Steph moved into a new leadership role this year, becoming Co-Executive Director.

She’s done an incredible job coordinating our work stateside and directing our fundraising efforts.

And as part of our effort to practice what we preach in Ghana, we hired 2 new women to our RHC Ghana Executive Team this year.

Read the profiles for Alnice and Comfort here.

Godwin left the team to pursue his Bachelor’s Degree.

We wish him the best and are grateful for his work as the first Ghana Communications Director in our history.

Our USA team continues to meet every month to coordinate our work in Ghana.

It is hard to believe many of us started this organization more than 5 years ago.  We’ve been volunteering ever since.

We do it because we believe so strongly in the work we do empowering women.

And we also have a lot of fun together.

And of course kids are always welcome.

We welcomed a new baby this year and are expecting another next year!

Where would we be without our supporters?

We can’t even begin to imagine. This photo is from our first ever fundraiser more than 6 years ago and many of you have been with us ever since.

We added nearly 40 new monthly donors this year and now have over 80 members of The Collective.

Click here to read more or to sign up!

It wasn’t easy to do.

Steph ran 45 miles around Mt. Hood in a single day to inspire donors to join us.

She lost several toenails and learned a lot in the process.

Read about her experience here.

Two new volunteers joined us in Ghana in November. A big thanks to Jen and Liz.

If you’re interested in coming on a future trip, send us a message here.

Steph shared our work with a group of engineers in Portland.

We’re always excited to talk about what we do.  If you’ve got an opportunity for us to do so, let us know!

Our supporters are the best, and we aren’t biased in the least.  

And now for the really exciting stuff!

In November of this year we expanded the Kekeli Program!

18 new women joined the program and we are so excited to introduce them to you.

There are now 47 Kekeli Women from 47 different communities in the Akatsi North and South Districts!

The map of the north and south districts is becoming progressively dotted with more and more Kekeli women.

Our 10 year goal is to train a Kekeli Woman from every community in these two districts.

During our November training, the current Kekeli Women led the training of the new Kekeli Women, and did an incredible job.

This has been a goal of ours for years, and to see it realized was incredibly rewarding.

Before the training we conducted a community needs survey in 8 of the new communities, interviewing over 280 community members.

The results surprised even us and confirmed how important the Kekeli Women are to their communities.

Click here to read more about the survey results.

We are still tallying the numbers for 2016, but the Kekeli Women are on track to teach more than 500 times to nearly 20,000 community members.

That is nearly double the number of people reached from 2015.

They don’t only teach but also treat wounds and help coordinate care in other ways.

In November we launched an antenatal monitoring program.  The Kekeli Women will monitor the progress of pregnant women in their communities, educate them, and encourage regular antenatal and newborn infant care.

To read more about the program, click here.

There was more sad news this year.  Comfort, a Kekeli Woman we trained in 2013, passed away.

The Kekeli Women attended her funeral and shared with her family what she meant to the group.  This marks two years in a row we’ve lost Kekeli Women, by far the hardest thing we’ve endured as an organization.

The women’s spirits remain high, their belief in the work endures, and we press on with Comfort in our hearts.

In fiscal year 2015/16 we raised $28,473 in direct support.

Click here for a closer look.

Private donors cover 100% of our overhead costs so 100% of your donations go toward our work in Ghana.

This covers things like credit card processing fees, insurance, web-hosting fees, and the like.  (if you’d like to help us with these overhead costs, send us an email at contact@rhcollaborative.org)

We raised nearly a $1000 on #GivingTuesday, which we use to buy gifts of rice and oil for the Kekeli Women and the RHC staff for the holidays.

A few weeks ago we received the largest one-time donation in our history.

This donation will give us financial security as we grow our programs.

And our end of the year triple matching campaign was a huge success, raising nearly $5,000 for our programs.

We aim to be as transparent as possible with our supporters.

To read more about where your money goes, click here. And if you ever have questions about our management, please reach out to us.

One of our core values is long-term commitment.

Our financial support and outlook set a strong foundation to continue our work for years to come

Funding is a necessary part of what we do, but the work of the Kekeli Women is what gets us excited.

There is much more work to be done. With 18 new Kekeli Women on board this year, we plan to reach many more people (and children) this coming year.