Greetings to all Neighbours and thanks for being part of Garden village on Nabuur.
It’s been a busy few months in Garden with lots of progress and some breaking news!

• YOFOSO have successfully set up and opened the Internet Café in Garden. After some hard work with the Essent group (Netherlands) and more hard work by YOFOSO members, four computers have been purchased as well as some furniture. The café has been open since December 08 and is slowly bringing in the profits which will help with continuing the literacy and sports programmes for the youth who come the social centre and library. The potential of this business has not been fully realized yet…see below for ways in which you can help.

• The Garden library now has 515 books on its shelves! The latest donations were received from Books for Goodwill International. Recently a new Neighbour, Vijai Singh, has provided us with information and links to e-books as a way of bypassing the freight and shipping costs. The kids love their books and there’s certainly room for many more to fill the shelves so we still have a task open for contacting organisations who can donate books.

• Thanks to everyone who voted on GiveMeaning.com recently. We are now in the fundraising stage of this task. We have just reached the 50% mark! The aim is to raise USD$440 to be able to provide school tuition fees, books, uniforms, stationary and jersey’s to Louis and Gibson who are outstanding students but lack the funds to get to Grade 8. If you have a spare few dollars please consider donating on http://www.givemeaning.com/project/yofoso .

• YOFOSO organised a long awaited trip to Livingstone- a famous area of Zambia where the magnificent Victoria Falls can be seen. This was a Sport and Educational Tour which involved our under 14 soccer team. Our team, called Young Gunners were taking part in this tournament for the first time. We were the youngest team, probably as our name implies. There were 14 under-14 teams and we got the third position. We were also voted the Team of the Tournament. At the end of the tournament our boys visited the famous Victoria Falls, called mosi-tunya 'the smoke that thunder' by the locals and the Livingstone Museum named after the famous explorer Dr Livingstone.

A very warm welcome to our new Neighbours: Navinson, Vijai, Roger, Thomas & Bennie. Sorry if we missed anyone out!

Breaking News!
The great news is that the efforts of YOFOSO has been recognised by others and we are now partnering with an international organisation called Lubuto Library Project Inc. www.lubuto.org to build a bigger public Library at a near-by public school. The exciting news is that Yofoso will be running and organising activities at this brand new Library. Stay tuned for more updates on the new library.

Your help and expertise is needed! There are still many tasks that need attention:

• The library still requires some furniture (desks and chairs) another PC and a compatible printer. We need Neighbours to contact organizations that have already been identified on Garden and other Nabuur villages.

• The Internet Café can be expanded however at least 5 more computers are required. A large printer and photocopier are also on the wish list. We need help with contacting relevant organisations.

• Mulenga is looking for ideas from Neighbours about how to expand the internet business or find other ways to use the existing equipment. Can you help?

• Obtaining a micro-loan could be an effective way to purchase equipment for the business- especially since it is up and running now and has the potential to earn profit. Can you help investigate micro-finance organizations in Zambia and information on how Mulenga might get a loan?

That’s all for the March 09 update! We look forward to hearing from you all soon!

Mulenga (LR) and Carolyn (Facilitator)