One by One

All over the world, children dream of becoming doctors, lawyers, pilots and government leaders. The children of Johannesburg, have these aspirations too, but they also have many obstacles along the way.
One of the chief obstacles is a basic one: they have no desks or tables at school or in their homes where they can do their studies. This means many students do their writing on hard, uneven, and often dirty floors.

Amway leaders in Europe and South Africa recognized this need and are responding in partnership with the Tutudesk Campaign. Named after Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, the project aims to help 20 million South African and African children by providing portable school desks by 2015.

Tutudesks provide a stable work surface for impoverished schools which have little or no permanent facilities. The hand-held desks display mathematics signs and can be carried to the next classroom or at home for homework. Teachers report a 69% improvement in handwriting skills and 77% reported improved levels of concentration and motivation among students with Tutudesks.

From Scandinavia to South Africa and from Portugal to Russia, Amway, its distributors and employees have been raising funds to support this simple but impactful idea. The first 3,500 Tutudesks were presented in the townships of Orange Farm, Tembisa, Daveyton and Mamelodi in March, and another delivery is expected in April.

Thanks to Karin Schmid for sharing this story.

We have reached an important milestone.

The Amway One by One Campaign for Children has been transforming lives for 10 years.

What started as a corporate initiative in 2003 has become a grassroots movement of Amway distributors and employees helping children around the world. While Amway affiliates build alliances with local partners, it is the 3 million distributors and 20,000 employees who have helped us to bring our efforts for children to scale.

At the end of 2012, we have counted 10 million children who have been positively impacted through Amway One by One.

Actions include building hospital playrooms in Russia, enabling better nutrition at schools in rural China, providing customized bikes for children with disabilities in Australia, constructing homes in Guatemala and mentoring urban youth in the United States. There are more examples in every region where Amway does business.

Amway One by One has always been about inspiring and encouraging individual actions for children in need. Now, looking back over ten years, we see a beautiful mosaic of hope, inspiration and generosity.

Thanks to everyone who has joined Amway to build better lives for children in our communities.

This year, we celebrate these accomplishments and recognize the work of so many Amway people. But we also challenge ourselves to deepen our efforts, and will close the year with a demonstration of collective support for children in need, around the world.

In Africa, two significant partnerships became a focus in 2012. One was in our flagship country of South Africa, the other in Zambia.

First, we expanded on a program that addresses the need for more desks in schools located in high poverty communities. Approximately 4 million South African children do not have a classrooms desk and there is little space to put desks in many schools, even if they were available.

Amway is partnering with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu to provide lapdesks to children, called “Tutudesks” in South Africa and beyond. Amway has already provided hundreds of lapdesks, and hopes to deliver 7,000 in 2013, with support from Amway distributors and employees in Europe as well.

Further North in the country of Zambia, Amway continued to invest and monitor a program with a micronutrient solution developed by our scientists, called Nutrilite Little Bits. Designed to work within local health programs for young children at risk of chronic malnutrition, Nutrilite Little Bits is showing incredible promise. In a single year, the children we first met showed dramatic signs of improvement in health, energy level and enthusiasm.

Through partnerships with local organizations and leaders, and commitments to leverage our expertise to create solutions for those most in need, 2012 was a year of hope and opportunity in Southern Africa.

In July, Amway staff visited Lusaka, Zambia to monitor a program that uses Nutrilite Little Bits to support the nutritional health of children. We partner with the Christian Alliance for Children in Zambia, an agency on the ground that provides food, medicine and education to support mothers and children.

Chronic malnutrition affects roughly 45 percent of children in Zambia, and the Nutrilite Little Bits micronutrient intervention, added to any native food, contains 15 vitamins and minerals that provide nourishment and fortification to a child. Currently, 229 children in six communities in Zambia benefit from Nutrilite Little Bits.

The monitoring trip highlighted dramatic improvement in health of the children in the program, both in technical results and real-life stories.

Amway team members who were in Zambia last year were deeply moved by the improvements in the children – with greater health, higher activity levels … and more smiles. A little bit is going a long way!

Thanks to Jeff Terry for sharing this story.

Some children need a house.

They may have loving parents or caregivers, but they face barriers: poverty … illiteracy … lack of access to credit … unclear laws or pervasive corruption. They often resort to living in unsafe, overcrowded slums. According to UN-Habitat, One out of every three city dwellers – nearly a billion people – lives in a slum and that number is expected to double in the next 25 years. They need a place of their own.

Some children need a home.

They may be orphaned or abused, living in shelters or on the street. According to UNICEF, there are more than 150 million orphans in the world, many of which do not have consistent, caring adults to look after them. They need people to care for them and a place to call their home.

Fortunately, there are great organizations that are working to provide houses and homes for children around the world.

Amway partners with Habitat for Humanity in ten countries across Latin America, including a multi-country partnership to build an entire neighborhood of homes in Guatemala, working with Amway distributors and employees.

Habitat for Humanity works with local governments to establish clear property ownership for underserved families, many who live in poverty and don’t read well enough to fill out an application for a home loan. Through Habitat, volunteers build homes alongside the families that will live there. The new homeowners are trained on maintenance, finances and build equity to ensure they will have a house for their family for the long term.

For children who have no families, or who have to be removed from their families, Amway works with local governments and nonprofit agencies to help. In Japan, Amway helped to establish a Crop Home for abused children. In South Korea, Amway employees and distributors regularly help out at Child Welfare Centers that care for children. In the Amway hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, we provide financial and volunteer support to foster care and adoption agencies that help to provide homes for children.

Amway has also been a longtime supporter of SOS Children’s Villages, which provides a permanent home for orphaned children, which includes a series of homes that make up a village, with each home run by a caring adult. Amway and our employees and distributors have supported and volunteered for SOS Children’s Villages in South Africa, Haiti, South Korea, the United States and China over the years.

A house and a home – many needs, and many ways to help.

Last week, Amway leaders presented 700 new lapdesks to students at Amatikwe and Bhekilanga primary schools in Durban, South Africa.

While the gift was presented by our Amway South Africa offices, the funds were actually provided by our leaders in Amway UK who heard about the Lapdesk Project and wanted to help.

In South Africa, there is a shortage of desks, and space, in local schools. The lapdesks fill a critical need for students, and serve as a quick resource of letter, number and shape charts, with an emergency hotline number.

Thanks to Makhaya Manie for sharing this story.

We recently received a newsletter from an organization called Network of Caring, founded by Amway Independent Business Owners Jim and Nancy Dornan. As it speaks to the power of how a single donation can mobilize and duplicate, I’ve included the full excerpt.  -JH

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With the partnership of 5 charitable organizations, Network of Caring (NOC) was able to feed 60,000 people for a month in drought-ridden Africa. Through our relationship with World Vision US and World Vision Australia, and with information about the United Nations’ ten-to-one matching food program (provided to us from NOC’s Australia office) a $50,000 donation was turned into a $550,000 miracle for Central Africa!

This is really what makes NOC unique. Because we believe so much in finding partnerships that have complimentary attributes, we tend to be able to do more than other charities simply because we always try to work with others. Teamwork still makes the dream work, even in the world of charity.

Because NOC has an office in Sydney that is connected to World Vision Australia, which is connected to the United Nations food program, we were able to give the $50,000 from the US to World Vision US, which sent it to World Vision Australia, which sent it to the food program, which turned it into $550,000 in food for the poor in Africa.

This is an example of what makes Network of caring unique…we leverage partnership to maximize impact.

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Thanks to RD Saunders for sharing this great story.

Last night, we celebrated the Corporate Citizenship Awards at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

We were honored to be named a finalist for our Nutrilite Little Bits program in the category of Best International Ambassador.

It was great to be recognized for the work already done, because it energized us for the work ahead to really bring this program to scale!

While our team was in Zambia last month to kick off the Nutrilite Little Bits program in Lusaka, we learned that Amway distributors were supporting another project just down the road in Khayelitsha.

A group of Amway Independent Business Owners under the US-based Network 21 organization were supporting the distribution of wheelchairs through Free Wheelchair Mission. Network of Caring, the giving arm of Network 21, has sponsored more than 2,500 wheelchairs for people in need around the world.

It just so happened that they were delivering wheelchairs in Zambia on the same day we were delivering Nutrilite Little Bits micronutrients for children.

The needs are great around the world, but when you start to lend a hand, you realize how small the world can be.

Thanks to RD Saunders and Liza Tappenden for sharing, and for the great work you are doing.

From guest bloggers Angela Nelson and Jaida Vaught from the Amway Marketing team.

What’s the best taste in the world?

In this case … it’s no taste at all.

We’ve just returned from Zambia, working with a team to successfully launch Nutrilite Little Bits in its second market.  Nutrilite Little Bits is beginning to reach the world’s 195 million malnourished children, one by one.  These children don’t have access to fortified food which causes significant under-development and susceptibility to all sorts of negative health consequences.   

Nutrilite Little Bits is a packet of odorless, colorless, tasteless powder which can be mixed into whatever food children are already eating without changing texture, color or taste.  What it does do is provide the 15 essential vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) the World Health Organization has cited as critical to the healthy physical and mental development of each child. In our pilot study in Mexico, one packet per child per day show marked improvements in just six months:  Child stunting reduced by 40%, iron deficiency anemia reduced by 93%.  

We joined our partner,  the Christian Alliance for Children in Zambia, whose Milk and Medicine program provides a basic food supply for the children of over 175 families and maintains transit rescue homes for children who have been orphaned or abandoned. Generously supported by Amway South Africa, the Amway One by One Campaign for Children is providing a six month supply of Nutrilite Little Bits to all of these children. 

Now we all know we love our children.  But do we love ALL children? 

The families of Zambia love their children, as do mothers and fathers and grandparents all across the globe.  But they need a hand to provide the basics to their children.  

Today we were privileged to extend that hand, on behalf of the Amway family.

We wish you all could have been there!

Thanks for Christine Albertini for contributing to this post.