As a global citizen, Brittani Michelle has always had a passion to help underprivileged people living in the most horrid conditions.
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At the age of 21, she spent time volunteering in Africa and has lived in India helping children but said when she visited Nepal in 2017 she was left with a strong desire to go back and help.
“Last year I had the opportunity to visit the Chulthedada village where I witnessed first hand how severe the poverty was for families and especially children,” Brittani said.
“In the village, school attendance is rapidly decreasing due to children being required to work for money rather than gain an education.
“I can’t even begin to describe what going and seeing how bad their situation was first hand did to me – but it has only driven my passion to help even more.”
When she went to Nepal, Brittani a member of the Rotary Club of Port Macquarie, used the her connections to meet up with the Rotary Club of Dhulikhel and together started a partnership to help local villagers.
“I was lucky enough to connect with the Rotary Club of Dhulikhel and together we set up a project to feed the students who came to school,” she said.
“That project finished in August of this year and they wanted to know if I could help host another fundraiser for the project again.
“Unfortunately when we looked at the outcomes school attendance had not increased because the children weren’t able to come to school because their family needed them to work.”
Wanting to see if there was another way to help, Brittani spoke to the club on the ground to come up with another way get children to go to school.
“The biggest issue is the children can’t go to school because the family is living in extreme poverty, often having no food and no money.
“In other poverty stricken places chicken farming has been a great way to empower the local communities to get out of poverty and so I have decided to do the same thing in Chulthedada.
“Chicken farming is a very popular project in Nepal and has great opportunities to create an ongoing stable income for families that sell their growing chickens at local markets.
“I will be working with 73 families in the district to set up the project and hopefully as the program gets off the ground children can get back to school.
“The idea behind the project is the farming of chickens will ease the financial strain for families and children won’t be required to work and therefore will be able to gain an education.
“These children live in a very geographically complex location, and their commitment for wanting to learn is admirable and beyond anything I have ever seen.”
To fully fund the project – from the purchase of the equipment and chickens to hiring locals to build the coops and educate the families – Brittani needs to fundraise $5,800 by January.
“I believe that all children are entitled to education and I really want to do my part to help.
“This is my passion and purpose in life and I can’t wait to go back to Nepal and set up the project but it has certainly has not been possible without the support of the local Hastings community.
“To get the money I will be holding a number of fundraisers in the community and I am really hoping the community really gets behind me again.
“For the last few weeks I have been running a Krispy Kreme Doughnut drive which will end on October 14 but I will be doing other things in the coming months to help get to my goal.
“Thank you to everyone who had bought some and a special thanks to Slade Refrigerated Transport in Wauchope for agreeing to bring all the Krispy Kreme’s to town in a few weeks.”
To purchase the Krispy Kremes or to get in touch with Brittani and follow her journey email her at BrittanisJourney@gmail.com.