Last week team members Bill Zimmerman and Fon Christopher Achobang met with staff from the U.S. Embassy, Yaoundé. The meeting took place at a hotel in Limbe during Ambassador Janet Garvey’s visit to the area. Richard Johannsen, First Secretary of the Public Affairs section, originally committed to one hour. Their discussion ran for more than two and half hours, with the bulk of it devoted to Village Diary. While they chatted American and Spanish sailors and marines, on shore leave from a U.S. Navy vessel anchored in the bay, circulated through the hotel.
Richard and his assistant engaged Bill and Christopher in a frank, open discussion that probed all the details of the Village Diary project. They asked tough questions and posed hypothetical scenarios to test the practicalities of our idea. After two hours of a rigorous Q&A session, Richard turned to the pilot phase budget estimate in the proposal. He zeroed-in on the IT platform costing which includes Churchill’s software development and hardware for two fieldwork toolkits. He told our team members that the Embassy would allocate funds in two phases to cover a portion of the IT platform costs. They worked out the details of the grant application process and sealed the agreement with a handshake.
The following Monday, Bill received a call from Richard who’d returned to his office in Yaoundé. He’d had time during the drive from Limbe to review our 50 page proposal, he said, and opted to fully fund the IT platform in a single phase. It’s rare to have such an enthusiastic response from a donor, rarer still for them to pledge more funds after the fact. Needless to say, we couldn’t be happier.
If all goes well we should have the funds in hand by the first week of May. This will not only provide a much-needed jolt for our project, but it lends legitimacy to our effort and should make it easier to attract other sources of funds before our June 16th launch.
Tags: grants, US Embassy
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3 Responses to “Pilot Funding Secured from the U.S. Embassy”
The Village Diary is a new approach to securing the rights of inheritance for children and widows. By providing access to digital records of inheritance, social services and legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of society, we aim to help stop this cycle of poverty before it starts.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Congratulations.
Hope the money helps in acheiving your goal of securing the rights of inheritance for children and widows.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Congrats!
great initiative
goodluck with it
September 9th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Congratulations !!
All the best for the future.