A giving community

Published 4:00 am Sunday, December 17, 2006

The Indian Princess Project seeks to end forced prostitution around Bombay, India, by establishing a garment business for rescued sex workers.

Thousands of miles away, VIMA Lupwa Homes completes its first safe, clean house for AIDS orphans in Mukomfwa, Zambia. The antithesis of a large institutional setting, it will house up to 15 children in a homey setting.

Two nonprofits. Separate goals. Different continents.

But what these organizations have in common are founders – Shannon Keith, 32, and Malerie Pratt, 21, respectively – who are reaching out to help people across the globe, from Bend.

And they are not the only ones. Several other Central Oregon-based nonprofit organizations are also working on behalf of people across the globe, including:

* Condega Bomberos Project, in which the Bend Firefighters Association raises funds for a fully equipped fire department in Bend’s sister city, Condega, Nicaragua.

* Kashmir Family Aid, begun by a Bend-based CEO named Sam Carpenter, provides aid to the families of the Kashmir/Pakistan earthquake of October 2005.

* Nomad Charities, founded by sisters Janette and Jenn Hofmann, is helping the residents of Kibwezi, Kenya, improve their community via a clean water project, a basic health care system and sustainable organic farming. The charity also works to empower women and see to the feeding, care and education of orphaned and underprivileged children.

* Rise Up Inc., a nonprofit started by Jesse and Maria Roberts, of Bend, has a home for orphaned and exploited children in Nicaragua.

* Ten Friends Project, begun by Bend teachers Rand Runco and Mark LaMont, works toward improving education and lives in Nepal.

VIMA Lupwa Homes

VIMA Lupwa Homes’ founder Malerie Pratt is currently in Zambia, but The Bulletin sat down with Marlena Bellavia, a language instructor at Central Oregon Community College and a Lupwa Homes board member.

Earlier this fall, Bellavia took a three-week trip to the Zambian town of Mukomfwa as VIMA Lupwa prepared to open its first home for orphans. Bellavia, 49, who spent

part of her childhood in Congo, told of a grueling, 42-hour trip from Bend to Mukomfwa.

It was her first trip back to Africa in more than 30 years. ”It was incredible to go back,” she said, ”because a lot had not changed.” The economy in northern Zambia, where Mukomfwa is located, is ”virtually nonexistent.”

”This is in the Copper Belt, and the copper industry went bellyup 15 to 20 years ago,” she said. ”People are just barely subsisting.”

But every bit of help is also deeply appreciated there, Bellavia said. She was still feeling elated about the opening of the Lupwa house, which will be home to children between the ages of 5 and 12, along with a set of ”house parents.” In the case of the first home, it’s a Mukomfwa local named Violet Membe and her husband, Mwala Membe.

Bellavia is one of eight locals active on the board of directors of VIMA Lupwa Homes. The name ”VIMA,” she explains, comes from a hybridization of the first letters of Pratt’s first name and that of Violet Membe. The other part of the name, ”Lupwa,” means ”family” in the Bemba language.

Pratt is a 2004 Bend High graduate whom Bellavia has taught French at COCC. Pratt spent the fall 2004 quarter in Italy through a COCC program. During the term, Pratt told Bellavia she was thinking of volunteering – somewhere – before returning to Bend.

”I thought that was a wonderful idea,” Bellavia said. ”I had lived in Africa when I was a child, and so I said, ‘Well, maybe you can go and volunteer somewhere in Africa.’

”And she did. So she went for six months to Zambia, and she worked in an AIDS clinic and with an Italian organization” that had nutrition and medical centers.

Pratt met Membe at the nutrition center, ”and they became fast friends,” Bellavia said.

There was also a malnourished little girl named Melody. ”She was living with her grandmother and was not well taken care of, and would ask Malerie and Violet, ‘Please take me home; take me home.’”

Pratt and Membe decided there needed to be more orphanages, ”but not institution-type orphanages. We need to have homes,” Bellavia said.

When Pratt returned to Bend in the summer of 2005, she, Bellavia and other area people formed the nonprofit VIMA Lupwa Homes.

”With small events here in Bend, we raised enough funds to build a home,” she said.

Later that same summer, Zambian workers started the foundation for the home, a three-bedroom house. It was supposed to be completed and open by this past summer.

That didn’t happen. Pratt returned in September ”to find basically a bit of chaos,” said Bellavia. ”Work had basically stopped. The ‘oomph’ had come out of the whole project.”

Red tape and an ”administrative nightmare” were the problems. Work resumed when Pratt arrived, but in mid-October, she sent an ”SOS to the board, saying ‘can somebody please come and help?’” Bellavia said. ”We all work, so that was a very difficult call.” Further, all volunteers pay for visits to Zambia out of their own pockets.

”My heart, I guess, beats some African blood in it,” she said. ”I took off and went over there, and we worked like crazy.”

Through it all, she and Pratt have become close friends. As they tell the locals in Mukomfwa, she is Pratt’s ”second mayo” (mother).

”She has put her education on hold for this,” Bellavia said of Pratt. ”She will be coming back in January to continue winter and spring terms. That’s one of the things that she does struggle with. She feels a strong drive to help people this way, but she also feels a strong drive to finish her education.”

October is hot below the equator, Bellavia said, but work was completed. ”All the hurdles have been overcome. The home is finished. The electricity is on. The water is running.”

The Membe family moved in Dec. 7. The first three orphans moved in the following day, including Melody, the little girl who first inspired Pratt and Violet Membe to undertake the project. Three more are scheduled to follow.

Moreover, VIMA Lupwa Homes seeks to make the household self-sustaining.

”Mr. Membe has a bachelor’s in agriculture, so we were also able to purchase some extra land around the home, which he is going to fill with garden vegetables, fruit trees, chickens. Whatever he can do to help sustain the family in food, and also turn around and sell.”

”This is a Zambian project. We don’t want (them) to be dependent on help coming from America forever. We want them to become independent. What we want to do is help them launch, and then little by little, decrease the assistance that is coming from here. And then, once that’s done, then we’ll start on raising funds for a second home.”

Indian Princess Project

Shannon Keith is a busy woman. Besides moving to Bend from Southern California last spring, she has 2-month-old twins at home. She is the founder of the Indian Princess Project.

The nonprofit was born after a trip three years ago. Keith had been to India once before a year earlier, but it was during this second trip with a national organization, Harvest India, ”that we were exposed to this particular issue of forced prostitution,” she said. ”Young girls sold by their families, other orphans picked up off the street by pimps, some young widows that have no future, who have nothing else to do to support them and their children, and they fall into a life of prostitution. They’re just really tragic tales.”

Even before she returned home, she had begun brainstorming with her husband.

”I started thinking, ‘you know, the women there are so beautiful; they have life in their eyes. The culture is so amazing. They have these beautiful textiles. There has to be something we can do.’”

Keith and the group she was with in India had worn saris, the traditional, colorful wear for women in India.

”I was putting on my sari one night, and I thought, ‘Wow, they’re so beautiful, and they have these really cool natural borders along the bottom.’ And I thought these would make great little pajamas.”

Keith, who has a background in sales and marketing, came back to the States and began doing research that led to a partnership with Bombay Teen Challenge, an organization in India.

She tapped friends in the fashion industry in California for help, and began doing paperwork.

”So now, we have an official board and a sewing center set up outside of Mumbai (Bombay),” she said. There are about eight to 10 rescued sex workers who are proficient enough to make the pajamas.

”We are open to having more, but of course they need to be … emotionally ready to work. Once they come out of that traumatic lifestyle, they need some time to heal and recuperate.”

Most of the current batch of pajamas sold out at a recent event back in Orange County.

”About 500 pairs of PJs sold out in one night,” she said. ”Now we’re trying to build up more inventory, because we got such a great response.”

The plan is to sell the colorful line of sleepwear online (www .indianprincessproject.org) and to hold ”pajama parties, kind of like the old Tupperware parties.”

‘A very giving community’

Lupwa Homes’ Bellavia, who has lived in Bend for 22 years, sums up the spirit of giving in Central Oregon.

”It is a fact that Bend is a very giving community,” she said. ”It’s not difficult to find people who are willing or interested in working on a project to help Third World countries, or people in the Third World. And, of course, there’s a lot of help needed here.

”So no matter what anybody does, whether it’s one individual or a group or a large organization or whatever it is, we’re all there for the same reasons: to help people, either here or abroad.

”And so they’re all noble; they’re all noble projects. And it’s exciting to live in a community that is supportive and willing to help other people.”

More info

For more information on local nonprofits and their international work:

* Condega Bomberos Project: Station 301 at 1212 S.W. Simpson Ave., Bend, OR 97702. Contact: www.condegabomberosproject.com or 749-0543.

* Indian Princess Project: P.O. Box 857, Corona del Mar, CA 96625. Contact: www.indianprincessproject.org, shannon@indianprincess.org or 800-430-6451.

* Kashmir Family Aid: Kashmir Family Aid c/o Centratel, 141 N.W. Greenwood Ave., Suite 200, Bend, OR 97701. Contact: www.kashmirfamily.org, samc@centratel.com or 385-1970.

* Nomad Charities: The O’Kane Building, 115 N.W. Oregon Ave., Bend, OR 97701. Contact: www.nomadcharities.org, Janette@nomadcharities.org or 389-0310.

* Rise Up Inc.: 548 S.W. 13th St., Suite 203, Bend, OR 97702. Contact: www.warhurts.com, riseup@quickstarsolutions.com or 526-0346.

* Ten Friends Project: 1311 N.W. Milwaukee Ave., Bend, OR 97701. Contact: www.tenfriends.org, mark@tenfriends.org, rand@tenfriends.org, 617-1322 or 420-5910.

* VIMA Lupwa Homes: Ten Friends: Lupwa Home, 1311 N.W. Milwaukee Ave., Bend, OR 97701. Contact: www.lupwahomes.org, info@lupwahomes.org or 420-9634.