In the same vain the little donations in a Crowdfunding campaign can help serve the purpose. N1000 donated by ten thousand of the Nigeria’s 180 million Citizens can provide portable water to a thousand people in a remote Village in Borno or help educate 100 children in Enugu, or even foot the surgery bills of a sick child in Akwa-Ibom. No country of the world can adequately cater for all of its citizens’ needs, although some can do better than others. It then behooves on individuals in every community, Local Government area and states all over the nation to work together with kind hearted people all over the world to help each other in times of despair.

On this platform we have spoken about the success story of Kehinde; the little 5 year old child with a Cancerous lump on her right ear. The innocent little girl was unable attend school, Church or even playground because of the ailment. We met her totally sad and her family was exhausted and drained from spending all they had for the treatment. They could barely even take care of the other 3 children they had. They had lost all hope. When they reached out and asked Nigeria for help through donate-ng we all obliged despite the country’s economic downturn. We all associated with their struggles and decided to donate our little drops that made up the 1.3 Million Naira Ocean that helped save Kehinde’s life. We all pulled together at the time of crises in the life of one of us and said “NO. This child cannot die on my watch” that is the spirit of Nigeria which came to fore and facilitated by Crowdfunding.

Every day we come to hear about cases like Kehinde and we feel pained that we don’t have enough money to help. In actual fact we do have enough money to help. You don’t need to be a Millionaire to assist a fellow in need. That little drop of kindness, that 500 naira you can spare will go a long way to help shine a light to the life of a person in need. To bring smiles to faces of those in despair. And when you hear or read about the success story, you can also smile; knowing you are part of the reason a complete stranger can also afford a smile.

We hear and read about some crowdfunding platforms who raise money and don’t remit to the real people in need. We are saddened that a few bad individuals take data of a sick child and use it to get crowdfunding from all over the world without any intention of remitting. We wonder how you are able sleep at night. How you are able to deal with your conscience knowing your despicable actions have put live of a sick child on the edge. You also by your actions breed a seed of disconnect between potential donors and other credible crowdfunding platforms like donate-ng, thereby denying help to millions of others in need.

At donate-ng, our utmost aim is to help bridge the gap between the needy and the donors. We take a stand to help whoever you are to reach whoever is out there to contribute his/her little drop to make the ocean of desired fund required for whatever will take you from despair to joy. The passion, integrity and professionalism we put in to link people in need with their donors comes from our conviction that no man/woman should stay silent and suffer while help is just a click away. That everyone deserves to get help in times of need. Donate-ng takes it as a duty to ensure the world hears your story and also help you collate the little drops into the ocean that you require. Integrity and professionalism are our watchword. These are the values that we hold dear to our hearts and it defines our everyday lives.

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“MPAC is not affiliated to any organization locally or abroad and we maintain political neutrality and independence in our works. MPAC relies only on financial support from individual donors to run and sustain its projects. As a matter of policy, MPAC DOES NOT accept any funding from foreign bodies, organizations or governments. Insha Allah, the political and financial independence of MPAC will sustain the future of our works and help represent the sentiments and interests of Nigerian Muslims and Muslims everywhere.”

So when they decided to raise funds to provide Braille Embosser Machines to cater for Blind Muslims, it only made sense to seek Donate-ng.com, One of Africa’s leading crowdfunding platform. Like many others who have used our platform, they had doubts about the sincerity and accountability of anyone claiming to help raise funds.

In 3 months they were able to raise 369,000NGN for this project and every penny of it accounted for.

“What surprises me the most is the fact that Donate-ng; a Nigerian company can run a platform that raises money without short-changing the client in any way. Their feedback and accountability in unrivalled. The whole transaction was transparent and seamless.”

Donate-ng once again lead the way in showing the world that online crowd-funding is very possible here in Nigeria. Nigerians are a very generous people, and this can be seen in the way we rally around to render help to anyone in need.

From the daily giving of alms to the needy, to donation by envelope printing for individuals and organizations, we even come together to donate money to send a brilliant child to school abroad.

Online crowd-funding is just an extension of our everyday kindness and generosity. Donate-ng is merely creating a platform and using technology to bridge the distance divide. By helping to tell your story, we are asking the world to join in and help achieve and be part of a wonderful story of hope in the face of despair. This is our aspiration and it is what we sleep, wakeup, eat, drink and live for. We remain passionate about helping you achieve whatever it is you set out to.

You too can start a fund raising campaign for a pet project for free using the donate-ng platform at www.donate-ng.com

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donate-ng is a Nigerian crowdfunding website dedicated to charity fund raising and campaigns for social cause.

The #savekehindeadebiyi campaign started mid-November and ended mid-January; completing a 60days campaign period raising a total amount of one million, twenty four thousand four hundred and seventy naira (N1,024,407.00).

The success of this campaign could not have been possibly if not for the donations from well-meaning Nigerians who were moved by Kehinde’s story on the donate-ng crowdfunding portal – https://donate-ng.com/project/73.

Just about the time donate-ng launched its services: the donate-ng team saw kehinde’s story on Linda Ikeji’s blog and decided to run with the story. You can call it “backing up your words with your money or vis-visa”. With this achievement, donate-ng has proven crowdfunding is possible in Nigeria.

Since then, many more individuals and charity organisation have contacted donate-ng to show interest in using its platform to raise funds for charitable deeds.

www.donate-ng.com info@donate-ng.com

The Adebiyi’s Story.

“It’s just like I am still dreaming. How people that do not know us from Adam would be so committed to helping us this much”.

The words of Mrs Adebiyi;  Kehinde’s mother. She runs her small business in the quiet Lagos suburb of Cele Egbe away from the traffic madness synonymous with the “centre of excellence”. Her husband is a professional furniture maker who is very good at his job. They are an average but very OK family with 4 children, relatively unknown in the community until Kehinde developed the cancerous growth in her right ear.

“We didn’t know what to do when it started. We thought it was just boil (abscess) and applied shear butter (locally called Ori) and gave her antibiotics on Doctor’s recommendation. But when it won’t go away we just got frustrated. We cried many nights when cancer was diagnosed.”

Their predicament made them popular and susceptible to scammers. A few people had approached them with the aim of helping, but only a very few truly meant it.

“Several people came to our home and said they could help raise funds for the treatment but only very few of them ever returned with money. A man saw us at the Eko hospital and gave 50,000 Naira. He was always checking up to know how well the treatment was going. A few others also gave some money here and there but it just wasn’t enough. Before the whole dilemma, we were doing well. We could take care of our family with relative ease. But this illness just got beyond any average-living family.”

donate-ng got wind of the story and contacted the family. It didn’t take too much effort to convince them to let us help.

“We were really very desperate at that point. All our savings had been exhausted. It cost my husband the trust of a key client because he could not execute a project awarded due to him using part of the initial payment for the treatment. We don’t like begging, but we were almost going to take situation to Churches and Mosques to beg for help. We were that desperate (Sobbing). We just couldn’t seat back and watch our daughter die slowly and painfully. We weren’t going to let that happen. We agreed to anything and anyone that came our way who wanted to help. Pictures of Kehinde were taken along with that of the family. We know that many people used our plight to collect money from the good people of Nigeria and the world then diverted the funds for their own use. That is just part of the world we find ourselves in. But thanks to donate-ng, our despair has been taken away.”

Like many Nigerians, the family doubted the intentions of NGOs.

“We really doubted donate-ng at first but we still played along because of our very desperate situation. But when we started seeing the response of people on their website showing the amount that has been raised I cried. I just didn’t expect that to happen that soon and because I knew that our baby was finally going to get the help she needs. They kept in touch with us, asking for periodic updates on the health of the child. They even sent one of their team members to check up on our family after the first instalment of the money was paid. This really gave us absolute joy. They brought gifts during the twins’ birthday and sent a member of their team to attend. This for me was unprecedented. I have never seen anything like that ever. Words cannot describe the joy we feel. Now our family that was on the brink of starvation and disintegration, and the agony of losing a child has been restored. I can only ask that God bless the entire donate-ng team and everyone who donated to ensure that this child doesn’t die. May you all never pass through such a horrific and terrifying experience.”

Kehinde Adebiyi is responding to treatment better than anticipated. Radiotherapy is working absolutely well. The Cancerous lump has slowly eased while the swelling has gone down considerably. The Doctors are monitoring the situation so that they can ascertain when surgery to remove the lump can be done. If need be, chemotherapy will also be done.

Kehinde can now play with her siblings and friends, she has even started going to school. She is a good kid who just like the kids of her age loves to run around and play. Very smart and funny; this girl is a prankster.  We thank everyone who donated to this cause to put back the joy to the Adebiyi’s. This has been a great experience for us and we are glad it has finally come to fruition.

Thank you and God bless.

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