Dear Friends and Family, Assalam Aleykum, Peace Be Upon You

Imagine this: You are going to a work-related conference in the middle of the summer in Arizona. You arrive to find the air conditioning is broken and the water fountains are not working. The presenting organization is not providing water or food during the seminar and you've forgotten your Nalgene bottle.

Would you stay?

If you would, how much do you think you could you learn in a day?

This the experience of the children of Mauritania every day. They are expected to sit in the classroom, often on the floor without desks, while day time temperatures reach 120˚ during the hot season (which is right now), and without the option to drink water if they are thirsty or to wash their hands, if needed, for 6 hours a day. It is reasons like this that makes dehydration the leading cause of death in developing countries. In addition, how is it feasible that the children are expected to really absorb the information they are being taught and thus become productive members of their society?

I am writing this letter, with hopes that all of you are well, to solicit help for a project on which I am currently working in Kaedi, Mauritania. I apologize for the solicitation; however, the help that you could provide could immediately benefit over three thousand children in the city of Kaedi. This is a two-part project involving eight local elementary schools. There are a total of fourteen elementary schools in Kaedi, and eight of them do not have access to water within the school grounds. My project involves aiding in the funding of installation of running water in each school, in addition to personally instructing teachers how to incorporate corresponding health education into their daily lesson plans.

The community has asked the government for financial assistance with their schools for years; however, the government is unable to help due to the lack of infrastructure and income that unfortunately accompany most developing countries. When I offered to help raise money for their schools, the community actively showed interest by volunteering to contribute. The PTA associations have agreed to carry out the physical labor involved in the installation of the water lines, the Regional Director of the Education Department has offered to donate canaries (clay pots to in which to store water and keep it cool), and the Mayor has agreed to help finance the monthly water bills.

I, along with the community of Kaedi, am asking for your help with this project. Your help, even the smallest amount, will help to ameliorate the health and learning environment for thousands of children this year, and thousands more in the years to come. You can learn more about this project and/or contribute, if you are interested, by going to the peacecorps.gov website and clicking on the Donate Now button, and then follow the link to Donate to Volunteer Projects, or you can click on:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.donatenow&
You will be prompted to enter information where you can narrow down the project database and find my project, which will be listed in the next few days as I have recently submitted the application.

Every little bit helps. Also, please feel free to forward this to anyone you feel might be interested in contributing. Your aid would be appreciated more than words can express. I deeply thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely yours,

Lindsay Marmer, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 66
Kaedi, Mauritania
West Africa
011-222-207-9553
lindsaymarmer.blogspot.com