My Nonprofit Reviews

Yang-Ward Foundation is a Missouri based Non-Profit organization which seeks to empower single women in rural areas by engaging them in revenue generating activities such as cash crop production, goat-farming, poultry farming and so on. These women are provided with leased land for cash-crop production, seed money and technical support while foundation staff, volunteers and partnered schools provide guidance and support. The income from these proceeds pays workers a generous wage and parts of the proceeds are used for giving scholarships to underprivileged girls. Similarly, Yang-Ward Foundation also donates library books to local schools where thousands of students are benefiting from these generous donations.How Did I know About Yang-Ward Foundation?I got to know about Nepal through Yangmali Sahadev Rai (who was working as my student worker in undergraduate college), Founder and President of Yang-Ward Foundation. Being an American who has never been to any Asian countries, I didn’t know about the situation of single women in Nepal. I got to know that rural Nepal has nearly half a million impoverished single women, many widowed and abandoned during the civil war. These single women and their children become outcasts in their local communities, no longer supported by ex- husband’s families, struggling to survive, and barely able to feed themselves and their children, much less send those children to school. This was something that really touched my heart and I wanted to help.When was the First Time I gave To Yang-Ward Foundation?Yangmali implemented his first project in rural Nepal right after getting his seed funding from the Resolution Project, in partnership with The Clinton Global Initiative. When he came back after spending 2 months implementing the project, I was blown away by their work in that area. Within 9 months, his project was becoming self-sustainable. I was blown away by the transformation of the land before and after his project, and the freshly grown organic vegetables. The hard work and dedication of Yangmali and his team was very clear. I got to know that because of his successful pilot project, people from other parts of the country were requesting him to expand the project. Since he didn’t have money to implement other projects, he ran a online crowd-funding campaign with indiegogo in 2013. That is my first donation to Yang-Ward Foundation because I believed in his work, someone I could entirely trust with my donation as well as I was convinced how my small donation could transform the lives of single women who are the victims of constant discrimination.Now Yang-Ward Foundation has expanded its projects in different parts of Nepal. From cash-crop production to poultry farming and goat farming projects to help single women who were severely affected by disastrous recent earthquakes in Nepal, the work of the Yang-Ward Foundation is highly commendable. The change in the lives of single women in terms of their economic power is amazing. They are making 5 times their previous salary, working 5 hours a day 5 days a week, compared to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now Yang-Ward Foundation is giving away 5 full scholarships to underprivileged girls in rural areas. Because of the change in economic power of these single women, local people’s perceptions about the single women are changing. What This 5000 Prize money would do?A $5,000 prize means one more project for Yang-Ward Foundation in rural Nepal, empowering single women. This project will change the lives of single women. This project seeks to turn these outcasts into valued contributors to their communities by achieving three key goals: 1) engaging these women in revenue generating agricultural activities that give them financial independence so they can feed and house themselves and their children, 2) achieving sustainability in which their activities can continue without added external funding, and 3) making significant contributions to improving education in local schools through donating books, scholarships, and equipment to school libraries and computer labs.