Pif and SCI Development Opportunities

Community Builders would like to offer opportunities for grants that will focus our PiF and SCI participants on key development activities. The possibilities of these grants will likely spark others in the network to be helped the next time grants are offered.

This idea is not a competition because we would, in essence, give a grant to everyone who seriously applies over time (provided we have funds). We would, however, start with those who are most keen and ready.

Community Builders believes current or future investors will observe these opportunities in action and be more likely to donate in the future because they can see more clearly where their donation is going.

The first of the initiatives will offer a total of $7,200 CAN to PiF and SCI participants in Haiti and Africa in the following categories:

CBO Development ($300 each x 4 grants)

Four $300 grants will be awarded to mature PiF participants who can demonstrate the need and benefit for CBO development in their area of extreme poverty. Applicants will explain their desire and capacity to establish a CBO. Successful applicants will also explain the steps they will take to establish a CBO and how the CBO will advance PiF and CBO activities in their region.


Grant money will be used for CBO registration, costs associated with opening a bank account and communication costs with Cantwell to establish a website, Facebook page, Youtube channel, etc.)

Communication Development
($500 each x 2 grants)

Two $500 grants will be awarded to PiF or CBO participants who can demonstrate the need and capacity to obtain and use a smart phone to advance PiF and SCI activities. Successful applicants will also outline phone and usage costs in their area and indicate how much they will contribute to their smart phone purchase and use.

Grant money will be used to help purchase a smart phone and subsidize month usage costs.

SCI PiF Block Funding ($1000 x 3 grants)

Three $1000 grants will be awarded to existing CBOs who demonstrate a desire to participate in the new PiF website and database featuring $100 PiF grants and encouraging direct communication between funder and PiF recipient.

Grant money will used to award $100 grants to persons of extreme poverty. Some of the funds (20%) can be used to travel to villages of extreme poverty and to travel to persons of extreme poverty in towns and cities.

ENP Development ($1000 x 2 grants)

Two $1000 grants will be awarded to mature PiF participants or CBO operators who desire to establish self-sufficiency. Successful applicants will write a viable ENP business plan and make a considerable personal contribution to the proposed ENP business. Successful applicants will also explain how their ENP will lead to personal and CBO self-sufficiency.

Grant money will be used to help launch and ENP after a business plan is approved by their peers.

Applicants will apply by answering the following questions in a simple email (the application process is designed to be quick and efficient, yet thorough). 


To apply for a grant, please create a document that answers the questions below and forward it to Cantwell. Grant deadline is June 30th, 2014.

Questions to Explain Your Plans for This Grant

1. Which grant category are you applying for?

2. Why do you need this grant?

3. What activities will be necessary to carry out your grant plan?

4. What is your time line for these activities, if you are successful at receiving the grant before the end of June 2014?

5. List the purchases you will make that are associated with this grant.

6. If you receive this grant, what will be the outcome of PiF and SCI development in your area?

7. How will the grant help you to become self-sufficient?

8. How will the grant help you to pay forward to others in your area?

Question Explaining Your Previous and Current PiF and SCI Efforts

1. What are the names and contact information (email addresses and phone numbers) of everyone on your CBO or PiF leadership team?

2. What geographic area are you planning to help with PiF and SCI activities? How many people live in this area?

3. Describe the level of poverty in your area in terms of high infant mortality, high maternal death, untreated diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, cholera, etc., low family income and the absence of sufficient pharmacies and health clinics.

4. Do you have a registered CBO? Are you currently trying to register a CBO?

5. Please indicate if you have any of the following: CBO website, regular CBO email newsletter, CBO Facebook, CBO Twitter, personal Link-in, CBO Youtube channel. 

6. Please indicate if you have any of the following: a dedicated bank account for your PiF, SCI or CBO efforts, a cash box, a bookkeeping system.

7. In what year was your first contact with Community Builders?

8. Approximately how much money have you received in total since you first connected with Community Builders?

9. List the projects (personal and community-based) you have you started with the money you received from Community Builders.

10. List the projects that are still operating.

11. Approximately how many beneficiaries have you helped so far directly, with or without support from Community Builders?

12. Approximately how many beneficiaries have you help so far indirectly, with or without support from Community Builders?

13. Of all the money you have spent on your PiF or SCI efforts, approximately what percentage has come from Community Builders and what percentage has come from other sources (your own funds, other donors, etc.)

Chikungunya/Dengue Fever in Haiti and Tanzania.

MacDonald, Haiti

Chinkungunya fever is spreading in Haiti, as reported by Nixon Gabriel. Gabriel is starting an impromptu clinic in the community that is funded by the people in MacDonald. Julie, a CBG director, has sent CBG funds to purchase more medicine.

This picture to the left shows a nurse administering treatment to a patient in Haiti.

The picture to the right is of the outside of the clinic in Haiti.

Dar-er Saalam TANZANIA

According to the Tanzanian government, priority now is to provide appropriate care for the people who have contracted the virus. While there is no specific antiviral treatment for the disease, infected persons can receive free medical care at public hospitals. The latest figure shows there we are 31 patients admitted in various hospitals though the figure could have gone higher.

It is dangerous for anyone feeling malaria signs to take malaria tabs without testing. Patients are advised to go to the hospital for testing to establish what exactly they are suffering from.
About 90% of patients have been found with [milder] dengue fever. In severe cases, the disease progresses to dengue haemorrhagic fever, where patients experience gum and nose bleeding, or dengue shock syndrome, where patients suffer from extremely low blood pressure.

Most people who contract dengue fever recover without complications.  In addition, death occurs in less than 1% of treated cases of the regular disease and between 1-5% of untreated ones. 

Community Based Initiative Update

This year, CoBI has started to implement a new development plan that encompasses humanitarian Aid, in villages of Ikoma, Mumosho, and Kalungwe-Uvira, as well as the economic development project at Katonga that involves corn (maize) and pig farming.

CoBI is growing corn on five hectares at Katogota. Some villagers were hired to weed the farm for the second and last time.  This second weeding is now complete and CoBI is waiting now for the harvest in July of this year.

CoBI has also hired some villagers at Katogota to make the fence and the pig housing structures. 

Within the humanitarian aid framework, CoBi has distributed goats to a good number of people living in extreme poverty in the villages of Ikoma and Kalungwe-Uvira.  CoBI staff and beneficiaries in the villages decided on what to do with this balance of the funds that was allocated for this particular project. 

For example, at Kalungwe-Uvira, the villagers requested CoBI to allocate the balance to the purchase of more vet drugs for their goats. The management committee (formed of 3 people from the group of beneficiaries) was requested to keep and use that money when need be.  But at Ikoma, the remaining money was used to purchase goats that were also distributed to other poor families. CoBI did exactly what the beneficiaries wanted to do with that balance. So CoBI distributed more goats than planned

In addition to goat distribution, CoBI has also installed a community grinding mill at Ikoma.

Kahungu and Mumosho Grinding mills Project

Kahungu and Mumosho are remote villages in DR Congo where residents live in conditions of extreme poverty.  In the past, the women in these villages had to walk long distances to access a grinding mill, where grains like maize, wheat, millet, dried arrowroot, cassava, etc., are turned into flour.  The flour is then used in the daily preparation of food. To access these mills, the women were required to walk an entire day's journey to and from these locations. If a person were unable to make the trip, they would be forced to grind grains the manual way, with a motor and pestle. This is a very strenuous and a long process. 

The villagers addressed this need in one of the meetings held by CoBI (PiF's local partner organization). With the support of Anhart Foundation, CoBI bought grinding mills and had them installed in the villages of Kahungu and Mumosho. The people of these villages now have their own grinding mills, enabling them to, not only save time, but to stimulate local business.