MAKE A DIFFERENCE WITH ONE ASSIST!

In our first-ever visit to Matkomnai village, located in the remote mountains of Papua New Guinea’s Western Province, we were welcomed by schoolmasters, students and local community members with plenty of smiles and open arms. After breaking new ground from Tokyo to Daru-Kiunga, Hope 81 is excited about the chance to continue building from this experience and we need your help. Moving towards a long-term effort for poverty relief and environmental sustainability, we are now looking for project volunteers, private sponsors, donors and more. If you are interested in taking action for either global poverty or the environment (or hopefully both!) please read on...

In the spring of 2008, Hope 81 launched a groundbreaking sportswear donation campaign to collect re-usable/out-of-season goods for developing countries in need. The lack of donation sites and alternatives for local Tokyo athletes to dispose of their (mostly high-end) sportswear items meant that an abundance of equipment was being placed in the burnable rubbish each month. Hope 81 began working to reduce the number of high-quality, re-usable goods that were unnecessarily going to waste. Youth athletes, professional athletes, sporting goods stores and many others immediately came on board to support the donation project over the first few months. Then, during Hope 81’s Youth Sports Ambassadors @ Beijing 2008 project, Hope 81 founder Jason Hutson attended the UN Sport for Development & Peace Ministerial Conference in Beijing and met with Papua New Guinea Government Minister of Sport & Community Development, Hon. Dame Carol Kidu. They discussed the possibility of building a sportswear donation campaign to assist local community members and provide relief in PNG. An agreement was made to start correspondence and a year later (11.2009), Hope 81 made its first visit to PNG’s Western Province of Daru-Kiunga.

Sportswear & More
After months of fundraising and planning efforts, and with the help of sponsors and supporters on both sides, Hutson hand-delivered 60 kgs. of sportswear goods to the Matkomnai village area with bags containing nearly 200 new and used sportswear items. With those uniforms, he also brought a new ‘Hope 81 Fitness Challenge’ designed to encourage more active goal-setting and higher achievement -- in sport and everyday life. The sportswear donation project gives teachers and community leaders some basic, yet instrumental tools to encourage health and wellness amongst the schoolchildren. While at the same time, introducing a fitness challenge to the Matkomnai community also serves as a way for teachers to regularly evaluate the progress and developments of the students, and reward them for their efforts with useful incentives (sportswear). Most importantly, this system will enable local actors and stakeholders themselves to implement and grow the project according to local needs/skill levels, and work with existing teacher-student dynamics. Hope 81 plans to provide skilled volunteers to help with further implementation and development, in addition to the annual shipments of sportswear donations, according to budget and available funding.

view downloadable pdf here

Take action for a better world...

With Hope 81’s first donation, we are seeing some small but hopeful results: our Tokyo project members stepping up to donate over 200 items and local project assistants in Matkomnai helping to implement a new fitness program (set to launch mid-February 2010). A variety of groups and organizations are now coming on board to help out in various ways, from Tokyo to Daru-Kiunga. This is one example of what sport can do to help bridge the gap for disadvantaged populations in need. To get involved in our project, you can start to take action by 1) donating your re-usable/out-of-season sportswear items at one of our monthly collection sites in Tokyo, or 2) sending us your sportswear donations via regular mail. Then in early June 2010, we will begin preparing our next shipment to PNG.

*We can also arrange a special pick-up for donations made within the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area, by request.