Humanitarian Projects

It all began because of this question. Whenever humanitarian programs were
being discussed. Sandy Hoekenga would always ask it before the discussions’
end. Incredibly, from such a unpretentious inquiry a mission was born
to assist vulnerable women and their children by helping them towards a
better life by providing them with simple farm animals, goats and chickens
and by doing so, providing them with a way to have a better quality and
independant life.

SUSTAINABLE, CERTIFIED GOAT, CHICKEN, RABBIT, PIG, BEES, & FISH FARMS
OPERATED UNDER THE OVERSIGHT OF THE LEAH FOUNDATION
REGIONAL COOPERATIVES SUPPORTING ONE ANOTHER
GRADUATE PROGRAM TO DEVELOP REGIONAL LEADERS

Become a Sandy’s Helper or learn more about Sandy’s Helpers mission @

http://pennyhead.com/SandysHelpers

Since 2014, Microboard has been actively involved with Project Hope’s mission to provide quality, fully accredited, English medium education to underprivileged children living in slums and absolute poverty denied access to shooling in Jaipur, Khirni Phatak, Assam, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, India. Microboard support for Project Hope has involved annual on-site visits to these locations, including Microboard’s founder, Craig Hoekenga, and CEO and President, Nicole Russo, and her son, Michael.

Project Hope’s engagement goes beyond K-12 education, incorporating clean water programs, vocational training, women’s literacy programs, boy’s and girl’s hostels, and free medical aid to students and families.

In 2020, Josephs International School, the founding Project Hope school in Jaipur, received International Accreditation through ACSI.

In 2017, Microboard became actively engaged in supporting the work of Peter and Miriam Fretheim in Jos, Nigeria. Five in-country missions later, Microboard has become an integral partner with a mission that is providing aid to marginalized, displaced, and refugee populations in the northern territories, including clean water programs, resettling and caring for widows and orphans, medical aid, education, and vocational program centers in Plateau, Gombe, Bauchi, and Kaduna States.

In 2018, Microboard became involved with the work of Gloria Samdi Puldu and the Leah Foundation as part of its engagement in Nigeria, supporting efforts to raise awareness about schoolgirls being taken hostage and held by Boko Haram. Microboard’s team traveled to Northern Nigeria in early 2018 and were the first to interview Leah’s parents and document their appeal for her release along with the hundreds of girls in captivity. Leah Sharibu is the young schoolgirl who came to international attention after being taken hostage on February 19th of that year, and has been named the world’s “prisoner of conscience,” with her story widely reported in the international press.

In 2020, Microboard was instrumental in bringing together WorldServe, Integritas, and other organizations to plan clean water initiatives in Nigeria in 2021 as part of its commitment to building sustainable programs that impact the future of poor and refugee communities.

In the summer of 2016 Microboard became a supporting partner with WorldServe’s clean water program for Sub-Saharan Africa where lack of clean water, secure food sources, hygiene and sanitation has resulted in poverty, malnutrition and disease for more than 540 million people.

Working in partnership with Ohio State’s Global Water Institute, WorldServe is an internationally recognized organization creating innovative, collaborative, and sustainable clean water solutions in areas of Africa where water scarcity is most critical. Microboard’s team has traveled on location with WorldServe since 2018, visiting water projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Turkana near the South Sudan border, and Ethiopia.

In 2020, Microboard helped bring WorldServe together with City Ministries in Jos, Nigeria, as well as former US Special Forces working together under the NGO Integritas, to plan multiple clean water missions throughout Northern Nigeria for 2021.

For the past several years, Microboard has supported the work of James Byensi in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo. Rebattiseur Foundation ASBL, also known as Rebuilders, was founded by James Byensi to address the crisis in the Eastern DRC, one of the most troubled and conflict-impacted places in the world today. Violence, poverty, malnutrition, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, and nearly one million refugees spilling into the eastern provinces from Burundi, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan have combined to create one of the world’s most critical humanitarian disasters.

Rebuilders is active throughout the Eastern DRC providing urgent aid to refugees and displaced persons, conflict negotiation, advocacy against violence, and justice work.

Also located in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Merry Valentine Nyelgudi’s Compassion Ministry is working on behalf of women and families who have been impacted by decades of conflict, violence, absolute poverty, homelessness, lack of clean water, medical aid, or basic resources. Merry Valentine’s mission is to identify and provide regular assistance to vulnerable women, widows, and those displaced in a region The Guardian reporters have called “the world’s most dangerous place for women, where violence is systematically used against women as a way to subjugate villages and terrorize communities, including old women and young children.” Microboard is proud to be part of working for women’s humanitarian rights by supporting Merry Valentine’s efforts.

Jacques and Elizabeth Van Bommel’s Reaching A Generation is rescuing young girls, many as young as 13 years of age, from being sold into forced marriages and being condemned to lives of servitude. In some areas of Africa percentages of young girls sold into forced marriages runs well above fifty percent of their demographic where families and villages often see selling girl children into marriage as a temporary solution to poverty.

Reaching A Generation engages in innovative solutions to this traumatic, gender-humanitarian crisis, by providing urgent relief to families and villages, installing village wells (more than 220 deep water wells since the program began), and the creation and oversight of safe housing centers for girls that affords them the opportunity to continue their high school educations. Continuing care is also made possible for girls in the program to help them transition to a productive, independent future.

Microboard became involved with Reaching A Generation in 2019 as part of its commitment to address poverty, and gender inequality and insecurity. Today, in Zambia, where Reaching A Generation is based, as well as in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and five locations in India, Microboard is actively supporting missions that are focused on these kinds of long term, innovative, collaborative, sustainable humanitarian and developmental solutions.

Reaching A Generation is also part of the School In A Box project that is helping to provide accredited education to rural areas where traditional schooling is unavailable. The School In A Box program is something that Microboard will be involved with.

Since 1984, Microboard has supported John Jauchen’s mission, Help for Christian Nationals, helping to train teachers, missionaries, pastors, and lay workers through a series of workshops based on the Thompson Chain Reference Bible study system. Today, there are more than 130,000 graduates of these workshops serving across Central and South America, Mexico, the Philippines, India, and several African nations.

John Jauchen is the editor of the Thompson Chain Reference Student Bible, and has a lifetime of experience training indigenous teachers, impacting two generations of students and workshop attendees. Help for Christian Nationals was the first mission Microboard supported, and Microboard’s commitment to John Jauchen’s mission set a precedent of funding humanitarian programs that spans more than 35 years and has become a core aspect of Microboard’s culture of involvement.

Bishop Munetsi Zowa’s Village of Hope (VOH) based in Harare, Zimbabwe, is providing quality housing and education for destitute and orphaned children. Boys and girls from very poor conditions or family tragedies are given a chance to live in a caring environment, attend school, and graduate to productive lives and a successful futures.

The Village of Hope is a positive example of Microboard’s involvement with programs that are helping to lift young lives from systemic poverty and abuse, provide opportunities to girls and young women, and to invest in sustainable solutions that are impacting the root causes of the crisis. 2020 was the third year Microboard was involved with Bishop Zowa’s mission.