Helping Solomon

Many of you have gotten an email from me, but in case you have not, I'll paste it here, if you are interested in helping out our friend, Solomon, whose home was destroyed in a storm 2 weeks ago:

Rwanda is doing this "beautification" project where they are basically tearing down the homes that don't fit their standards, i.e. the homes of poor people. When you drive through the countryside, which we've done a few times so far, you see homes with a spray-painted red "X" on the front (it's eerily reminiscent of the flooded homes in NOLA) that will be destroyed. In order for him to rebuild his home to the standards that would guarantee that it won't be knocked down, it will cost him 500,000RwF, or $900. His goal is to add to it a store in the front that he and his mother can work at- his mother, who is over 50, is working on a farm somewhere doing very intense manual labor, and also has 3 other children under the age of 11 that she cares for. The total cost to make this project the best it can be is 750,000RwF, or $1,300. Profits of the store would also go towards buying he and his family a new cow which, as I've previously mentioned, is a sign of wealth and power in Rwanda.

The easiest and most cost effective way that Mike and I could figure out to get the donations to Solomon is through PayPal. We set up an account, and transfers from other PayPal accounts are free, so while it may be a little more time-consuming it will not cost any fees if you set up an account as well and transfer money that way. Sign up on paypal.com and then search for my email address: steph.samaha@gmail.com What this involves is signing up and adding a bank account or credit card, and it is completely secure- we won't see any of your bank information, and you won't see any of ours. We will then send the money via Western Union and pick it up here, which we can then give to Solomon.


If you are unable or unwilling to set up an account, email me the amount that you would like to donate, and I can send an email to you from PayPal requesting that amount. However, I have a limit of 12 or so for each month, so please do this sparingly.

Again, please only do this if you are financially able, I don't want to guilt anyone into anything! If you know someone else who may be interested in helping, please share this information as well. We really appreciate your help, as does Solomon.