Hello,

Today it’s Micha and Maryam who talks to you to tell you all that happened during the last 8 months for our foundation.

As a “young” Foundation, these last few months was essentially all about becoming known as an NGO and making our project public. This campaign started at the beginning of November 2017 with our first radio show!!! It was a community radio called “Radio Troc”. It was Maryam, Cynthia and myself who were ready for the exercise; we cannot explain how stressed we were. Well yes as nurses, we’re more familiar with the blood tests than to speak in front of an audience! But they say, “unity creates strength” and we had each other to reassure ourselves. Especially since it was an opportunity for us to present our foundation and talk about the HKK project in front of the public, we had to go beyond our comfort zone, for the good cause.

With Sofia the journalist during our radio interview.

In the meantime, on November 30, we had the opening night of our foundation at La Maison de l’Afrique in Montreal. This event meant a lot for us. It was the result of over 24 months hard work where we had to build a solid proposal presenting the HKK’s project and its feasibility in detail. But on top we also had to work on our internal structure, our goals and our mission to obtain our charitable status.

This opening night (which was a cocktail party) was held in the presence of our families, friends, health professionals of various sectors, as well a representative of the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Mr. Jean-Claude Kalelwa Kalimassi which he also spoke at the end of our presentation to thank us for our involvement in the D. R. Congo. This was a small victory for us; we were taken seriously by the Congolese authorities.

But before we get to that, we need to go back and explain how we organized it. It was our first time to organize an event. As a young association, we have limited financial resources, better to say nothing at all! Being novice in event planning with a very tight budget we had to organize a cocktail party.  First, it was necessary to agree on the list of guests, then the place, then the caterer and so on. Each of us had a specific task to perform and a limited budget allocated to achieve it.

We don’t hide that we were anxious. The stress of speaking in public on one side, and whether the invited guests would come and the management of caterers on the other side. But, finally the day arrived, and all went well; the appetizers were to everyone’s taste, there was something to drink for everyone and most importantly our project looked sound and strong and was taken seriously.

Novemeber 30th, our team with the representatives of the embassy of the DRC  at the opening night of  our foundation

In the series of good news, in December we learnt that we were selected to present our project at the Gravens Conference in Florida. We were all very excited about this trip, but the reality was that the financial situation of our foundation would not allow us to finance the trip of the whole team. By mutual agreement, we decided that only Stephanie and Maryam would represent us, which they did an excellent job on that part!

Maryam and Stephanie at the Gravens Conference in Florida

In January, we faced the first disappointments. By the end of 2017, before even obtaining our charitable status several pledges of donation had been made to us. And naively we planned the trip to Kinshasa in the spring based on that, but unfortunately promises were not kept. We learned our first lesson; spoken words fly away but written words remain! Basically, in the future as long as we do not have a written promise we should take nothing for granted and plan anything. We still hoped to have the funding for the first trip. So, seeking financial support or any other sort of help, we knocked on several doors but unfortunately there was no success. We had to realize that it would not be possible to proceed with the first phase of our project (which is providing the first training session for our colleagues in Kinshasa) in the spring, and that we need to postpone it until we have at least part of the required budget for our project. It was difficult for us to announce this news to the HKK team and we could see their disappointments.

At this point, we realized that as a “young” foundation, we needed to prove ourselves, to be able to hope for funding, but how do we prove ourselves if no one decides to believe in us and take the first step to help in that matter?!

We washed that discouragement away.  We knew people rely on us, and that our project is noble. We remained convinced that this project will change the lives of many newborns and their families. Filled with hope, we began to think of other ways to finance the project and make ourselves known.

Several crazy ideas were proposed and then Cynthia offered a Zumbathon … most of us were a bit skeptical but seeing her excitement and motivation, we decided to follow her lead. Our fist financing activity was going to be a Zumbathon. Meanwhile, we needed to introduce “Une Chance de Vivre” and our project to people more than before; we decided to make videos of each of us highlighting and explaining our project. Explain…, it sounds simple, but not for nurses and a doctor!!! We are not used to social networks, cameras or to put ourselves in the foreground. We do not hide that some videos were very funny and deserved a blooper. After editing, the videos were pretty good, people were receptive and shared them again and again, and our followers on our social networks increased gradually. And now thanks to this campaign, with our first fundraising event we have our first large donation.

We had an interview which has been published in Chez Nous- Montreal Children’s Hospital’s employees newsletter- highlighting our team and its mission. We also participated in the second Mother-infant conference here in Montreal, which was once again an opportunity to talk about our team and our project. This time it was Maryam and Micha who dedicated to the cause. At the end of our presentation we even managed to have some donation!!!

Between the management of our social networks, administration of our foundation and communication with the HKK team, we organized the Zumbathon, with Laura’s help, a Zumba instructor who had experience organizing this type of event. A gift from the heaven; her help was so precious. We will pass on the details of the organization later; it was a real headache too. We were looking for sponsors helping us organizing the event. We had never heard the phrase “we’ll call you back” so many times in our lives. In fact, we realized that it’s a polite way of saying no!

There, seeing our early discouragement, our families and colleagues reached their networks to find us sponsors and finally we had no less than 10 sponsors for our Zumbathon. One thing we saw in this journey was that often the small businesses or the craftsmen were the most generous ones willing to help us. It seemed like not only they knew the difficulties and hurdles of starting a foundation or business, but also, they were very well aware how much encouragement and support is needed to take a project of the ground. We had set our goal for $ 3000 for this first activity, in order to finance the purchase of 3 Pumani CPAP (meaning continuous positive airway pressure ventilator). Saturday, June 9, 2018, was the DAY! We were stressed because it was the weekend of the Grand Prix in Montreal, which means a lot of roads are closed and therefore a lot of traffic. But hey, we stayed positive and were busy preparing everything for the arrival of participants with the help of our loved ones. 1:45 pm people began to arrive and then, a sense of relief could be read on our faces. All was great! The participants were happy, the instructors as well, and the kids were running everywhere. Dr. Beaumier danced the whole 2 hours with an exceptional talent which would put most of his colleagues to shame!  And, we raised nearly $ 3500!!! It was a great successful for us.

As always, passion and patience are the driving forces behind success. We still do not have the budget to start the project but, we are working hard, and we have planned other fundraising activities. Every day we learn more in this environment that is still new to us; but we are moving forward. We are expanding our network and making good contacts, which is more than important in this environment.

This journey is not easy by any means but, we are blessed to be surrounded by good people, ready to help us and show us their support in one way or another. Our intention with this blog was to give you a glimpse of what we have done and lived in the past few months. Stay tuned, for more videos and blogs. It was Maryam and Micha with you today!