Please Support the Smallholder Support Network!

By any stretch of the imagination – the SSN has achieved phenomenal results (see our other recent blog posts) for a project that set out to work towards the empowerment of smallholders and to increase their sustainability and livelihood chances. But the successful ingredients of the SSN are even more impressive when the tiny budget and staffing levels of the LYF are taken into account. The LYF packs a powerful punch when it comes to ‘Operations Minus Overheads’ and it is proud of its ability to use funding imaginatively but sensibly and to keep as much money ‘in country’ as possible!

However, the funding for the Radio element of the SSN will end in April 2012 – so in order to ensure that this work of ‘entering the homes and lives of the smallholders’ continues – we need your help! The costs required to keep the Radio Broadcasts going for another year are pretty small and very simple….

Help – Innovate – Donate!

Just £400 per week will allow the LYF to continue to build on this incredible success in educating and transforming the lives and income levels of desperately poor smallholders! These costs directly relate to broadcasts within Kenya – but the wider work of the SSN is preparing to replicate itself across Africa and to all developing countries…

So, the £400 breaks down into…

  • £250 air time (the broadcasting costs) and
  • £150 for the Farmer Field Listening Groups  and the costs for the research and content creation/ Extension Officer/Presenter costs.

SIMPLICITY and CREATIVITY has always been the keywords of the LYF….PLEASE think Simply and Creatively about how you can help the continuation of the SSN Radio Broadcasts!

For example:

How about opting to ‘Sponsor a Show’? (we can add your name or your organisation’s name to the LYF website and blog as ‘Sponsor of A Radio Broadcast’)

  • Hold a Coffee Morning to raise funding for the SSN….
  • Screen a showing of ‘Black Gold’ in your community….
  • Run a Mini Marathon…..
  • Have a Sponsored Coffee-Flavoured-Week…
  • Clean out your junk – have a Car Boot Sale and provide a Free Coffee for every sale over £2.00….

Or if that is too much trouble –  just make a simple donation!

We REALLY need your help to make good these incredible gains to date….!

We know through personal and professional experience that Radio Outreach is the Lifeblood of Africa. Please help us to refine this approach for smallholder empowerment.

It isn’t rocket science.  This approach sprang from small-scale and cost-effective attitudes from people who have lived and worked in developing countries and who are vehemently FOR keeping money for foreign aid in the countries that need it the most.  But most importantly of all – we can now show that this approach WORKS for the smallholder! The LYF now wants to replicate it across the developing world – but we can’t do this without your support and action!

If you can donate, please do so – and we would LOVE to mention you as a donor! Don’t hesitate to email us or to write to us to let us know how you have made a donation or raised money for the SSN. We need your stories and even your smallest actions keep us going…

For online donations go to www.lyf.org.uk/support-our-work

But we always love receiving letters, cheques or anything else cheery in the post. Cheques are payable to ‘The Lorna Young Foundation’ and you can find us at: The LYF, 47 Lea Lane, Netherton, Hudds, W Yorks, HD4 7DP. UK

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