The United Nations proclaimed the Millennium Development Goals in the year 2000, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, all with a deadline of 2015, that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Read more about it below.

Village2Village

Village2Village links people in the developed world with children in a few villages in Uganda whose families have been wasted by AIDS. Village2Village Project provides educational, spiritual, medical, social and physical care for orphaned and vulnerable children; supporting them in their extended family environment. The Village2Village model provides a truly holistic approach to the problems the children face, bringing hope where there was none.

In addition to our children’s programs for our Primary and Secondary school aged children, we have an HIV support program; a family support program (working with animals and agriculture); and a tutoring program. We have provided pastoral training, a women’s caregiver’s conference, Vacation Bible School events, flood relief and emergency medical care to the surrounding community. Some of our children live with significant special needs and will continue to require extensive care.

Village2Village Project is funded by individuals, schools, churches, and other organizations with one time donations, fundraising events, and special gifts or grants, but most of our funding comes from sponsors of our children, staff, and programs. Children's sponsorships range from $40 per month for younger children, $100 per month for secondary school age children, and varying amounts for our special needs children. The higher sponsorships are sometimes shared by two or more sponsors. Other sponsors support specific staff positions such as a case worker in Uganda or specific programs such as our breakfast program.

Check out the Village2Village Project on the web: www.village2villageproject.org or email: info@village2villageproject.org., or rickbellows@yahoo.com.

Meeting the long-standing donor commitment to contribute just 70 cents of every $100 of income to the fight against poverty can generate the funding needed for developing countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals has been endorsed by the Episcopal Church at General Convention 2006 and by our new Presiding Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. Programs are already underway in our Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

Check the links below to become educated about the Millennium Development Goals and learn about ways you can do ONE thing to help eradicate proverty and hunger.

Check this list of idea-starters on what ONE person can do.

Read these stories about projects already underway in our Diocese and get folks in your parish to participate.

The Millennium Development Goals

Stories About MDG Activities in Our Diocese

This Isn't Just Chicken Scratch

What ONE Person Can Do to Cut Global Poverty

By Jenna Putnam, a Westfield State College senior who assists the editor of the Pastoral Staff.

Archbishop Oscar Romero has a saying "Each of us can do something," and that is the premise behind the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which outline a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015, in part by looking at what each person can do to help.

Jane Griesbach and Peggy Prynoski have each discovered their one contribution.

Jane Griesbach reported to Convention '06 delegates
on the Millenium Development Goals

For Peggy, it's making and selling quilted fabric chickens and donating the profits; for Jane, it's helping to support children in El Salvador. (Jane also helps with Peggy ís Project Chicken Scratch by doing some of the hand sewing of the chickens and helping to market them; Peggy does the piecing and machine stitching.)

Project Chicken Scratch was inspired by Nobel Peace prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, which developed the principle of microcredit, small loans that make a difference in people's lives.

Peggy, an artist and quilter, found a pattern for a small quilted chicken. Using small bits and pieces of fabric, she creates the quilted creatures, and sells them.

All profits are used to make micro loans to women living in rural areas of El Salvador in hopes that they might create their own business and make their own living.

Inside the chickens, Peggy uses 1/2 cup of rice as stuffing as a reminder that much of the world survives on 1/2 cup of rice a day.

Peggy and Janeís chickens are sold at the Charlton Sewing Center, where store owner Cathy Racine has also donated much of the fabric and thread. And they will also be sold on line at www.projectchickenscratch.com.

Jane's idea to support education in El Salvador came after she traveled there and met many children whom she immediately took a liking to. Jane speaks some Spanish and asked the children why they werenít in school. She learned that children are only schooled by the government until the sixth grade. After that, parents must pay for it. For many parents, this is not an option because families have so little money.

So, Jane did some research on where to send money to support a childís education and began sending $250 per year. This is how she met Sonia, who is 18 now and was 16 when Jane began supporting her education. Each year, Jane travels to El Salvador to visit her ìlittle sisterî and check on the status of her grades.

"We are attempting to educate folks in our Diocese of the many ways ONE person can make a difference," Jane says of MDG.