Background
Following the death of Charlotte (Char) Carroll Daniel in 2008, her family wished to honor her commitment to social justice and maternal and child health. They did so by creating the Charlotte Daniel Fund and an international award, the Charlotte Daniel "Champions of Change" Award at World Connect, which is given on an annual basis to a hospital, health center or community organization demonstrating the strongest commitment to improving the health and well-being of mothers and children.
"We wanted to choose a memorial that reflected her giving nature, her humanitarianism and her concern for social justice," father and sons agree. "And we wanted to give her young grandchildren and those to come a way of relating to her and loving her by understanding who she was."
Criteria for Consideration:
To be considered for the Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award, recipients must demonstrate excellence in improving the health and well-being of mothers and children, while having a proven track record of success and vision to build upon previous successes.
- Must be a current or past World Connect grantee.
- Must have met or exceeded initial project goals according to established project indicators.
- Progress and/or Final Report must have indicated improved health outcomes for women and children.
- Must provide a clear, detailed plan of how a supplemental grant would strengthen existing project.
- Must demonstrate how a supplemental grant will lead to project sustainability.
- Must document community involvement in leadership and managerial capacities.
- Must have a proven track record of outstanding stewardship of resources.
- Must share lessons learned, data and progress with World Connect in a timely manner.
Past Recipients
2022
In 2022, World Connect selected Improving Child Nutrition on Nkombo Island in Rwanda as the Champions of Change Award winner. The project is designed to support 44 women-led households to start raising pigs on Nkombo Island, an isolated island with a population of 17,000 on Lake Kivu in Rwanda and bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. These particular households are important to the island's overall social and economic wellbeing, as they are geographically dispersed and they operate daily informal early childhood centers for children under school age, providing a safe space for children to play and at least one meal per day. There are currently more than 1,300 children under the age of 5 on the island, 64% of whom are either moderately or severely stunted. This is nearly double the national rate in Rwanda. With this project, the women who run the centers will have a source of protein and income security, which they will utilize to improve the meals that they offer to the many children they care for daily. The ability to prop up these early childhood centers is important for the island's economy, as it allows for many mothers to have the day-time hours to participate in various economic activities.
2021
In 2021, the Champions of Change Award went to the Chipunga community in Malawi, for the construction of health worker housing at the Chipunga Health Clinic. The facility provides care for more than 7,500 people who would otherwise have to trek 12 kilometers for health services. With housing, for the first time this facility can be staffed full-time by the government with a nurse and clinician.
2020
In 2020, World Connect identified two projects as the Charlotte Daniel, Champions of Change Awardees. The first was an expansion of the Breast Aware Program to 8-10 rural communities in Anambra State. They are prioritizing communities that have little to no access to primary health care, specifically those that are geographically isolated. The project will include purchasing a 3D ultrasound machine to assist in their efforts, which will bring down the cost of screening from the first project significantly. Afterwards, the ultrasound machine will be integrated as part of a lab/diagnostic center in the city of Onitsha, and utilized to provide a weekly low-cost screening clinic for women.
The second project of 2020 is the Kaliza Community Health Clinic in Dowa District, Central Region of Malawi. In 2019, the Kaliza Village Health Committee received $4,934.36 from World Connect to construct a community clinic, in response to challenges women and children were facing to access basic primary health care services in the area. Prior to this project, community members were traveling more than eight kilometers to the nearest care. Six months from receipt of their funding, the clinic was completed and a resident Health Surveillance Assistant (HSA) from the government started providing services to the general public. In the first six months of operations, 291 children were vaccinated, 256 children registered for monthly growth monitoring, 82 women were accessing family planning services, and 64 children under-five were diagnosed with malaria and treated. However, now almost a year after opening its doors, the Kaliza Community Centre for Health is not able to provide antenatal care and HIV testing services because it does not have a qualified nurse on site, and it cannot sustain the cost of transportation for a nurse to commute each week from the nearest clinic. As a result, pregnant women continue to walk long distances to access care that is in high demand. The Kaliza Village Health Committee (VHC) is proposing to launch a piggery project as a sustainable source of health facility income. The idea is that profits from the sales of pigs, which is a reliable business in the area, will finance materials and monthly visits of the nurse and other health professionals, and will also be available for any emergency transportation needs. The VHC chairperson and the treasurer will take a leading role in leading the project, establishing transparency in reporting to the community on the profits and health expenditures and developing a collective process for deciding when and how the community taps any reserve moving forward.
2019
In 2019, World Connect named three “Champions of Change” Award recipients, all in Nigeria. They are: Girlsaide for their project, Keep All Mothers Alive; Pinkhealth Foundation for their project, Breast Aware; and Rural Health Mission Nigeria for their Lifesaving Kits Project.
Nigeria has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. To combat hypertensive disorder, one of the leading causes of maternal deaths in Nigeria, the “Champions of Change” Award has been given to Girlsaide to launch of the Keep All Mothers Alive Project in Lagos. Implemented in four phases, this project will provide awareness, screening, and training for hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. With 61% of deliveries in Nigeria overseen by traditional birth attendants, the first phase will train 40 birth attendants and rural health workers on early identification and diagnosis of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. Phase two will facilitate referrals for women diagnosed with hypertensive disorder to specialist obstetricians and midwives for consultation. The third phase will disseminate awareness and education on hypertensive disorders and provide 500 pregnant women with free screenings for pre-eclampsia. The final phase of the project will distribute medical equipment to traditional birthing attendants and participating health facilities to aid them in future screening for these hypertensive disorders. Over time, this project aims to reach 1,000,000 pregnant women and train 5,000 birthing attendants and health workers to strengthen their capacity to prevent and manage the disease.
In the densely populated area of Omagba, Nigeria, there is limited access to health care and formal education. Here, the “Champions of Change” Award has given to the Pinkhealth Foundation to launch of the Breast Aware Project. With limited resources about breast cancer, this project will provide breast cancer awareness and screening to women in five different areas of Omagba. Workshops will be conducted to include education on breast cancer prevalence, causes, early signs, risk factors, the need for early detection and self-exams. 200 women between the ages of 40 to 55 years will be randomly selected from the five different locations for a free screening. The Award will also make breast cancer screenings available in community pharmacies and develop a pipeline to connect women who test positive with oncologists.
In one of the most remote areas of southeastern Nigeria, women must travel 15-20 kilometers for formal antenatal care visits. It is here that the “Champions of Change” Award has been given to Rural Health Mission Nigeria to launch the Lifesaving Kits Project. Muhammad Ahmad, World Connect's Established Field Partner on this project and a YALI Mandela Washington Fellowship alumnus, understands the needs in a deeply personal way having grown up in the area and losing both a brother and a sister to the lack of access to health care. The Lifesaving Kit Project will help to reduce infant and maternal mortality by designing a locally developed, assembled, and distributed single-use disposable delivery kit to ensure cleaner and safer deliveries, whether at home or in a local health facility. The project will distribute 300 birthing kits, and train 50 traditional birth attendants across 3 villages. The trainings will focus on sanitary delivery practices, recognizing distress and complications, and safe delivery and use of the birthing kits. Birth attendants and health facilities will facilitate the distribution of the kits and hold a town hall meeting with community members to educate them on clean birth practices and introduction of birth kits for deliveries.
2018
In 2018, World Connect named The Maternity Guardian Shelter in Malawi the “Champions of Change” Award. This project took place under the traditional authority of Chief Kachindamoto, a woman who has gained worldwide attention for her focus on young girls and abolishing the practice of early marriage. World Connect worked on a nursery school construction project in 2018 with a CorpsAfrica Volunteer in the area, where we were first introduced to Chief Kachindamoto. After the successful implementation of the nursery school project, we spoke to Chief Kachindamoto about what other priority projects she sees in the area. The first thing she noted was that the Kachindamoto Health Center, which serves 20,000 people per year, is able to provide antenatal care services for women but is not yet cleared by the Ministry to conduct deliveries because it is lacking needed infrastructure improvements. Namely, the facility needed what they call in Malawi guardian housing, where women can rest before going into full labor. It also serves as a place where family members who accompany pregnant women, often after traveling long distances to reach the facility, can lodge if needed in a space that is separate from the delivery and recovery rooms. The project has the potential to impact the lives of more than 2,000 pregnant women each year, ensuring they can receive a complete package of maternity care in a quality and modern facility near to their home communities and villages.
2017
In 2016, we partnered with the Action for Women Foundation (AWF), a Rwandan-led community-based organization and a group of women, mostly single mothers, which AWF supports with income-generating activities and trainings. As we'd hoped, the first project was successful and motivating for the women. In 2017, we gave their AWF the “Champions of Change” Award. AWF used this award to provide bakery and business training to all 60 of its members, to purchase needed supplies and materials for a bakery, and to hire the top graduates from the bakery and business training to work in the newly established Action for Women Bakery. From there, 7 women began baking and selling daily in the Nyabisindu neighborhood of Kigali, offering a selection of cakes, donuts, chapati, and samosas to local customers. In the bakery's first six months, it generated an average monthly revenue of $1,7000! They sold an average of 16,000+ baked goods per month, with their highest month at more than 25,000 baked goods. The women involved in this project are now economically independent and can properly provide for their families.
2016
In 2016, World Connect named two “Champions of Change” Award recipients: the first is the Rwimitereri Health Center in Rwanda, the second the Kalomo District Health Office in Zambia.
In Rwanda, the “Champions of Change” Award will extend and complete the construction of a maternity ward at the Rwimitereri Health Center. The maternity ward will provide women in 25 villages with a population of 28,000 people with safe and clean place to give birth. It will also allow community health workers to share important health information with the more than 150 mothers who visit the Health Center monthly, but also to take health education, specifically maternal health education, out into and across the 25 villages.
In Kalomo District, Zambia, there are 31 health facilities serving more than 200,000 people. The Champions of Change Award will allow the District Nursing Officers to coordinate and lead a series of “cluster trainings”, where community health workers and community-based Saving Mothers Action Group volunteers from various health facilities will gather for advanced and refresher trainings on issues related to their work preventing maternal and child mortality. Specifically, they’ll be training to recognize and respond to postpartum hemmorrage, sepsis, preclampsyia and pregnancy-related hypertensive disorders, and training to work with mothers on HIV and family planning. The project is modeled on a successful set of trainings in neighboring Zimba District.
2015
The 2015 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award was given to the Youth Cooperative in Agriculture of Imouzzer-Kandar. The women in this impressive group have been steady growing their livestock business over time since their first World Connect project in 2013, which was focused on raising goats. They added sheep, chickens and cows, and even dabbled in beekeeping and honey. As part of their winning Champions of Change proposal, the women communicated to World Connect their dream to build a better stable for their animals, on land of their own, so that they could raise more cattle and enter into the lucrative dairy market in northern Morocco. They also expressed their desire to grow from 17 to 100 women.
2014
The 2014 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to the Association of Artisans of San Pablo, a women’s handicrafts association devoted to economic empowerment and equality for women in Peru. An original $500 grant from World Connect provided the women’s association with trainings led by local artisans and their own traditional weaving loom, called a telar. With a $5,000 grant from the Charlotte Daniel Fund 2014 Champions of Change award, the women purchased additional sewing equipment and materials, and organized more trainings and entrepreneurship workshops, enabling them to increase their capacity and advance their business. The women secured a formal market space in San Pablo and won a government-sponsored business plan competition, securing even more financing and resources.
2013
The 2013 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to Las Sartenejeñas Cooperative, a women’s co-op textile business dedicated to improving economic development and empowerment for women in Belize. An original $3,000 grant from World Connect provided supplies and business training, allowing a group of women entrepreneurs to launch the Las Sartenejeñas Cooperative. With an additional $5,000 grant from the Charlotte Daniel Fund 2013 Champions of Change award, the women were provided with more business trainings and a workspace (stocked with essential supplies and equipment), helping to increase the operational capacity of the business. The group, in partnership with the Sarteneja Alliance for Conservation and Development will be receiving a $50,000 business development grant from the UNDP’s Community Management of Protected Areas Conservation Programme (COMPACT), which will advance the business and demonstrate World Connect’s ability to leverage significant investments in local ingenuity.
2012
The winner of the 2012 award is the Singorwet Dispensary, a rural health clinic in Central Bomet, Kenya. The Dispensary originally received a $1,775.99 grant in 2012 from World Connect to increase the supplies available to provide more comprehensive maternity care to women in Singorwet. With additional funding through the Charlotte Daniel Fund 2012 Champions of Change award, the Dispensary will expand by building a complete maternity wing, train at least 10 local midwives, and improve the clinic’s rain water catchment system to ensure the availability of clean, potable water. Only 30% of Kenya’s health care facilities provide services for delivering children. With the expansion of the Singorwet Dispensary, women will have improved quality and access to pre-natal and ante-natal services and will place the community ahead of the health care curve. Currently, the majority of women in Singorwet have their babies at home, which is usually on the floor of a mud hut. Dangers from this include unsanitary conditions and a lack of professional health care staff in case of emergencies. In Kenya, about 7,900 women die every year while giving birth. These deaths can be prevented. The progress being facilitated through the Charlotte Daniel Fund will not only protect the immediate lives and health of mother and baby, but will help promote long-term health and poverty reduction by getting families off to a safe and healthy start.
2011
The 2011 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to the International Medical Equipment Collaborative (IMEC), an organization that works toward transforming impoverished communities around the world by providing equipment solutions for health care, agriculture, and education projects in developing countries. The Charlotte Daniel Fund awarded $19,800 to IMEC, which allowed IMEC to deliver $154,000 in essential medical equipment to Haiti to outfit the Les Palmes Health Center. The health center serves a number of surrounding rural communities that were badly affected by the 2010 earthquake, including the LaFond community.
2010
In 2010, the Charlotte Daniel Fund gave two “Champions of Change” Awards: the first to a community-based organization in Haiti, which has been a priority of the Daniel family and of Charlotte; and the second, to a small group of mothers and entrepreneurs in El Salvador.
The first 2010 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to The Lafonbelle Foundation, formerly “Friends of Lafond,” to finance a community health worker to help treat and prevent the spread of cholera in the small community of Lafond. Life in Lafond is centered around a school, the community’s first, which was constructed in 2003 and completely destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. The Lafonbelle Foundation rebuilt the school with support from World Connect. With their “Champions of Change” Award, they were able to ensure that each and every student at the school was educated in cholera prevention and equipped to take their newfound knowledge home to share with their families.
The second 2010 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to a group of women in rural Canton El Centro in the Cuscatlan Department of El Salvador. With an initial $2,500 grant from World Connect in 2010, a group of ten mothers in Canton El Centro received technical training in the processing of artisanal jams and marmalades as an income-generating activity. They also participated in a business training workshop, focused on basic accounting and market analysis. With their “Champions of Change” Award the mothers improved their business’ infrastructure by installing a water system and sewage system in order to receive their sanitary permit from the government of El Salvador.
2009
The first recipient of the Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award in 2009 was Hospital Municipal Villa Fundacion (HMVF) in the Dominican Republic. HMVF was recognized with this award for their “Partos Humanizados” project, to improve the quality of health services for pregnant women throughout the continuum of their care, from prenatal to labor to delivery to postpartum care.
Past Recipients
2022
In 2022, World Connect selected Improving Child Nutrition on Nkombo Island in Rwanda as the Champions of Change Award winner. The project is designed to support 44 women-led households to start raising pigs on Nkombo Island, an isolated island with a population of 17,000 on Lake Kivu in Rwanda and bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo. These particular households are important to the island's overall social and economic wellbeing, as they are geographically dispersed and they operate daily informal early childhood centers for children under school age, providing a safe space for children to play and at least one meal per day. There are currently more than 1,300 children under the age of 5 on the island, 64% of whom are either moderately or severely stunted. This is nearly double the national rate in Rwanda. With this project, the women who run the centers will have a source of protein and income security, which they will utilize to improve the meals that they offer to the many children they care for daily. The ability to prop up these early childhood centers is important for the island's economy, as it allows for many mothers to have the day-time hours to participate in various economic activities.
2021
In 2021, the Champions of Change Award went to the Chipunga community in Malawi, for the construction of health worker housing at the Chipunga Health Clinic. The facility provides care for more than 7,500 people who would otherwise have to trek 12 kilometers for health services. With housing, for the first time this facility can be staffed full-time by the government with a nurse and clinician.
2020
In 2020, World Connect identified two projects as the Charlotte Daniel, Champions of Change Awardees. The first was an expansion of the Breast Aware Program to 8-10 rural communities in Anambra State. They are prioritizing communities that have little to no access to primary health care, specifically those that are geographically isolated. The project will include purchasing a 3D ultrasound machine to assist in their efforts, which will bring down the cost of screening from the first project significantly. Afterwards, the ultrasound machine will be integrated as part of a lab/diagnostic center in the city of Onitsha, and utilized to provide a weekly low-cost screening clinic for women.
The second project of 2020 is the Kaliza Community Health Clinic in Dowa District, Central Region of Malawi. In 2019, the Kaliza Village Health Committee received $4,934.36 from World Connect to construct a community clinic, in response to challenges women and children were facing to access basic primary health care services in the area. Prior to this project, community members were traveling more than eight kilometers to the nearest care. Six months from receipt of their funding, the clinic was completed and a resident Health Surveillance Assistant (HSA) from the government started providing services to the general public. In the first six months of operations, 291 children were vaccinated, 256 children registered for monthly growth monitoring, 82 women were accessing family planning services, and 64 children under-five were diagnosed with malaria and treated. However, now almost a year after opening its doors, the Kaliza Community Centre for Health is not able to provide antenatal care and HIV testing services because it does not have a qualified nurse on site, and it cannot sustain the cost of transportation for a nurse to commute each week from the nearest clinic. As a result, pregnant women continue to walk long distances to access care that is in high demand. The Kaliza Village Health Committee (VHC) is proposing to launch a piggery project as a sustainable source of health facility income. The idea is that profits from the sales of pigs, which is a reliable business in the area, will finance materials and monthly visits of the nurse and other health professionals, and will also be available for any emergency transportation needs. The VHC chairperson and the treasurer will take a leading role in leading the project, establishing transparency in reporting to the community on the profits and health expenditures and developing a collective process for deciding when and how the community taps any reserve moving forward.
2019
In 2019, World Connect named three “Champions of Change” Award recipients, all in Nigeria. They are: Girlsaide for their project, Keep All Mothers Alive; Pinkhealth Foundation for their project, Breast Aware; and Rural Health Mission Nigeria for their Lifesaving Kits Project.
Nigeria has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. To combat hypertensive disorder, one of the leading causes of maternal deaths in Nigeria, the “Champions of Change” Award has been given to Girlsaide to launch of the Keep All Mothers Alive Project in Lagos. Implemented in four phases, this project will provide awareness, screening, and training for hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. With 61% of deliveries in Nigeria overseen by traditional birth attendants, the first phase will train 40 birth attendants and rural health workers on early identification and diagnosis of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. Phase two will facilitate referrals for women diagnosed with hypertensive disorder to specialist obstetricians and midwives for consultation. The third phase will disseminate awareness and education on hypertensive disorders and provide 500 pregnant women with free screenings for pre-eclampsia. The final phase of the project will distribute medical equipment to traditional birthing attendants and participating health facilities to aid them in future screening for these hypertensive disorders. Over time, this project aims to reach 1,000,000 pregnant women and train 5,000 birthing attendants and health workers to strengthen their capacity to prevent and manage the disease.
In the densely populated area of Omagba, Nigeria, there is limited access to health care and formal education. Here, the “Champions of Change” Award has given to the Pinkhealth Foundation to launch of the Breast Aware Project. With limited resources about breast cancer, this project will provide breast cancer awareness and screening to women in five different areas of Omagba. Workshops will be conducted to include education on breast cancer prevalence, causes, early signs, risk factors, the need for early detection and self-exams. 200 women between the ages of 40 to 55 years will be randomly selected from the five different locations for a free screening. The Award will also make breast cancer screenings available in community pharmacies and develop a pipeline to connect women who test positive with oncologists.
In one of the most remote areas of southeastern Nigeria, women must travel 15-20 kilometers for formal antenatal care visits. It is here that the “Champions of Change” Award has been given to Rural Health Mission Nigeria to launch the Lifesaving Kits Project. Muhammad Ahmad, World Connect's Established Field Partner on this project and a YALI Mandela Washington Fellowship alumnus, understands the needs in a deeply personal way having grown up in the area and losing both a brother and a sister to the lack of access to health care. The Lifesaving Kit Project will help to reduce infant and maternal mortality by designing a locally developed, assembled, and distributed single-use disposable delivery kit to ensure cleaner and safer deliveries, whether at home or in a local health facility. The project will distribute 300 birthing kits, and train 50 traditional birth attendants across 3 villages. The trainings will focus on sanitary delivery practices, recognizing distress and complications, and safe delivery and use of the birthing kits. Birth attendants and health facilities will facilitate the distribution of the kits and hold a town hall meeting with community members to educate them on clean birth practices and introduction of birth kits for deliveries.
2018
In 2018, World Connect named The Maternity Guardian Shelter in Malawi the “Champions of Change” Award. This project took place under the traditional authority of Chief Kachindamoto, a woman who has gained worldwide attention for her focus on young girls and abolishing the practice of early marriage. World Connect worked on a nursery school construction project in 2018 with a CorpsAfrica Volunteer in the area, where we were first introduced to Chief Kachindamoto. After the successful implementation of the nursery school project, we spoke to Chief Kachindamoto about what other priority projects she sees in the area. The first thing she noted was that the Kachindamoto Health Center, which serves 20,000 people per year, is able to provide antenatal care services for women but is not yet cleared by the Ministry to conduct deliveries because it is lacking needed infrastructure improvements. Namely, the facility needed what they call in Malawi guardian housing, where women can rest before going into full labor. It also serves as a place where family members who accompany pregnant women, often after traveling long distances to reach the facility, can lodge if needed in a space that is separate from the delivery and recovery rooms. The project has the potential to impact the lives of more than 2,000 pregnant women each year, ensuring they can receive a complete package of maternity care in a quality and modern facility near to their home communities and villages.
2017
In 2016, we partnered with the Action for Women Foundation (AWF), a Rwandan-led community-based organization and a group of women, mostly single mothers, which AWF supports with income-generating activities and trainings. As we'd hoped, the first project was successful and motivating for the women. In 2017, we gave their AWF the “Champions of Change” Award. AWF used this award to provide bakery and business training to all 60 of its members, to purchase needed supplies and materials for a bakery, and to hire the top graduates from the bakery and business training to work in the newly established Action for Women Bakery. From there, 7 women began baking and selling daily in the Nyabisindu neighborhood of Kigali, offering a selection of cakes, donuts, chapati, and samosas to local customers. In the bakery's first six months, it generated an average monthly revenue of $1,7000! They sold an average of 16,000+ baked goods per month, with their highest month at more than 25,000 baked goods. The women involved in this project are now economically independent and can properly provide for their families.
2016
In 2016, World Connect named two “Champions of Change” Award recipients: the first is the Rwimitereri Health Center in Rwanda, the second the Kalomo District Health Office in Zambia.
In Rwanda, the “Champions of Change” Award will extend and complete the construction of a maternity ward at the Rwimitereri Health Center. The maternity ward will provide women in 25 villages with a population of 28,000 people with safe and clean place to give birth. It will also allow community health workers to share important health information with the more than 150 mothers who visit the Health Center monthly, but also to take health education, specifically maternal health education, out into and across the 25 villages.
In Kalomo District, Zambia, there are 31 health facilities serving more than 200,000 people. The Champions of Change Award will allow the District Nursing Officers to coordinate and lead a series of “cluster trainings”, where community health workers and community-based Saving Mothers Action Group volunteers from various health facilities will gather for advanced and refresher trainings on issues related to their work preventing maternal and child mortality. Specifically, they’ll be training to recognize and respond to postpartum hemmorrage, sepsis, preclampsyia and pregnancy-related hypertensive disorders, and training to work with mothers on HIV and family planning. The project is modeled on a successful set of trainings in neighboring Zimba District.
2015
The 2015 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award was given to the Youth Cooperative in Agriculture of Imouzzer-Kandar. The women in this impressive group have been steady growing their livestock business over time since their first World Connect project in 2013, which was focused on raising goats. They added sheep, chickens and cows, and even dabbled in beekeeping and honey. As part of their winning Champions of Change proposal, the women communicated to World Connect their dream to build a better stable for their animals, on land of their own, so that they could raise more cattle and enter into the lucrative dairy market in northern Morocco. They also expressed their desire to grow from 17 to 100 women.
2014
The 2014 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to the Association of Artisans of San Pablo, a women’s handicrafts association devoted to economic empowerment and equality for women in Peru. An original $500 grant from World Connect provided the women’s association with trainings led by local artisans and their own traditional weaving loom, called a telar. With a $5,000 grant from the Charlotte Daniel Fund 2014 Champions of Change award, the women purchased additional sewing equipment and materials, and organized more trainings and entrepreneurship workshops, enabling them to increase their capacity and advance their business. The women secured a formal market space in San Pablo and won a government-sponsored business plan competition, securing even more financing and resources.
2013
The 2013 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to Las Sartenejeñas Cooperative, a women’s co-op textile business dedicated to improving economic development and empowerment for women in Belize. An original $3,000 grant from World Connect provided supplies and business training, allowing a group of women entrepreneurs to launch the Las Sartenejeñas Cooperative. With an additional $5,000 grant from the Charlotte Daniel Fund 2013 Champions of Change award, the women were provided with more business trainings and a workspace (stocked with essential supplies and equipment), helping to increase the operational capacity of the business. The group, in partnership with the Sarteneja Alliance for Conservation and Development will be receiving a $50,000 business development grant from the UNDP’s Community Management of Protected Areas Conservation Programme (COMPACT), which will advance the business and demonstrate World Connect’s ability to leverage significant investments in local ingenuity.
2012
The winner of the 2012 award is the Singorwet Dispensary, a rural health clinic in Central Bomet, Kenya. The Dispensary originally received a $1,775.99 grant in 2012 from World Connect to increase the supplies available to provide more comprehensive maternity care to women in Singorwet. With additional funding through the Charlotte Daniel Fund 2012 Champions of Change award, the Dispensary will expand by building a complete maternity wing, train at least 10 local midwives, and improve the clinic’s rain water catchment system to ensure the availability of clean, potable water. Only 30% of Kenya’s health care facilities provide services for delivering children. With the expansion of the Singorwet Dispensary, women will have improved quality and access to pre-natal and ante-natal services and will place the community ahead of the health care curve. Currently, the majority of women in Singorwet have their babies at home, which is usually on the floor of a mud hut. Dangers from this include unsanitary conditions and a lack of professional health care staff in case of emergencies. In Kenya, about 7,900 women die every year while giving birth. These deaths can be prevented. The progress being facilitated through the Charlotte Daniel Fund will not only protect the immediate lives and health of mother and baby, but will help promote long-term health and poverty reduction by getting families off to a safe and healthy start.
2011
The 2011 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to the International Medical Equipment Collaborative (IMEC), an organization that works toward transforming impoverished communities around the world by providing equipment solutions for health care, agriculture, and education projects in developing countries. The Charlotte Daniel Fund awarded $19,800 to IMEC, which allowed IMEC to deliver $154,000 in essential medical equipment to Haiti to outfit the Les Palmes Health Center. The health center serves a number of surrounding rural communities that were badly affected by the 2010 earthquake, including the LaFond community.
2010
In 2010, the Charlotte Daniel Fund gave two “Champions of Change” Awards: the first to a community-based organization in Haiti, which has been a priority of the Daniel family and of Charlotte; and the second, to a small group of mothers and entrepreneurs in El Salvador.
The first 2010 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to The Lafonbelle Foundation, formerly “Friends of Lafond,” to finance a community health worker to help treat and prevent the spread of cholera in the small community of Lafond. Life in Lafond is centered around a school, the community’s first, which was constructed in 2003 and completely destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. The Lafonbelle Foundation rebuilt the school with support from World Connect. With their “Champions of Change” Award, they were able to ensure that each and every student at the school was educated in cholera prevention and equipped to take their newfound knowledge home to share with their families.
The second 2010 Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award went to a group of women in rural Canton El Centro in the Cuscatlan Department of El Salvador. With an initial $2,500 grant from World Connect in 2010, a group of ten mothers in Canton El Centro received technical training in the processing of artisanal jams and marmalades as an income-generating activity. They also participated in a business training workshop, focused on basic accounting and market analysis. With their “Champions of Change” Award the mothers improved their business’ infrastructure by installing a water system and sewage system in order to receive their sanitary permit from the government of El Salvador.
2009
The first recipient of the Charlotte Daniel “Champions of Change” Award in 2009 was Hospital Municipal Villa Fundacion (HMVF) in the Dominican Republic. HMVF was recognized with this award for their “Partos Humanizados” project, to improve the quality of health services for pregnant women throughout the continuum of their care, from prenatal to labor to delivery to postpartum care.