Colorado Community Gathers to Support Women, Agriculture in East Africa

Par­tic­i­pants sur­round a por­trait that shows a woman who is a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the work that Den­ver-based African Devel­op­ment Promise does in Ugan­da and Rwanda.

Thanks to Den­ver-based Africa Devel­op­ment Promise (ADP), an esti­mat­ed 150 peo­ple came out to wit­ness the work that the Amer­i­can NGO does, thou­sands of miles away from its Col­orado head­quar­ters. Billed as a Win­ter Gala, the fundrais­ing event occurred on Sat­ur­day, March 4. The loca­tion was the Arva­da Cen­ter for the Arts and Humanities. 

Atten­dees includ­ed mem­bers of local com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, busi­ness­es, and edu­ca­tion­al lead­ers. Sit­ting at tables, par­tic­i­pants shared in sto­ries about their love for farm­ing, agri­cul­tur­al coop­er­a­tives, voca­tion­al train­ing, and the things that help rur­al women in East Africa improve their lives. 

The cel­e­bra­tion was pre­ced­ed by musi­cal enter­tain­ment and West African drum­ming from Kofi Togo. This led to din­ner, and drinks, cul­mi­nat­ing in a time of tes­ti­monies about the impor­tant mis­sion the 9‑year-old orga­ni­za­tion said it is play­ing to improve the lives of women in Ugan­da and Rwanda. 

“The job of devel­op­ment takes a long time and we are here for the long haul,” said Mon­i­ca LaBiche Brown, founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor of ADP, dur­ing a video intro­duc­tion of the orga­ni­za­tion. Remarks were made by Nina Miller, ADP’s board chair, Benil­da Samuels of the AYA foun­da­tion, as well as Mowa Haile of Sky Blue Builders. Stephanie Daniels of KUNC, an NPR-affil­i­at­ed radio sta­tion in Gree­ley Col­orado, mod­er­at­ed the soiree. 

The high­light of the event was a keynote speech deliv­ered via video by Wan­ji­ra Math­ai, daugh­ter of the late Nobel peace lau­re­ate and envi­ron­men­tal­ist, Wan­gari Math­ai. Math­ai hailed the work that ADP was doing, espe­cial­ly as it relates to uplift­ing women and the under­priv­i­leged in Uganda. 

When asked by Daniels about what was next on the orga­ni­za­tion’s plans as it looks to the future, the direc­tor said even while they have tried to scale back, they remain com­fort­able with the pro­gram mod­el they have adopt­ed. This, she said, includes the orga­ni­za­tion’s strate­gic plan through 2025. 

In her clos­ing remarks, LaBiche Brown thanked the atten­dees for help­ing ADP raise funds that she said would be used to improve the lives of hun­dreds of women in the com­mu­ni­ties the orga­ni­za­tion serves.