Chocolate to Raise Money for Bulembu :: Projects over the years

Since learning about Bulembu in 2013, JACEK has done many campaigns to support this incredible town in Swaziland that is home to over 350 vulnerable children and their care givers.

A little background…

In 2006, a team of social developers and entrepreneurs purchased the abandoned mining town of Bulembu with a vision to restore it to a fully sustainable town to provide care to orphaned and vulnerable children. Today they have a variety of Community Enterprises such as the Bulembu Country LodgeBulembu Honey and Bulembu Water to provide for the sustainability fund for Bulembu. The children live in family homes with a caregiver, where they receive all they need including a full education at Bulembu Christian Academy.  The goal is to educate and raise the future leaders of Estiwani.

Over the last 8 years, JACEK Chocolate has raised over $48,000 to support the community of Bulembu through the sale of chocolate, which of course is only made possible with the incredible generosity of our customers. Below are the projects that have been supported over the years:

2013: Funding the renovation of an old, dilapidated miner’s house, now fondly referred to as the ‘Chocolate House’ which is now home to six children and an ‘Aunty’ (caregiver)

2014: Funds to develop, irrigate and fence a 2 hectare vegetable garden to feed the community whilst also giving hands-on experience to the agriculture student’s education.

Vegetable Garden in Bulembu

2015: Funding the transportation of a container of much needed goods that were purchased and donated by the community in Edmonton/Sherwood Park.

2017: A new pair of school shoes for each one of the children in Bulembu.

Bars for Bulembu - shoes

2018: Updated school books for all grades for the children in Bulembu.

2019/2020: A special JACEK Birthday Collection with proceeds given in memory Brendan, Melissa, Evelyn & Colton Perrott, and Sabelo of Bulembu for a Scholarship

2021: We reached out to the leaders in Bulembu on how they could best support the children this year. They responded with:

“We would appreciate it if you could allocate your campaign to purchasing solar streetlights for the childcare sites. Electricity is becoming increasingly unreliable and expensive in Eswatini, so we have had to look at ways to not only save on electricity usage but also ensure that the children have light around their homes even when we have power outages”, replied Kurt Puttmaker, Bulembu Partner Relations.

 “As you can imagine the electricity used by more than 400 children and care givers in 61 homes adds up to a substantial bill every month, and then making sure they can all walk in safety on the very steep and rough terrain is challenging. Solar streetlights are definitely a way to address both those challenges.”

With the very generous support of JACEK customers, the target of raising $5,000 was far surpassed, with $6933.50 raised through the sale of chocolate bars over a 24 hour period!  This is enough to purchase 15 solar powered street lights.

EDIT April, 2022: This video just reached us from Bulembu and shows the installation of the new solar lights they were able to purchase thanks to your generous support! 

 

Future Projects

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