Lille Fro Foundation
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www.lillefrofoundation.org |
Tamara Cannon is the founder of the Lille Fro Foundation Australia. She was born and grew up in Melbourne, graduating with a combined Law/Arts degree from Monash University. However, it was her passion for writing that took her on an assignment to an Indian Himalayan base camp where she not only wrote about it but also climbed the peak known as Stok Kangri. Eventful as it was, the thing that occupied her mind was her earlier meeting with a little girl, Pema, who was desperately poor and unable to get an education. With her own virtually privileged background of university education, she saw the need to do something about helping Pema and so many other children and families in this situation in these remote regions, to have sufficient nourishing food and a formal education of some degree. |
When she returned she sent emails to a bunch of friends telling her story, who then financially supported her to sponsor these children and the Lille Fro Foundation came into being. Our club heard about it from her mother Ngaire, our President-Elect and we began our continuing support of the Foundation.
The Lille Fro Foundation manned by volunteers, works at the grass roots with the poorest of the poor, living in extreme poverty in some of the remotest places on the planet. Their aim is to help end the cycle of generational poverty through education and teaching families to grow food using community green houses at high altitude.
In 2009 the Indian Government, after round after round of negotiations, allowed Tamara into a region known as Changthang on the border of Tibet, previously sealed off to foreigners. Here she saw nomadic people who are some of the poorest people in the world unable to find food with sufficient nutrients to prevent shocking ill health, resulting in blindness, as well as physical and mental and crippling conditions.
Besides being poor and under-nourished, they live in a brutal climate where temperatures often drop below 30 C. She was told that 50% of the children will die before reaching 5 years of age.
With an outlay of $2500 Lille Fro is able to erect greenhouses and teach communities to grow vegetables. They are now supporting 5 marginalised communities and have sponsored 95 children to begin getting an education, in the last 18 months. The yearly cost of sponsoring a child to go to school is $930.
Tamara really pulled at our heart strings when she told of the disaster that followed, of the catastrophic floods caused by exceptional monsoonal activities that suddenly turned everything upside down. Homes, people and possessions were washed away and drowned or lost in the flood. Heart-wrenching stories of loss and tragedy were followed by hope and rebuilding with Lille Fro working along with Government, other aid agencies and Rotary in the role of rescue, rehousing and relief to the unbelievable loss and sorrow of the enormous number of families.
It meant a new start and one year on, fresh drinking water has been restored, families are getting back on their feet and greenhouses are being built and the work of teaching families to grow vegetables and the sponsoring of children to school is continuing.
With donations and volunteered assistance it is hoped that by 2015, sponsors will have been found for 400 children from the 5 supported communities to begin education and 10 more greenhouses will have been built to support the village communities.
Tamara's hope is that by 2015 also, Lille Fro will be in a sustainable position. How could we refuse to help her reach this goal with our continuing support and how could we better spend our money on a more deserving and inspiring project?