Mission and Vision

Amman Imman's is dedicated to empowering and preserving Africa's most vulnerable indigenous peoples and engaging school children worldwide as socially conscious leaders.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Gifts of Change


Will you continue your support with an end of year gift and help us make 2017 another successful year for Amman Imman?

Water is a catalyst for significant change.  When you give the gift of water, you open the way for better health. Women have more time for financial advancement, family responsibilities, taking care of themselves.  Children can go to school. 

As the end of the year approaches, please consider a year-end gift to help us continue bringing the gift of water to the women, children, and communities of the Azawak.

We wish you and yours love and peace, and a Happy New Year!

Ariane, Debbie and the Amman Imman team

Monday, November 28, 2016

Global Day of Generosity on #GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday
On November 29 we’re joining a global day of generosity, #GivingTuesday. It’s a day when you can make a big impact for Amman Imman and for the people of the Azawak.

With your help we’ll raise funds to expand our health program to reach an additional 10,000 people in 2017, and build a new borehole that will bring water to another 25,000 people and animals for years and years to come.

How can you be a part of it? Here are a few simple ideas:

  • Please consider making a gift for the people of the Azawak on #GivingTuesday, www.ammanimman.org/donate
  • Join our Wells of Love program.  Bring Amman Imman to your school or community by doing
    A Walk for Water, Amman-a-thon, or a creative fundraiser of your own design. Here’s how to get started.
  • Help us get the word out on social media using @ammanimmanwaterislife on Facebook, @ammanimman on Twitter and Instagram, and the hashtag #GivingTuesday.
  • Take photos demonstrating why you love our organization and post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Use the hashtag #GivingTuesday.
  • Spread compassion by sharing kindness with another person.  

With your generosity, we can bring water, health and a better future for the mothers, fathers and children living in the Azawak of Niger.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Global Giving by Women Empowers Women and Girls in the Azawak


Amman Imman: Water is Life is partnering with Dining for Women, a grassroots organization with a vision to eradicate poverty for women and girls around the world through global giving circles. This month we are their featured organization. Women across the country will be dining together, learning about the Azawak and helping establish the Herds for Economic Resiliency (HERds) program for the women of Tangarwashane. HERds contributes to a woman's financial autonomy and better nutrition for their families by helping to re-establish livestock herds.
We are particularly excited about this collaboration. Dining for Women's model of bringing women together and educating them about social justice issues around the world that affect women and girls aligns with our values. In all of our projects in the Azawak, we emphasize empowering women and girls. Learning about social justice issues, deepening cross-cultural understanding, fostering a global perspective and inspiring collective philanthropy are key components of our Wells of Love service learning education program for students.  

Change in the world does not happen all by itself. We are very grateful to be standing together with all the members of Dining for Women.  Happy dining, learning and giving!  
Below you can view the video we made this summer about the HERds program, and Dining for Women's interview with Ariane Kirtley, Amman Imman's founder and director.





Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Amman Imman combats Rift Valley Fever

Our Amman Imman health team is on the front lines fighting the Rift Valley Fever epidemic, which has already taken the lives of over 20 people in the northern Tahoua region. Outbreaks of RVF, a highly infectious viral disease, emerged in the Tahoua region in late August and has since spread to villages across the Azawak.
Hadiza examines a child in Tangarwashane

Our nurses Hadiza, Hachim, and Riskoua, are helping to treat infected individuals. They are also holding education classes to help prevent the spread of the disease which is transmitted through cattle and mosquitoes.

In the aftermath of August’s flooding and with malaria season at its peak, our team is working relentlessly to save lives.  

Thank you to all our supporters who are helping us keep our team in our communities as they provide essential life enhancing services!

Learn more about the Rift Valley Fever on the WHO website: Rift Valley Fever in Niger

As always, we gratefully accept and appreciate your donations.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Providing Water, Sustaining Life

Yale Public Health Magazine, Spring 2016, Alumni Spotlight, p. 36-39. Read the full article here

The Spring 2016 edition of the Yale Public Health Magazine spotlights Yale alumni Ariane Kirtley, Amman Imman's founder and director. Ariane earned a bachelors degree in anthropology at Yale and an M.P.H. at the Yale School of Public Health in 2004. She first visited the Azawak as a Fulbright scholar in 2005, and went on to establish Amman Imman: Water is Life in 2006.  

From the article:
Ariane Kirtley grew up in remote villages across West Africa, including the Republic of Niger. The French-American daughter of National Geographic photojournalists, she bonded completely with the people in her villages.  
"I didn't have any friends who weren't African so to me, I was African," she said. Her unusual childhood included a best friend, Julia, a gorilla that was being rehabilitated in Gambia to be returned to the wild. It was only when Kirtley grew older that she recognized the many needs and challenges her African “family” faced, and she decided, “I wanted to grow up and help the people who had helped raise me.”
Read the full article, pages 36-39, here.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Amman Imman receives new grant to launch livestock program for women

A woman in Ebagueye receives two goats through our HERds program
Through a new grant from Dining for Women, Amman Imman is launching the Herds for Economic Resiliency Program”(HERds) for the community of Tangarwashane in the Azawak region of Niger,  The initiative contributes to a women’s financial autonomy, enabling them to raise healthier families and combat malnutrition. A long-term goal of the program is to help establish healthy-abundant herds that will provide enough income for the women to consistently access health care and provide school fees for all their children.  The program builds on two other HERds programs started by Amman Imman in the nearby communities of Couloubade and Ebagueye, which fostered a recipient women's financial independence.

"At the market everything is expensive. With money we can get from our animals, I can buy clothes, take my children to the hospital or buy medicines for them. And sometimes I can buy food for my family,” said Sadouan Alhassan. 

HERds offers the most vulnerable women in Tangarwashane a chance to become economically resilient by loaning participants a personal herd of two goats or one cow, providing readily-available nutritious fodder at low cost, free veterinary care, and training in best practice animal husbandry. Without an accessible method to bank money, livestock are the most reliable way for women to store cash” for future and/or emergency needs.  The program aims to help women raise healthier families, especially to combat chronic malnutrition among their children. 

"Raising animals is our tradition. It is what we know how to do.  It is our livelihood.   It always has been and it always will be,” said Raichatou Salah.

In the Azawak region, in particular Tangarwashane, populations traditionally depend on livestock for their livelihoods. Dwindling rainfall and desertification over the last 15 years, killed off livestock and left families in dire poverty. Without ready access to water, food, healthcare, or money, the populations struggle to survive. The Azawak is the least developed region in all of Niger, a country where one out of five children dies before age five—one of the highest rates of child mortality in the world.

 The women Amman Imman work with are traditionally pastoral nomads.  Livestock have been their wealth and security for centuries,” said Ariane Kirtley, Founder and Director of Amman Imman. All [the people] want help replenishing their livestock herds. Women who benefited from our HERds programs [in our other villages] say in the past they relied on their husbands for their security. They now are proud because they feel wealthier than their husbands and are able to provide for their families.”

HERds builds on Amman Imman’s ongoing development work in the Azawak, which began with drilling borehole wells—sustainable sources of water.  Amman Imman, as the sole organization committed to working in this region, saw a need to expand programs after the implementation of the boreholes in order to address the many imminent needs of the people.  Amman Imman now supports their communities through food security programs, income-generation projects, health, education, and women’s empowerment activities.

The HERds program in Tangarwashane will offer:
Livestock Loaning. In the first phase, 50 women receive two goats for a one-year term and 10 women receive one cow for a single gestation period, plus weaning time.
Fodder Bank. The program will assist in the establishment of a fodder bank and management committee to provide low-cost feed for livestock. The fodder bank management committee will be democratically elected by the women of Tangarwashane to set the price of and purchase fodder, and identify HERds program participants.
Best Practice Animal Husbandry Training. Training will be provided to livestock recipients and non-recipient women to ensure animal health and herd sustainability community wide.
Free veterinary care to keep participant animals healthy.
Prior to loaning animals, our staff will tag livestock and a veterinarian will administer deworming, vaccinations and conduct a health check.  A veterinarian will also do periodic animal health checks when deemed necessary.  At the end of the loaning term, the mothers are given to another group of beneficiaries. However, any offspring produced during the loaned period become property of the women to start their own herd.  Should our primary livestock become unfit for the program, they will be retired, offered for sale, and funds used to repurchase new mothers.

Income personally earned from the livestock, generally from the production of milk and butter or selling of animals, in particular male offspring, will provide women with income to purchase food, clothes, medicine, and pay for their children’s school materials.  Most importantly, women will be active contributors to their own financial well-being, greatly reducing their vulnerability when their husbands migrate.

Watch this video to learn more about the HERds program and how the women of Tangarwashane will benefit:


 
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