Elias Fund: Trip to Africa

3.05.2009 | Elias Fund, Our Trips

On April 14th I’ll be traveling with Scott Byington of the Elias Fund and Adam Delp of the 1010 Project, to Zimbabwe and South Africa for two weeks. We’re taking this trip to bring back stories of hope from the families and lives of Zimbabwean’s through the empowerment of the Elias Fund.

Trip Details

Fly from Denver on April 14th, 2009 and arrive in Johannesburgh South Africa by April 16th.
Visit Albert Street School for two days. Record the story of the school’s director will be priority, but we also try and capture several student profiles out of the 400 that are attending currently.
Leave S.A. and fly to Harare, Zimbabwe and drive to Kadoma on April 19 to visit the Youth Education Training (YET).
In Kadoma, stay with YET directors and document their stories and progress over the last couple years. Try to capture the lives of some of the students.
Drive to Chiredzi on April 22nd to visit the Elias Foundation Trust.
Stay with EFT directors Richard and Mo Davy April 23-26. We will be visiting Elias Sithole (the man behind the Fund’s inspiration), the blind community food outreach, and documenting the stories of several EFT scholarship recipients and the directors.
Leave for Harare on April 27 and Fly back to Johannesburg on the 28th.
Fly out of Africa back home with a load of stories and media for future awareness.

My Role and Some Recent History

Over the last 6 months I’ve been sharing office space with the Elias Fund and the 1010 Project, both helping to empower people throughout Africa mostly with education. We work closely with one another, sit in on each others meetings, and have started to pursue partnerships working together with common goals and interests. I’ve been able to help formulate ideas with media and marketing strategies for them and have offered my services to help their organizations grow.

It’s amazing to see how humble they are the amount of dedication and passion for the helpless they have in their own hearts. Its truly been a blessing to work side by side with these gentlemen and dream out ideas and watch them start to come alive. We all hope to empower the people we come into contact with while raising money and awareness for the needs throughout Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa.

The Story Behind the Elias Fund

While the story of how the Elias Fund began is long and full of random meetings and occurrences, the inspiration behind our organization is simple. Elias Sithole is a gardener in Zimbabwe who had a dream to see his children gain a higher education than he had received.

In the summer of 2005, a small team of people in Boston, MA held a fundraiser to raise money for scholarships for Elias’ two eldest sons. Late that year, six of us traveled to Zimbabwe to meet Elias, his family and the people of his community. What we discovered in Zimbabwe was a country in the midst of economic and social turmoil and a group of people who wanted to bring change to their country but needed help. The directors of our first partner organization, The Elias Foundation Trust, had a vision for community development, creating sustainable social projects emphasizing education as the cornerstone of every program. This partnership has served as our working model as we have developed further partnerships and programs.

Elias Fund: Kids outside of school Elias Fund: some of the teachers