Women Working WorldWide for Peace, Prosperity and Preservation.

WP is a Young Organisation of Woman Working WorldWide for Peace, Prosperity and Preservation.
Currently we represent an informal group of committed participants and volunteers who develop,
assist and nurture women's projects and dreams in Southern Africa.

We are building towards becoming a formal non profit, non denominational
intercultural organisation so that our project capacity can be increased. Currently our resources
are limited and we are constantly searching for innovative solutions to challenges presented by
our working conditions.
We treasure this growing time as a period of vital inspirations and operate by the credo,
"Seven times Knock Down, Eight Times get up." (Ancient Buddhist Saying)

Those participants currently involved are formally committed for a period of one year.
Therefore our greatest resource is our people. In the past two years our growth has been as
follows:

Where it began ....

I was working in the beautiful Mother city of Cape Town in South Africa two years ago as a
domestic servant in a budget tourist establishment. My total monthly income was the equivalent
of 133.68 USD. Ellen, one of my co-workers, an older woman from Khayalitsha township asked me
to help her with fundraising for a housing project that she had initiated. Within the township
there exists a solidarity of purpose that is a great source of collaborative successes.
Ellen invited me to Khayalitsha to meet with a group of builders that had volunteered from the
community to help each other build houses. Utilising some part governement subsidy and
some part of their meager earnings, they collaborated for an indefinate period of house-building that
tackled house after house as funding allowed. Slowly they now build 12 houses for the members
concerned and bear with each other in a spirit of community and giving.

At that time there was not much that could be done to support the project.
We had no technological resources to speak of and finacial restrictions bound us to
limiting even telephone calls and transport.

Today ...
Today two years later, I am at last in a position to assist Ellen and women like her.
Now based in Johannesburg, the WP represents a culmination of efforts toward that
purpose. I have accumulated resources as follows:
A small computer network, capable of scanning, design on Corel10, word processors
and reasonable internet access.

A telephone and facimile facility as well as a better knowledge base make it possible
to achieve a great deal today and makes me realise how blessed we have been.

We owe it all of course to our benevolent teachers and faithful friends.
It is at the point of becoming a formal organisation that I would like to appeal to you
for support, guidance and assistance.
As a formal NGO we can harness many resources not currently available to us at very
little increased cost which increases our growth potential.

There are many projects which we could implement that require little more than a good
referral or sound advice.

Latest Goals:
To establish a small formal centre for educational seminars, lessons and lectures
on a variety of subjects from "Morality and Spiritual Growth" to "Woman's Nutrition and Health"

To establish a program for assistance of Elderly women, especially those in isolation, on
a practical level by empowering a group of unemployed young women to help them shop,
visit our zoos, botanical gardens, museums and libraries, even assist with handyman jobs
but most importantly, improve their quality of life.

Back at the "hotel" in Cape Town, Ellen and I had planned to ascend Table Mountain. One of
the footpaths leads up "Platteklip Gorge" and is fairly well accesible to most people. We never
got the chance. Ellen has been working in Cape Town for twenty years watching tourists depart
for the steep slope with the enthusiasm of children at Christmas Eve and return with a sense of
wonder, inspiration and accomplishment.

To print our weekly newsletter (which currently is only available to women with internet access.)
Printing the newsletter would enable us to reach the greater part of our target audience who in most
cases lack the access and training to utilise alternative media with vital imformation realting to their
rights, opportunities, health, nutrition and spirituality. The printed form would not only bridge the
digital divide but also provide us with an extended platform for communication with outlying and rural
areas.

If you have any general advice, or can provide specific assistance with:
Registering an NGO
Fundraising
Harnessing International Volunteers

Thanking you in anticipation,
Yours Sincerely,
Nicci Venter
(BSc Environmental management Student UNISA)

WP Johannesburg

P O Box 67608 Bryanston
2021
073-197-9094

Inspiration from the Bahá'í Community:

Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity.
Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face.
Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy,
a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech.
Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in
darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder
and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine
acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive.
Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the
countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness,
a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the
horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge,
a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the
firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.