About Nicola Sian

Tēna Koutou/Greeting, my name is Nicola Sian. Haere Mai/welcome to Live in Love.

​When I was a child a school teacher told us “4/5th of the world live on 1/5th of the world’s resources while 1/5th enjoy 4/5th of the world’s resources.” Of course the proportions are far worse than this now, I was recently told it is more like 1% live on 99% and 99% live on 1%. My childhood heart and mind decided I wanted to change that. So I have always had a concern for these global inequities as well as the inequities within our own communities. I have done a great deal of reading and thinking over the years about the nature of poverty, the human indifference that perpetuates it, and the human suffering it creates.

Let's get personal about this. When we walk down the street and see a rough sleeper lying outside a shop how do we respond? Perhaps we ignore them and walk on as if they don’t exist. Perhaps we would prefer they didn’t. WE may even resent them making our tidy world untidy. Perhaps we want to care but are afraid of what might be expected of us if we were to engage with them.

How would it be if we began with the belief that they have the same inherent human dignity as we do, the same human worth, and simply engaged them in conversation respecting them as our equal? I can tell you how it will be because this is what I always do as I pass a rough sleeper. The first thing is you may be surprised to discover they are indeed your equal. They will almost certainly deeply appreciate you for understanding that.  You may also be surprised to find this respect for their human dignity is the main thing they ask of you. If you have some spare change they will be very grateful. If you do not, you will have made their day by simply respecting them as another human being.
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​​Social media, for all its pitfalls, has the potential to connect people in the world who are relatively wealthy, powerful and privileged with those who are relatively poor and powerless and deprived of their basic needs. Its algorithms do not naturally encourage this. They connect us with people like ourselves. They encourage us to “walk past” those who are poor as if they do not exist.

When I retired I made a decision to accept Facebook friend requests from people in other counties. My adult children and friends were horrified saying one should never accept friend request from people in other countries that one doesn’t already know “in real life”. However I decided befriending people who were poor and powerless, treating them with dignity and respect, was too important to me to take that advice. Before long I became quite overwhelmed with the sheer number of people I was conversing with daily. Sometimes it would take me an entire day to get through them. Finally, I could not accept any more.
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Over the months that followed I received many messages from scammers. I decided, instead of blocking them, to give them the benefit of the doubt until I were sure. This was so educational that I can usually recognise a scammer now in their opening message. Sometimes it takes a few exchanges to be sure but the “red flags” are generally there from the start. If something feels "off" it generally is.

​I was left with a small number who I believed to be genuine friends in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan. Some were individuals and families, others were running programmes to help vulnerable women, children, elders and other marginalized people in their own communities and were often doing so with few resources and at great personal cost.

​I wanted to create a mechanism by which people who shared my desire to respond to online requests by these small community initiatives caring for poor and marginalized women, children and elders could safely give to such projects and know:
  1. That they are genuine and not scammers
  2. That money given will be used for the purpose for which it is given
  3. That these projects have good internal financial accountabilities and boundaries.
This website is the result. It is in its infancy. ​
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However it is not only scammers who are a problem. There was one project I felt I had done sufficient "due dilligence" to recommend to others. I had arranged for a friend to visit and interview the person entrusted with fundraising for that project. He videoed the interview. I researched the history of the project. It all seemed to check out. In fact I grew to trust that person as a personal friend. I was devasted to find, through a chance conversation with the founder and director of the organisation, that he had no knowledge of the funds I have given through the fundraiser. He is now under investigation for fraud. This was a hard lesson for me.

The greater the gap between the richest and poorest in a nation the more people will turn to crime to survive and the greater the temptation for people within organisations who have access to funds to misuse that power.

This means that "due dilligence" takes on a whole new meaning when working in poorer nations of the world. I am now collaborating with Ms Ritah Nabukalu, Founder and CEO of African Hope for Single Mothers, to build this website into a more solid fundraising umbrella for her organisation, and others which we will do "due dilligence" for over time.  
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The main project Ritah and I are working through due dilligence with is The Center for Child Advocacy and Life Planning (CCALP) which, for international fundraising purposes, is also called Uganda Nutrition Schools Feeding Program (UNSFP).      

The others I will mention here are the  work of Shahid and Saima Nawaz who have helped thousands of poor and  marginalised people in Pakistan, the work of the Kasola Foundation working with women experiencing domestic violence and neglected and abused children established by Jinja City Mayor Kasolo Peter Okocha, and the work of Paul Odiwuor Ogola who teaches Permaculture gardening and farming methods to marginalised people through Permoafrica Permaculture Training Centre in Kenya. There is also a small orphanage outside Kampala run by Kasoma Prom, himself an orphan, who, after being rescued from the streets himself, reached out to some street friends and has been doing his best to support them ever since.