Baobab Family Charity Concert

Successful fundraising event in Kenya!
In december there was the first fundraising event of the Baobab Family in Kenya!

For the first time ever, there was a Baobab Family Charity Concert in Kenya! It was so possible to collect enough money to be able to finance the borehole which the Children´s Home in Mikindani shall get.
The "Baobab Kids" enjoyed dancing with the musician Nyota Ndogo on stage and it was a good and successful day for all visitors and for the Baobab Family!
Morris Kawinzi, who coordinates the Baobab Family Children´s Home in Mikindani, gives a report:
"At last the long awaited day came! The 13th of December 2008 was a day for the Baobab water well concert. Important to us because it was our first ever fundraiser event and it would give us ideas and insight into future fundraiser events. I must say although not very easy to organize the event, we will definitely do other events. We have learnt that fundraiser events well done are worthy all the efforts, challenges and the time people invest in making them a success. With high expectations and test the waters attitude, we set to kill 2 birds with one stone. In particular, we set to use the fundraiser concert to raise funds for digging water well and putting up an agriculture project for the children home in addition to publicizing baobab children’s home activities to the Mombasa community. To raise the funds, the local grassroots management committee invited local celebrities to perform at the concert. We were then to charge people a small fee (ksh.50) for entering into the concert! Other ways identified for raising funds were selling of Baobab family products (Tshirts, school uniforms, shopping bags etc) selling of raffles and collecting donations from individual persons or and groups. Guest artists invited and who performed at the concert included Nyota Ndogo, Bantu, Dellymess, Savage, and Avenue among others. Although attendance to the concert was not very good. We managed to raise Ksh.34, 000 (in pledges and cash Donations), 2 by 1500 liter water tank (worth ksh.20, 600), 160Kgs of Maize, 60Kgs of Rice, 3 bundles of Maize flour and a pledge of the same every month and some clothing. Some of the challenges we got in organizing the event were, short time of planning and scheduling the event at the end of the year. Most of the companies we approached were already closing the books of account for the year and they had somehow utilized money allocated for corporate social responsibility. They advised we try next year and a little bit earlier than December, say in the month of September or October. The time we allocated for organizing the event was also short! It took us about 3 weeks to organize the event which was really limited time. Many companies didn’t have enough time to consult with their decision makers even though they wanted to support the noble course! Further “post mortem” of the event will be done on Friday the 19th Dec.2008 in a meeting with the GMC to evaluate more. With publicity of Baobab children’s home activities, we got it just right. We had Baraka FM (a local FM station) publicize the event for a whole week free of charge! We also put up banners and posters in Mikindani.Additionally we invited most of the companies, churches, mosques and organizations in the area by a way of letters. We believe we now have enough people in the community aware of our activities as a community based organization. The seeds have been planted and we are looking forward to having them grow probably in the next fundraiser events coming soon!

Nyota Ndogo has recorded the song YATIMA which is available on a charity cd.

Check out Boabab Families site for further infomation

http://www.baobab-family-project.org/