Giving Heart Beat

Episode 9 - Kisoboka Uganda - A Longer Conversation with Co-Founders Sandra Gannon and Hope Kalibbala: The Power of Sponsorship, Child Marriages, Witchcraft, and Bore Holes for Bakka

Giving Heart Beat Creator and Host Donna Valente talks with Darla Daniel, Founder of Orphan Anni-Mals Farm Sanctuary Animal Rescue, Rehabilitate, Retire, Rehome in Glen Gardner, New Jersey, about Darla's passion for animals of all kinds. Darla is a farrier by trade and has ridden horses her entire life.

Orphan Anni-Mals provides a holistic, loving, and healing environment for animals that have suffered abuse and or neglect, or whose "humans" are unable to properly care for them due to illness or death. Darla stresses the importance of providing a plan for your animals in the event something happens to you.

Listen to find out how you can help!

Giving Heart Beat Creator and Host Donna Valente talks with Dr. Jean-Paul Bonnet, a family physician in New Jersey who has been working in Haiti for over 24 years to serve people living in poverty with his nonprofit SanteBus (Health Bus), originally called the Healing Haiti Fund.

He has established strong partnerships and networks with faith communities and successful businesses that enable advances such as effective desalinization equipment that turns sea water into potable water for a village.

Dr. Bonnet reveals how he and a group of nuns were inspired to create Bread of Life Bakeries that teach and employ homeless mothers of two or more children to bake fresh delicious breads using the island's abundant fruit that would otherwise be left to rot.

Giving Heart Beat Creator and Host Donna Valente Interviews Bob Lubega, Executive Director of Rights for Disability Development Foundation in Kampala, Uganda about the organization's wide spectrum of services for individuals living with disabilities--from building accessible restrooms in schools to creating vocational programs suited for each client.

Giving Heart Beat host Donna Valente interviews Barbara Crowell-Roy, Founder of Eve's Fund for Native American Health Initiatives. Eve's Fund serves youth living on or near the Navajo Nation, which is the largest tribal reservation in the United States, spanning the corners of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

Eve's Fund was created in 2005 by Barbara and Eve's dad, the late Dr. Bob Crowell, a neurosurgeon, after the tragic death of their beautiful, brilliant and compassionate daughter Eve Erin Crowell from an accidental drug and alcohol overdose.

To help them bear their grief and to celebrate Eve's life, Barbara and Bob created Eve's Fund as a legacy that honors their daughter and her passions. With its signature ThinkFirst Navajo Injury Prevention Program and other crucial initiatives, over 60,000 Navajo youth and young adults have been impacted!

Eve's Fund has developed a strong community presence on the Navajo Nation and has created and nurtured strong partnerships and collaborations with other public and private stakeholders committed to the same overall goals of promoting hope and wellness for young Native Americans.

Giving Heart Beat host Donna Valente interviews Kelly and Paul Timmons, Founders of Kelly's Kitchen based in Charleston, South Carolina, that tackles food insecurity in communities across the United States. As a result of the COVID pandemic, Kelly's Kitchen has pivoted to collaborate with disabilities organizations in many states to provide pop-up food pantries offering fresh, nutritious foods and even delivering food to people that cannot leave their homes.

Giving Heart Beat host Donna Valente interviews Edna Sutton, Founder of Compassions Training and Awareness Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Edna is a survivor of domestic violence at a young age that caused her to become spinal cord injured. She overcame countless obstacles to attain her goal to live independently. Because she must rely on caregivers to come into her home to help her take care of basic needs, she developed a training program to educate and empower caregivers and those that need safe, skilled care. Edna sheds light on the abuse that is, tragically, prevalent in situations where a person requires assistance for activities of daily living.

Giving Heart Beat host Donna Valente interviews Jodi O'Donnell-Ames, Founder of Hope Loves Company, the only nonprofit organization in the world exclusively dedicated to providing educational and emotional support for families affected by ALS (also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Lou Gehrig's Disease), particularly children caregivers.

Giving Heart Beat host Donna Valente interviews Sandra Gannon, Co-Founder/Director of Kisoboka Uganda, Inc. in Lexington, MA and Hope Kalibbala, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Kisoboka Initiative for Progress Uganda NGO Charity in Bakka, Uganda. Sandy and Hope have been co-workers since 2007 working to educate the Village of Bakka and empowering the people to rise from poverty, particularly girls.

Donna was deeply inspired by Sandy after hearing her speak about Kisoboka at a women's spiritual retreat in New Hampshire several years ago. Donna and her family have sponsored a lovely young girl named Shakira for past three years and will continue to make that sponsorship a priority.

There are many more children and young adults that need sponsors, and the impact of sponsorship cannot be overstated!

Giving Heart Beat Creator and Host Donna Valente shares her backstory of what led her to start Giving Heart Beat amidst the depths of uncertainty of the global pandemic lockdown . . . clicking open an email from SCORE about the Rise Up Challenge and learning from legions of leaders to look within to find true passion and purpose. Giving Heart Beat was created to promote and celebrate nonprofit changemakers and to amplify marginalized voices that need to be heard; to make nonprofit connections and turn Unsung Heroes into Every Day Super Heroes!