MICROAID PRESS RELEASE

September 2004

A Berkhamsted couple have funded the first major project using MicroAid’s new  software at a street kids project in Jakarta, Indonesia

Gareth and Sarah Williams from Berkhamsted have raised over £12,000 to support the “Griya Asih” sanctuary for street children foundation’s project in Jakarta to buy their own property from the Catholic Church who are selling the building.

To allow donors like Gareth and Sarah to track progress of the project from overseas, Griya Asih has used some of the donation to sponsor their MicroAid “online centre”. Using the software package they have broken down the process of purchasing their own property into several “micro-projects” such as arranging legal support, drawing up plans and finalizing the purchase. Each micro-project is then tracked individually online using the MicroAid software.

Ibu Pandoyo, founder and chair of the Griya Asih foundation said “this is very exciting for us. The kids started coming to my house many years ago during the Jakarta flooding and since then we’ve really struggled to grow to support them. By being able to start the project to purchase our house and to connect to new and old partners via the internet is a really exciting development for us – at last I feel we are setting down permanent roots that will support street children in our area for a long time to come. It’s the very least they deserve.”

Gareth said “I first heard about Griya Asih via their MicroAid online centre web site and started by supporting a few of their micro-projects with an online donation. I then visited Griya Asih on a recent business trip to Indonesia and I was thoroughly impressed with the project. The strong faith based ethos of the centre provides a stable and robust environment into which street children are welcomed. I was amazed at the transformation that Griya Asih could create in their lives. Not only were they coming off the streets but the older children were then becoming the next generation of social workers at the centre so expanding their outreach to others.

Gareth continued, “Both Sarah and I wanted to support Griya Asih going forward so we suggested that raise funds the first down-payment on the property so that they could eventually own the centre themselves. We will still need to raise a further £30,000 over the next four years to complete the purchase. ”

Gareth said “we’re really thrilled with the MicroAid model for international aid. It allows us to set the Griya Asih team up with an ongoing platform from which they can plan projects and then fundraise from. We wanted to support Griya Asih but we also wanted to ensure that training and development was taking place too. Teaching how to fish is as important as giving fish.”

Toby Beresford, managing director of MicroAid said, “this shows the power of internet technology to bring people like Gareth and Sarah into a direct relationship with local community charities in developing countries. We were introduced to Griya Asih by Save the Children who alongside other donors such as Microsoft have been working to support the centre.”

Toby explains how relationships and technology have together made the difference for Griya Asih. He said “I sent Gareth a link to the Griya Asih web site during their trial period of the MicroAid software. He selected three projects to do with micro-enterprise before he left for Indonesia and funded them. He received email notifications letting him know the progress and digital photo reports so he could see what happened online. When he got to Indonesia he was able to see first hand what was happening and it was his suggestion that he contribute to purchasing the property.”

The Griya Asih web site is available here:

http://griya-asih.microaid.net

Griya Asih produce a regular newsletter which will keep you in touch with their project. To start receiving it register with your email address on their web site.

MicroAid software is available on an online subscription basis for community charities anywhere in the world.  A free e-book on “How to get online donations” and a 30 day trial of the software is available from their website at: http://www.microaid.net

The payment to Griya Asih was made via the UK charity “Great Commission Trust” which allowed tax to be reclaimed on Gareth and Sarah’s donation.  http://www.greatcommissiontrust.org.uk

Press contact:

Toby Beresford – MicroAid: 0845 057 3771 (calls charged at local rate)