Sao Sary, a government worker from the province, was tragically murdered for the humanitarian work he undertook to help villagers in this area. Sao’s son, Vichetr Uon, created the foundation to continue his father’s work. The enemies Vichetr deals with are loan sharks and prostitution groups who prey upon the innocent people in these impoverished villages.
One of the most important criteria TPRF grant reviewers examine is impact. For the amount of funds requested, we look at how many people will be helped, in what ways, and for how long?
CCF continues to see transformations just like Srey Lin’s. Poor families who were unable to provide basic nutrition to their children are proudly watching as their children grow into healthy and happy individuals who are filling their bellies with nutritious meals and their minds with education—essential ingredients to alleviating poverty.
While refugees come to Ethiopia with their own heartbreaking stories of malnutrition and violence from Al-Shabaab controlled Somalia, the surrounding host communities of southern Ethiopia are in the midst of a crippling drought. The region has barely received any rains in two years.
I was surprised at how many people went out of their way to emphasize to me the importance of TPRF’s grant to IRD. I appreciated it, of course, but I protested that our grant of $25,000 was such a small part of their budget, which is in the hundreds of millions. My new friends explained that foundations like TPRF provide critical seed money—early, quickly, and flexibly—to jump-start huge projects. Larger sources of funding involve more bureaucracy, take longer, and are less flexible. When major sources of funding see that foundations like ours have taken action, it prompts these donors to follow suit.