Loving the Phiri's

MEET THE PHIRI's !

Meet Mike, Janet and little Zach Phiri - they are a family living in Johannesburg, South Africa and good friends of mine. 

I had the blessing of meeting Mike while doing work in Johannesburg at an commercial production house there where he also worked—he kept the office clean, supported the office meetings with coffee and supported the overall maintenence of the office.

He was one of the first people who truly made me feel so welcome in a new country. I had never met someone with such kindness and honesty in their eyes - he is a very unique and lovely soul! And he has the absolute best laugh! And Mike laughs a lot! 

Mike is originally from Malawi, which he has often told me with pride is filled with beautiful, kind hearted people, and a gorgeous and economically important lake in its centre, Lake Malawi. 

But Malawi is also one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world, hit hard by decades of underdevelopment, corruption and the impact of an HIV-Aids problem, which claims the lives of tens of thousands every year.

And so Mike left Malawi in the hopes of work and opportunity.

Mike has been very lucky to have work now in Johannesburg over the years, but with his beautiful new baby, and his wife Janet being unable to find work so far (she moved recently to SA from a very small town in Malawi to marry her love, Mike), things have become desperately tight with money for them.

What I am talking about is the base of money they need to eat, and pay rent at their home, in the southern townships of Johannesburg— that's it. 

They now need help. 

This is the area that the Phiri's live in Johannesburg.


MY GOAL

I am reaching out to friends and family (and even big hearted strangers!) in the hopes that we can together raise enough money to do a few critical things I believe could dramatically change their lives for the better, even if just in the short term for now. 

This GoFundMe campaign is my first step in a more long term tiered approach to supporting a family I have a lot of love for. 

This initial fund raising campaign would go to support the Phiri family in the following way:

A) Supplement their monthly income for 1 year (while Janet is trained & looks for work)

B) Send Janet to job training so that she can find safe and consistent work.

C) Cover the cost of getting the money to them (the 5% of donations which goes to GoFundMe, and payment processing fee of 2.9%) (This will ensure they get the full amount we raise)

As soon as the fund raising goal is reached, the money will be sent to Mike in full for the Janets training and the supplemented income in monthly instalments across 1 years time.

This first step is meant to help them as quickly as possible. 

The next step, the next campaign, will eventually be to create a fund to support the Phiri family so that they can put their son, Zach, into schooling throughout his life.  This campaign is planned for next year.

To me, through research and first-hand experience, it is through continued access to education throughout ones life that opportunity lies for a family to move out of extreme poverty.
And this is ultimately what I would like to help the Phiri family with.

But for now, they need more urgent support from us.


THIS IS POSSIBLE—WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER

If I can rally together only 50 of my friends and family who can donate $50 each to this campaign, we can reach our goal.

It's that simple. 

You might not know them, but you know me, and these are friends of mine. They haven't asked me to do a fundraiser, this is because I can see the great need and I know I have the luck and opportunity in this life I was born into to help them. 

And so here I am trying to help them.

By asking you to also help them. 

So we can help them together. 

We can do this. 

Together.


THANK YOU 

In advance, thank you for your support.

I have never done a fundraiser like this before, but I've worked on various charity campaigns to support different community based incentives here in Canada, and I have seen first hand the power of people coming together. 

If you can not afford to donate the $50, donate whatever you can. The price of a latte gets us closer to our goal.

But be as generous as you can.  Please.

Most of us have never gone hungry so the rest of your family could eat. Or worry about being homeless in a country where there are little to no support systems to save you from desperation. 

These are big hurdles many families in South Africa are up against.

So let's all come together and help a family to raise their child towards a better future and show the world that none of us are truly strangers to one another when we can extend a helping hand to each other when in need. 


With love,

Jess

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Sharing the link to this campaign on your social media platforms helps us reach our goal :) 

https://www.gofundme.com/lovingthephiris

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