site, graphics, calendar, etc. His email is brianlprice@shaw.ca and phone no. 250-721-3763.
• Barb McKrow will be shops co-ordinator and liaison with out-of-town groups.. She has also been instrumental with the annual Holy Cross sale and Oak Bay HS event. Her email is bmckrow@shaw.ca
• Sandra Dennis is co-chair of the board and with Nathan How will do outreach to schools and youth. Her email is bensandy@islandnet.com and phone 250-381-0921.
• Gail Blais, a volunteer for several years, will be monitoring the africanaidsangels@gmail.com and will forward messages to the appropriate people.
• Pierre Dil handles the annual Videa sale and is the connection with the Makeni project in Zambia. His email is pierredil@hotmail.com
• Vic Parsons will continue to hand out angel-making supplies and receive completed angels. He is the contact with Volunteer Victoria and the South Africa projects, and the board chair. If there are questions, you can email him at lvparsons@shaw.ca or phone 250-472-6499.

Carol Sherwood

Carol Sherwood left her role as coordinator of African AIDS Angels in December, after several years in which she performed a wide range of duties on behalf of the society.

We are very grateful for Carol’s dedication and thoroughness . Some of her roles were as treasurer; overall coordinator;  organizing the Open Houses and other events; producing brochures and other materials; ensuring quality control and many other activities.

Thank you, Carol for all your hard work and devotion to the people who benefit from AAA’s fund-raising. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

Please see seperate blog post advising who will be taking on Carols' duties

Seeds for Malawi

We have received the following message from the Malawi project

 

Kayombo

"We distributed the aid for the farm input and nutritional beneficiaries..the beneficiaries were all happy for the aid and wished us to send our regards to you.  

They really appreciate your help.Many have already planted maize and other crops,we all just wish and pray that rains are good this year. 

Finally we all want to send our new years regards to you, we wish you all a prosperous year in 2013. 

stay blessed

Delirah "

Where to find Angels

Looking for Angels?

These generous shops listed on our website carry a rack of angels.

Some are year-round and some just carry them in the pre-holiday season. We thank them all for their support.

New donations

Looking for a meaningful gift, or something for the person with everything?

In addition to exchanging angels for donations, we're delighted to receive money in support of our projects in southern Africa. You can make a credit card donation through our website. Note that we have gift cards if you want to make a donation in honour of a friend.

If you have collected money for angels, or would like to make a donation by mail, please send a cheque or money order payable to African AIDS Angels. Mail to:

•       Brian Price
•       23-4051 Shelbourne St.
•       Victoria BC   V8N 3E5
•        tel. 250-721-3763

Questions can be addressed to africanaidsangels@gmail.com

Open House Thank Yous

Thanks go to the donor businesses that contributed to the door prizes and other costs at our Open Houses on Nov. 17 and 24.

Donors of gift certificates were:
     Baja Rosie's consignment store
     GardenWorks, Colwood
     Chamberlain Walk Hair Care
     Lux Spa (Forbes Pharmacy)

Donors of gift baskets:
     Mother Nature's Market & Deli
     Pure Integrative Pharmacy, Cook St.

Silk Road Teas contributed Angelwater tea which was served at Swan Lake.

The Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary provided free rent for Nov. 17.

We are grateful for all these donations. The winners of the door prizes were surprised and pleased. Thanks go to organizing committee members Barb, Fran, Ardelle, Joan, Ruth and Carol, plus helpers Terry, Mary, Larry, Vic, Lorraine, Cheryl, Shirley, Jaye and Linda.

Check out the photos of some of the beautiful angels seen at the Open Houses. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Where to find Angels in December

There are two opportunities in Victoria this weekend to pick up some angels, large and small.

• Tillicum Mall
• Friday to Sunday, November 30 to December 2
• mall hours, lower floor display
• 
  
• Dickens Fair
• Saturday December 1
• 2 to 8 pm
• James Bay Community School
• Oswego Street

Some generous shops around town also carry a rack of angels for quick gift ideas.

Message from Malawi

Delirah Phiri sent this message in November:

"Hello

We hope you are all fine.

We watched the video you guys uploaded -  felt special when watching it but we all know you are the real special ones.

We have paid school fees for the school fees beneficiaries, and have attached the pictures of the students.

sending regards

Delirah"

Recent photos from Zambia

Matthew Dil took some great photographs of our recent Dil family trip to Makeni Ecumenical Centre, posted to flickr, at the following link:

Matthew's pictures of Makeni

The orphanage children had a "fun-day" organized by community members in Makeni, and Pierre, Lee Ann, Andrew, and Matthew helped with activities. You will see pictures (in link above) of a giant inflatable "bouncy-castle", that the orphans (and some other local children who joined in for the day) absolutely loved. We were amazed no one had an accident! There was also a tug-of-war with an old hose-pipe (that broke spectacularly spilling kids and adults all over the place), a tag-team water bucket race, and a limbo competition favouring the smallest kids! There are also some pictures of Makeni in general herewith.

I have also posted some general pictures of the buildings and students at Makeni here:

Pierre's photos

Pierre Dil

Open House Sat. Nov. 24

Our second Open House will be held

Saturday Nov. 24
11 am to 2pm
Cook Street Activity Centre
380 Cook St., Victoria
no admission charge
cash or cheque only

Large and small angels will be available, for donations from $7 to $25. Come out to see what other angel-makers are doing, and get some new ideas.

Check out some of the beautiful standing angels made this year. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

African AIDS Angels will be selling angels at Videa Fair

Dear Friends,

Please join us for:

VIDEA’s

Fair Trade Fair

Saturday November 24th,

First Metropolitan United Church Hall

932 Balmoral Rd, off Quadra

10am till 4pm

A chance to support over 35 local fair trade vendors, make your holiday purchases with a conscience, enjoy great live music, food from the International Women’s Catering Coop, good friends and lots more!

Admission by donation, lots of door prizes,

Wheel chair accessible,

Please post widely!

More information at www.videa.ca

Big Open Houses

While African AIDS Angels has put on a big Open House in November for about the past 6 years, this is the first time there will be two events instead of one. For anyone who finds it difficult to get to Swan Lake Nature House (which will have the best selection), there will be a smaller Open House at Cook Street Activity Centre the following week.

There will be beautiful standing angels as well as the best examples of hanging ones. Both venues are wheelchair accessible.

Open House 1

• Sat. Nov. 17, 10 am - 3 pm 
• Swan Lake Nature House 
• 3873 Swan Lake Road 
• off McKenzie Ave. e. of Blanshard, take Rainbow or Nelthorpe 
• no admission, tea & cookies provided 
• minimum donation for angels $10, larger ones as marked
• credit, debit, cash and cheques accepted 

Open House 2

• Sat. Nov. 24, 11 am - 2 pm 
• Cook Street Activity Centre 
• 380 Cook Street in the Village 
• no admission 
• minimum donation for angels $7, larger ones as marked
• cash or cheque only

Please come and bring your friends. For printable copies of the posters or a smaller handout, send an email to africanaidsangels@gmail.com.

Fund-raising Opportunities

The following events are coming up in Victoria. Please volunteer now for the ones where help is needed.

In addition, if you have an opportunity to add a table or a few angels to another event, please let us know. Consider your workplace, tea parties, craft fairs, before or after Sunday service at church. This can really help our efforts.

• Sat. Nov. 3  Westshore Town Centre table, 9:30-5:30
• Sat. Nov. 17  Angels Open House, Swan Lake Nature House, 10-3 - volunteers needed
• Sat. Nov. 24  Angels Open House, Cook St. Activity Centre, 10-2 - volunteers needed
• & Sat. Nov. 24  VIDEA Fair Trade Fair, 923 Balmoral at Quadra 10am-4pm


• Fri. Nov. 30 through Sun. Dec. 2  Tillicum Mall table - all volunteer slots now filled !
Hours for 2-hour shifts: Friday Nov. 30 9:30am-9pm
Saturday Dec. 1, 9:30-5:30pm
Sunday Dec. 2, 11 am-5:00pm

• Sat. Dec. 1 Dickens Fair table, James Bay Community School, 2-8 pm

Send an email to africanaidsangels@gmail.com if you can volunteer for a few hours or more.

We still need more angels to supply these tables. Please deliver them in advance (not to sale events) to our supply depot,
Vic Parsons
1473 Banff Place
250-472-6499
lvparsons@shaw.ca

University & College News

Angels will be available this season at the University of Victoria and Camosun College.

The UVic Angels Club has arranged these dates to offer angels on campus:

• Wednesday, November 21, 10-3pm in Maclaurin lobby
• Thursday, November 22, 10-3pm in Clearihue main lobby
• Thursday, November 29, 10-3 pm in Clearihue main lobby

November 29th will also be the day a coalition of clubs are arranging events for World Aids Day. There will be a guest speaker, seminar and film screening that week (Canadian HIV/AIDS Awareness week) as well as information tables set up around campus, with a ribbon picture being taken in front of the library. They are encouraging people to wear red for the occasion.

To note World AIDS Day which falls this year on Sat. Dec. 1, Camosun College's African Awareness Committee will host information tables at the Lansdowne Campus on Monday December 3. Angels will be available at the African AIDS Angels table outside the Fisher Building.

Mid-Island Angels

If you're near Parksville BC on Saturday November 3, check out the beautiful Angels made by the group based in Qualicum Beach.

• World Craft Bazaar - fair trade gifts from around the world
• Knox United Church, 345 Pym St, Parksville
• Saturday November 3, 10am-3pm

Update: They sold 90 of their 104 angels and raised $900!

The Qualicum group describes itself this way: 

"The Parksville/Qualicum group began in 2006 as a social justice action project with the KAIROS (United Church) organization. Towards the end of 2011 that initial group transformed into a smaller autonomous group.  

Since January 2012 the new Qualicum Beach/Parksville group meets on Monday afternoons in a Qualicum Beach home to create Angels. We use donated material and accessories from local businesses and local residents as well as out-of-town interested parties. Because of these many donations and because of discounted fees for any required services by local businesses, our low operating costs allow us to remit approximately 97% of funds raised.  

Currently, our angels are available at a local florist shop and we participate at local events by displaying our angels for sale. We also raise funds through special orders for events and celebrations."

Congratulations on your transformation. We are so grateful for your continuing efforts!

Angel-making for Children

The Youth Committee which makes presentations to schools has come up with a new angel design for younger children. The angels are made from thin foam sheets and are available as kits for teachers at a donation of $3 per student.

To accompany an angel-making session, the committee has prepared a Powerpoint presentation suitable for elementary level. The slides and a script will be emailed to a teacher who has ordered and picked up the kit. The program/activity is also suitable for other children's clubs and groups.

Payment can be made in advance by cash, cheque or credit card through our website. Interested teachers and leaders should send an email to africanaidsangels@gmail.com.

Clip Angels

In exchange for a donation to African AIDS Angels projects, these clip angels make great momentos. They can be used as favours for weddings or birthdays, or easily mailed with a greeting card in regular post. Your guests will appreciate that a donation is being made in honour of their presence at a special event.

The clips can also be used as tree decorations, stocking stuffers, or bookmarks. Christmas colours are available.

Each one hangs with a 3 inch ribbon and may be inserted on the card as shown in the photo. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)  For larger orders of 30 or more, specific colours may be chosen to complement a theme, as well as a specialized card printed. Three weeks' notice would be required for special orders.

Another option for weddings: we can provide a certificate near the guest book to indicate that you have made a donation to African AIDS Angels in honour of the event. A clip angel for each guest would be optional.

The clips are exchanged for donations of $2 each. The cost of mailing quantities out-of-town would be added where applicable.

If you are interested in one of these opportunities, please send an email to africanaidsangels@gmail.com

Report by Pierre Dil on his visit to Zambia

Pierre, Lee Ann, and sons Matthew and Andrew Dil visited Makeni Ecumenical Centre , and the St. Nicholas orphanage in Lusaka, Zambia, in October 2012. Pierre is a board member of African AIDS Angels.

Pierre met with the heads of Makeni (MEC) management and Agriculture to enquire about AAA funding to the orphanage and agricultural projects benefitting families impacted by AIDS. We also assisted with a fun-day for the orphans. (Pierre cooked a record number of sausages and chicken legs on a BBQ!).

We toured the new school and computer lab at MEC. MEC now has limited bandwidth wi-fi.
Andrew has stayed on to work as a volunteer at MEC teaching physics and biology in the secondary school, and working one-on-one with orphans to do reading and homework projects, until December 1 2012. He will report to AAA on his return to BC.

We learned that a recent research project revealed 3 in 20 women in prenatal clinics are positive for HIV. There is the impression that rates and deaths are still high in Zambia, despite the availability of Anti-retroviral treatments (ARV), as ARV’s have led to carelessness amongst infected people (who can often look and feel well quickly after treatment, but are still carriers of the virus). More general statistics are found here.

We noted that the AAA funding supports about 10% of the total annual budget for the Makeni Ecumenical Centre and just under 33% of the orphanage budget. Aside from orphanage support, AAA funding is also designated to agricultural work supporting families affected by AIDS in Kawelwe village. The agricultural officer estimates 50% of families in settlement farms have some individual in their family who either has died of AIDS or has HIV. Friends of Makeni, and KKW, both Dutch organizations, had also been supporting the orphanage, however have retracted funding recently, saddling MEC with ever higher proportions of the total cost for the orphanage. Most funding for the orphanage is derived from school fees charged (as is the case for schools across Zambia) to the general public utilizing their school service.

There are currently 29 orphans in the orphanage ranging from infants to 18 year olds who have not completed secondary school yet. The general policy is MEC will keep orphans in the village, under the care of a house-mother supervisor, until they either fail Grade 9, or pass Grade 11, such that it is not unusual to have older teens still in residence. Every effort is then made to enable the child to either go on to a trade, employment, or enrollment in other adult employment courses at MEC. Almost always too, a distant relative is found to re-assimilate the child into Zambian society. Contact with distant relatives (in most cases of course their immediate parents are dead from AIDS) is encouraged throughout their years at Makeni.

There are emerging discipline problems with the older orphan teens, however these do not seem dissimilar to what the average Canadian family would experience with teens! The difference is, however, that the orphans do not have the tight family structure and care in a small family unit, to help them learn from their mistakes. This has put a strain on management at MEC, and new guidelines are being looked at, to encourage discipline. New intake might be limited to girls only (one idea being contemplated) or scholastic success will be insisted for older teens (or they will be released earlier to their extended family). Ideally another staff person should be hired to ease the problem, but they can not afford this.

Zambia’s President Sata declared, in 2012, that employers must comply with an increase of the minimum monthly wage, from K510,000 (where approximately K5000 equals one C$), to K1.2 million - more than double the previous rate. A second tier of the programme, would see those earning K800,000 per month making K1.6 million. Despite the apparent fairness of this change (a think-tank in Zambia calculated a family of 6 needs a minimum of K3.2 milion for a month to survive) there does not appear to have been much warning or discussion with employers, and there likely will be a crisis across the country as a result. MEC has no idea how they can comply with this increase, and an appeal to government was rejected.
Incidentally, the complexity of dealing with millions of kwacha, in budgets, should improve in 2013, with new currency coming into effect, cutting 3 zeros off all amounts!

MEC is exploring new and alternative sources of income, to assist in the shortfall in general income (see above comments regarding donors leaving, and new government pay guidelines which will adversely affect programming), such as fish-farming ventures, more enrollment for the school (a 50% increase in enrollment in the school would solve budgetary shortfalls), housing adult students for a fee, and possible tourism ventures (such as inviting tourists to experience a rural farm experience for a fee).
MEC has invited comment from AAA regarding the feasibility of a full scale evaluation of the agricultural component AAA funds at Kawelwa, at a cost of K40 million. Friends of Makeni have requested a full evaluation of MEC activities, but Terms of Reference have not been worked out.

Pierre is a member of the board of Makeni Ecumenical Centre, and also had discussion regarding leadership transitions and management needs, into the future years, with staff.

New Video from Malawi

Peter Kepkay has returned to Vancouver from Malawi and put together an informative 6-minute video on African AIDS Angels projects there. You can watch it on our website.

Peter is a long-time friend of Seeds for Malawi on Saltspring Island and visited the projects as part of a larger filming project still in the works. We are very grateful to him for sharing this copyrighted video.