Press Release: Announcing 2 New Board Members

Minnesota, November 23, 2015: Uniting Distant Stars is happy to announce our new board members Philip Kaleewoun II and Florkime Paye, who were officially installed on October 25. Philip is new to UDS while Florkime has served as our volunteer project coordinator since 2014. Philip is a very active youth leader in Minnesota with organizations like Volunteers in Partnership, Rotaract, and Athletics Committed to Educating Students (ACES). Florkime is an international development professional, volunteering with Minnesota International NGO Network, interned in Liberia with Women’s Movement for Sustainable Development, and taught English in South Korea. Both Philip and Florkime bring a wealth of experience to UDS and we are fortunate to have them on board. Please read more about our new board members on our About UDS and Team.

Congratulations Philip and Florkime!!!

Uniting Distant Stars™, Inc. is a 501(c)3 tax deductible organization registered non-profit corporation in Minnesota, and accredited and registered no-government organization (NGO) in Liberia, West Africa. Its programs serve youth in Liberia. We provide educational support with scholarships and school supply drives. We also offer innovative programming such as our Backpacks for Peace to cultivate future leaders. For more information, please contact us at info@unitingdistantstars.com.

Enjoy a Tour of the UDS Learning Center in Liberia

What an exciting week! Thursday, October 15, our little learning center was visited and utilized by 35 students of all ages representing different schools in the community. Students either participated in one of the study classes covering subjects like math and phonics or completed their daily homework assignments. This post will give you a tour of our learning center that started with a few donated library books and microscope. Please enjoy a cup of coffee or tea as we warm your heart with these captivating photos of Liberia's studious young boys, girls, men and women taking full advantage of our facility. These beautiful photos were taken by our fabulous volunteer Rodney Johnson.

Welcome to the Uniting Distant Stars Learning Center Pictorial Tour!

We will start our tour on the porch where we hold our Backpacks for Peace training. Here you will find one young boy focused intently on his homework while a few students behind him attend a study class run by one of our youth leaders.

Now as you enter through the front door, you will find students sitting on a sofa along the left side of the room doing their homework.

This view is along the same wall, but looking towards the front door. Each student finds their particular space to work on homework. There is a constant flow of young people coming to the center after school. If you look toward the front door, you will find another study group run by a second youth leader.

Here is one happy little boy enjoying the books he selected from the library. Behind him is another view of the study class by the front door with students of varying ages.

Let's stop and say Hi to Rodney, who was busy posting these photos on his Facebook page. He is our IT guy, who has fixed one of three desktop computers donated early this year by Agnes Fallah Kamara, founder of the Straight From the Heart Center. We hope he can get the other two working, so he can start teaching the highly demanded basic computing skills class in our center.

Kelvin Fomba, UDS Co-Founder and Country Director, is helping these four young boys with their homework. Kelvin wears many hats with UDS from training auto mechanics to conducting study classes with our younger students.

This larger room might look familiar to you. This is where we hosted the Google Hangout with 50 Liberian youth for the Nobel Peace Prize Youth Forum at Augsburg College in Minnesota this past March. The white sheet on the wall is the projection screen for showing inspirational videos like the one created and published (click here)by our amazing youth leader volunteer Anna in Minnesota. Now let's enter though the door at the left of the screen to complete our tour.

As you step into this room, you will see it contains the library filled with books and the microscope, and also serves as a small classroom. Kelvin and a third youth leader are teaching a study class to another eager group of students.

As you turn to the other side of the room, you will find two youth scanning the bookshelves of the library while other students are busy with their homework at the table. This photo is priceless, because it shows how invaluable a library is to our students regardless of its size. We are extremely grateful to provide such a service for Liberia's aspiring youth.

We hope you enjoyed the tour of our learning center and thank you for taking the time to view each photo and caption. Uniting Distant Stars is dedicated to the education of Liberia's young people and this learning center is important part of our mission.

If you are interested in doing more to help improve this center for our youth in Liberia, there are many ways you can support this initiative.

• Donate by credit card by clicking the button below

• or by check at:

Uniting Distant Stars

4010 Lawndale LN N

Plymouth, MN 55446

• Select Uniting Distant Stars as part of company's annual United Way Campaign. One of our sustaining supporters, an employee of the University of Minnesota, added UDS to their annual giving last year and is doing it again this year.

• Utilize your company's Employee Match program. Another sustaining supporter has been utilizing their company's program since 2014.

• Shop at AmazonSmile and 0.5% of your purchase price will be donated to Uniting Distant Stars.

• Help us ship the remaining boxes of reading textbooks and library books that have been waiting to reach the hands of students in Liberia. The photos below were taken in 2012 after we had received the donated textbooks from St. Vincent de Paul School in Brooklyn Park by my cousin, a teacher at the school. We have shipped nine boxes of textbooks with our annual school supply drives in 2012, 2013 and 2014. We acquired three more boxes of library books late last year. We currently have 22 boxes to ship and the price per box was $75 (this includes clearing charges) based on IBXpress shipping costs from 2014. The total cost to ship the 22 boxes is roughly $1,650. Although IBXpress did finally deliver our 2014 shipment of school supplies on August 6, 2015, we have not received any communication that they are back in operation. So, we are looking for other alternatives for shipping companies and means to reduce or eliminate the cost with our 501(c)3 status.

  

We welcome your support, encouragement, and ideas to help us improve the quality of education for students in Liberia. Please share this post with others, who can help us achieve our goals.

Thank you again for your continued dedication, generosity and kindness in uplifting Liberia's bright young stars!!!

Our youth-made backpacks are now being worn by young students in Liberia

It has been said many times "good things come for those who wait." This clearly was evident at the Russ Wood Christian Academy's Back to School Program held on Sunday, October 11, 2015. After a year of challenges and disruptions, the students of Russ Wood finally received their school supplies shipped in 2014 that filled the backpacks made by our youth during the 4th quarter of 2014.

Read our blog post "Miracles Do Happen" about our 2014 shipment of school supplies.

In preparation for this much anticipated day, our team in Liberia faced yet another challenge. Russ Wood increased their enrollment from 250 to 300 students. UDS fearless leader Kelvin Fomba had to adjust the supplies to accommodate the extra 50 students and use plastic bags to package them since we had only 250 backpacks. Saturday, October 10, he organized the UDS volunteers to sort the supplies and fill the backpacks/bags for each student. This was a day-long endeavor.

UDS Volunteers sorting supplies for 300 students at Russ Wood Christian Academy.

Three UDS volunteers filling our youth-made backpacks with school supplies.

Note: We plan to restart production of the backpacks once the rainy season subsides.

The rest of this post is a detailed report (lightly edited) from our young correspondent and photographer Rodney Johnson, who shares the highlights of the day.

Yesterday was another wonderful and exciting day at the back to school program for Russ Wood Christian Academy in Torpkah Camp, Old Road Sinkor, Monrovia, Liberia. The program started at around 1:30 pm GMT. The program began with Russ Wood students giving contributions by singing songs, reading some favorite bible verses and poems. This was followed by the Uniting Distant Stars Youth Group, who gave their contribution by doing a drama entitled “Say No to Bribes in School.”

UDS Youth Group performing their play "Say No to Bribes in School."

It was indeed an educative play with lots of laughter, and everyone being fully entertained by our youth group’s performance. The play was about some students who don’t pay attention in school when the teacher is giving lessons. These students can be busy with their phones, playing cards, and chatting with each other while class is in session. Even when the teacher is conducting an examination, these students sit doing nothing at all. When the examination time is over, they only write their names and the subject title on their answer sheets before presenting it to the teacher. This results in these students, who did not participate in class or complete their studies at home, to meet the teacher in private and pay some amount of money for their grades.

In this particular performance, there was a teacher, who had a habit of receiving bribes from some students in return for grades. Other students were not happy with this teacher for always taking bribes from students. So they decided to take the matter to the principal of the school. The principal asked for the teacher’s name and then sent for him to come to his office. The principal asked the teacher if what the students were saying was true or not. The teacher denied it and said he did not know what the students were talking about. However, the principal continued to receive numerous complaints from the students about the same teacher, so he the prepared a letter of dismissal.

The principal again called the teacher to his office and presented the letter to him. The principal stressed he never wanted to see him anymore, because his school is well known and has a good reputation. Therefore, he will not allow one teacher to tarnish his school’s image. This skit also encouraged other students to not act like the students in the play, who bribe teachers for grades. Also, they admonished teachers who are in the habit of receiving bribes from students for grades and asked them to please stop what they are doing. They added that this is not helping our students, because it will not bring about the positive changes we want from Liberia’s youth to make in their respective homes, surrounding environment, and the nation as a whole. Everyone was very pleased with this play and gave the UDS youth a round of applause.

Russ Wood's MC for Russ Wood's Back to School Program.

The MC of the program on behalf of the principal, teachers, parents and guardians extended their thanks and appreciation to the Uniting Distant Stars youth, staff and executives for their hard work in forming this youth group. He stated this is what the nation needs today in fostering unity among students and also encouraging them to be creative. The MC introduced the UDS co-founder and country director, Kelvin Fomba, who was the guest speaker of the program to give his remarks. Kelvin started by thanking the youth for their wonderful performance and how they make him fill proud of having them as young UDS volunteers willing to bring about the change that is needed in the nation.  Kelvin also encouraged these young people to continue with their good work, because it will make them to become brighter stars in the future.

Kelvin sharing the story in now the backpacks were made by our youth.

He continued by thanking the teachers, who are spending countess hours, helping these young children to become the nation’s builders of tomorrow. He repeated the message from the youth group's performance to any teacher who might take bribes from students to relinquish this habit. He stressed this behavior will lead students to steal or into other bad activities to obtain money to pay for grades.

Kelvin next addressed the parents and guardians by thanking them for their wonderful and brilliant children. He said that if we are to succeed in building up these youth to become prosperous in life, we need their support. He then stated in order for these young children to achieve their goals, the parents and guardians need to play their part. This includes encouraging their children to value education more than silver or gold, because when you educate a child you educate a whole nation. He pleaded with them to stop sending their children to sell market goods on the street when school is in session or during study time. He also asked if they could put their children’s homework time before doing house work.

Parents and guardians sitting with their children during the program.

Kelvin ended his remarks by informing the parents and guardians of the opening of the UDS Learning Center and encouraged them to send their children for study classes organized by the UDS youth. The youth are voluntarily helping to teach young children on how to use these materials donated by our UDS counterparts in the USA. After Mr. Fomba’s remarks, the backpacks and some other school materials was presented to the students of Russ Wood Christian Academy by the UDS team. Everyone was happy and the parents admired the handy work of our youth when they saw the backpacks. Other people requested to get backpacks for their own children, who were not attending Russ Wood.

This little girl received her red backpack filled with school supplies.

This boy's smiles shows his delight in receiving his backpack filled with school supplies.

This boy is holding his new backpack filled with school supplies with care.

This little girl is delighted to receive her backpack filled with school supplies.

The program ended with Russ Wood students, UDS volunteers and UDS youth group taking general group photos.

Russ Wood Students' holding holding up their gifts.

Here is a wider view of Russ Wood's Students showing their gifts.

Some Russ Wood Students wearing their backpacks as they go home.

Two girls standing outside Russ Wood school at the close of the program.

Thanks to everyone with Uniting Distant Stars in Liberia and the United States of America in making sure this program was a huge success. Let’s not forget our sponsors and donors all around the world for their support. If it hadn’t been for all of you, we couldn’t have reached this far.

Our fabulous UDS Youth Group (light blue shirts) and Volunteers (dark blue shirts) celebrating a successful day.

Kelvin Fomba squatting in the middle of his hard working and dedicated team.

Thanks again Rodney for your fabulous report! If you like to see more photos of all three back to school programs for City of Joy, Rogma International, and Russ Wood Christian Academy, please view our Facebook Album (click here).

As you can see, our youth in Liberia are taking an active role with our programs. They receive their encouragement and inspiration from you as one of our Star Supporters! Please feel honored in what you have helped accomplish in Liberia with our youth. Thank you for your generosity and kindness!

Miracles Do Happen

Life is a daily flow of learning. Any moment provides an opportunity to instill knowledge and wisdom. This stream of insight is often blocked when facing challenging or difficult situations. These experiences teach the art of courage and humility to relinquish control and detach from outcomes. This simple act of letting go is when Miracles Happen.

Uniting Distant Stars (UDS) experienced this invaluable lesson last year. It all started on November 19, 2014, when the boxes for the 4th Annual School Supply Drive started their long journey from Minnesota to Liberia by road and sea. We expected these to arrive sometime in January or February 2015 based on past experiences with the same shipping company.

14-cubic-foot boxes filled with supplies taped and shrink wrapped to be shipped on a sea cargo container.

When the calendar turned over to January 2015, the calls started to the offices in both Minnesota and Liberia, but no one answered. As we entered into February, still no communication or delivery of the standard letter from the shipping company about our supplies. When March arrived, our investigation intensified on the whereabouts of the boxes, but produced no results after several weeks of personal inquiries and online searches of the company's status. In April, our supporters received an email about the unknown location of our boxes filled with donated supplies. By the end of May, we believed the boxes were lost and gave up any hope of seeing them again.

July rolled in and it was time to launch our next school supply drive. This year we opted to only accept financial donations to purchase the supplies in Liberia since there was no point of repeating last year's disappointment. The goal was to raise $2,000 to purchase supplies for our 250 students at Russ Wood Christian Academy, who we have served since 2012. The campaign started off slow, but gained momentum with an anonymous challenge grant offered on August 2. The grant would match the first $500 donations if received on or before August 16. This prompted both current and new donors to take advantage of this opportunity to double their impact within the first few days.

Then something unbelievable happened on August 6. An email appeared on my phone from Kelvin Fomba, UDS Co-Founder and Country Director in Liberia, stating "Photos of boxes received". In total dismay, I thought to myself "what boxes?" I opened one of the photos on my phone, but could not believe my eyes. I then viewed all the photos on the larger computer monitor and still was baffled with what I saw. How could this be? After nine months of no communication or any information about the fate of our shipment, the boxes were now being off-loaded from a truck by our team in Liberia. The boxes and supplies arrived unscathed and with everything intact.

Left to right: Boxes being off-loaded from truck and supplies unpacked and stacked at our site in Liberia.

Without a doubt this was a Miracle! The shock remained as we continued with our current campaign. Only $130 was needed to receive the challenge grant. This was unlocked the following day on August 7 by one of our sustaining supporters. Wow! Within two days, the unexpected supplies from 2014 were received and this year's campaign was halfway to goal. These blessings clearly had to be shared with more than one school.

The decision was simple. The supplies from 2014 would be given to the 250 Russ Wood students, the intended beneficiaries. The original plan for these supplies were to fill the 250 backpacks made by our youth during our 2014 pilot project. The 2015 campaign, which raised $2,035, would be shared by two schools--City of Joy and Rogma International. The combined total of these two schools is about 250 students. UDS went from supporting one primary school to three in a matter of days.

City of Joy School in Congo Town, Liberia. Kelvin visited in February 2015.

Rogma International School in Paynesville, Liberia from Kelvin's visit in February.

We are happy to announce the supply distribution will occur during the first two weeks in September. Each school will hold an opening program for the 2015/2016 academic year starting with City of Joy on September 6. Kelvin and the UDS volunteer team have been invited to share in this day and present the supplies to the students. Photos from these programs will be posted on our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter pages as they come in. A blog post will follow highlighting the festivities and stories from each school. All three schools are overjoyed and send their blessings to all our supporters.

In closing this post, Uniting Distant Stars teams in Liberia and Minnesota are extremely grateful for the continued generosity and support from our donors! UDS is equally thankful for the important lesson learned of letting go and receiving what is meant to be. We now know with certainty that Miracles do happen!

Calling for Volunteers for Taste of Liberia and Taking Applications for New Board Members

Volunteers Needed:

Uniting Distant Stars (UDS) is a non-profit sponsor of the 1st Annual Taste of Liberia on July 26 at The Lodge (Stage 81), Robbinsdale Town Center at 4080 W. Broadway Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55442. UDS will have a booth at the event and we hope you will stop by to learn more about our programs in Liberia.

In gearing up for this big event, we are seeking volunteers in the following three areas:

1. Event Planning Committee: prepare promotional items for UDS booth.
2. Booth Volunteers: work at both in two-hour shifts from 1PM to 9PM.
3. Clean-up Team: Need two volunteers to help clean-up site at the close of the event.

If you are interested in helping, please complete our volunteer form and you will be contacted by our planning committee chair Florkime Paye.

Board Member Posting: 

Uniting Distant Stars is looking for global-minded individuals, who are interested in helping us fulfill our organization's mission to inspire and support youth. Since we are a growing organization, this is a working board, and board members are expected to assist in developing our operational capacity, outreach opportunities, fundraising and general promotion of UDS. We are seeking to add three more board members, who are based in Twin Cities Metro in Minnesota.

If you are interested in applying, please go to volunteer board member job posting at Minnesota Council of Nonprofits for more details. This posting closes on July 28, 2015.

Please contact us at info@unitingdistantstars.com, if you need more information about either opportunity. 

Backpacks for Peace: Project Report

Uniting Distant Stars (UDS) completed three months of the Backpacks for Peace Service Learning Project on May 22, 2015. This post includes the project report compiled by Kelvin Fomba, UDS Co-Founder and Country Director in Liberia. This was reviewed with and edited by Heather Cannon-Winkelman, UDS Co-Founder and Executive Director in the U.S.

As we near the end of the Backpacks for Peace training program, we are delighted to have made it this far. We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to all the Uniting Distant Stars partners, sponsors, board members, volunteers and well-wishers around the world for giving us the strength to make this youth-focused project possible in Liberia!

We especially recognize Sundance Family Foundation, African Dream Academy and UDS donors for contributing to this unique training program! Your generous support helped train 20 Liberian youth on how to properly operate a treadle sewing machine and produce backpacks using recycled material with little to no assistance. They have gained confidence and reawakened their creative and innovative spirit.  This program has inspired our youth to be the next generation of nation builders in Liberia. 

UDS Lead Trainer, Charles Mamba and UDS students at work. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

The Backpacks for Peace program recruited 20 children and young adults (ages 12 to 20) from primary to post-secondary academic institutions in the Monrovia area: Russ Wood Christian Academy, Open Bible High School, All God’s Children High School, Assemblies of God High School, United Methodist University, and few more. Both genders were represented with 16 females and 4 males. Our recruits will be referred to in this report as both Trainees and Students.

The training program was divided into three parts: 

1. First month was learning how to operate the treadle sewing machine and how to join the plastic squares into a workable fabric (similar to quilting).
2. Second month was focused on sewing the cloth lining to the exterior plastic fabric and making the individual pieces for the backpack.
3. Third month was teaching the final production process of sewing the individual pieces together to make a completed backpack.

Part 1: This part of training was both wonderful and intensive, because our youth were eager to learn something after being idle for several months due to the Ebola crisis. The training started one week before the schools opened on March 2nd for the 2014/2015 academic year. This was the only time the students’ school schedules were less demanding. They did extremely well in meeting the objectives for the first month. As stated in our first report, all trainees were able to properly pedal the sewing machine and the majority were able to join the plastic squares into strips. The students needing more time with this area were able to catch up in the early stages of part 2. 

UDS students learning how to sew the cloth lining to the plastic. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

Part 2:  Many challenges were faced during the second month including: 1) The shortened school year created a rigorous academic schedule for our trainees.  2) Training was practically halted during the first two weeks of April, because the students were studying and taking their first period exams. 3) The trainees’ free-time was consumed with completing their homework and daily chores at home. We quickly adapted our process by placing the students in smaller groups and scheduled their training at convenient times throughout the day.

It was during this month, they learned how to sew the cloth lining to the exterior plastic fabric and cutout the individual pieces. Both areas had their share of difficulties. Sewing the soft lining to the hard plastic required concentration, patience and good eye-to-hand coordination to ensure there was no gaps. Cutting out the rounded pieces of the upper part of the backpack needed some precision since the shape and size had to match the adjoining piece in order to add the zipper. By the end of April, our trainees continued to perform well and 80% have met or exceeded the expectations for the second month.

UDS student carefully cuts out one of the straps for the backpacks. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

An interesting development occurred in the second month. Our trainers gained some self-awareness on how they needed to handle the challenges and disruptions with the training. They also demonstrated their willingness to work longer hours to accommodate the schedule changes. We highly commend them for being patient and flexible, and doing an exceptional job despite the difficulties.

UDS students working at different stages of the production process. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

Part 3:  During the first two weeks in may, our trainers spent extra time with the 20% needing more guidance on how to properly sew the lining to the plastic pieces. This process is essential to the production, because one cannot make an entire backpack if they don’t know how to sew the individual pieces. At the time of writing this report, 80% of our students are able to produce a completed backpack. Ten students can make a backpack without supervisor while six need some instruction. Our youth have made approximately 100 backpacks, which is one-third of our goal.

UDS Students working on the final production of the backpack. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

With the challenges and time constraints, we will extend the training two to three weeks more. This will provide our trainees more practical experience with sewing and making the remaining backpacks towards our goal of 300. During the last week of training, the students will complete an evaluation of the program designed by Florkime Paye, UDS Volunteer in the U.S. Their feedback will help us measure it effectiveness and how we can do better in the future.

Charles Mamba, UDS lead  trainer and professional tailor, sorting and counting the backpacks. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

PRODUCT (BACKPACK) OVERVIEW

There is a growing demand for our backpacks to be sold in the market as people have become aware of our program. This is our long-term goal for this training initiative, because it will provide necessary funding to help sustain itself. However, we have some logistical issues to figure out such as production costs, pricing (both retail and wholesale), and acquiring a suitable site that can serve as the training center and warehouse for the finished products. 

Our youth are involved with determining the next steps to develop the business side of this program. This process will include the feedback from Heather's presentation at the Acara Impact Venture Review in Minnesota after attending its Spring Institute. She pitched our Backpacks for Peace program on April 28, 2015, to a small audience of business and non-profit professionals. They provided valuable information and ideas to guide UDS as we develop our business model.

Our students are equally eager to start using a backpack for school, especially now that it is the rainy season. As part of graduating from this program, each student will be given a backpack. This will be a great way to market the product, because they have a vested interest with its success.

The UDS students have worked hard in making the backpacks and will receive one at their graduation. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

The primary recipients of this project's backpacks will be school children of school we have sponsored since 2012. These will be filled with school supplies as part of our annual school supply drive.

The current backpack is designed primarily for students, because of its smaller size and ability to carry their school books. We still need to test the maximize holding capacity to determine if any changes are needed for its durability. Our team is exploring other styles and sizes of backpacks to meet the needs of the people in Liberia, who rely on public transportation. They need something to carry their personal items during their daily travels, and the backpack is the preferred choice.

This large bag was designed by Kelvin Fomba and made by Charles Mamba, the original co-creators of the backpacks. They felt no other bag would be suitable for the backpacks except for one made from the same material. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

PROGRAM NEXT STEPS

After this training ends in mid-June, we will take a break to reflect on our successes and areas for improvement. This time will also be utilized to finding support in Liberia since UDS is accredited as a non-government organization (NGO) as of April 30, 2015. Another training is being planned when the school year ends sometime in July or August (date is yet to be determined). This is in response to the number of  youth, who have visited our site and asked how they can enroll in the training. We have received $1,290 by four of our sustaining donors in the last two months and this will be applied to this next training session. 
 

CONCLUSION

It has been a remarkable feat to implement such a program during a national crisis. We first piloted this project at the height of the Ebola outbreak in 2014 with training four youth while developing the curriculum and production standards. We launched the inaugural Backpacks for Peace Service Learning Project before Liberia was declared Ebola-free. We worked with 20 promising youth for three months training them how to sew on a machine and produce a marketable product. 

UDS trainers and students during the evening class. Photo taken by Rodney Johnson, UDS Volunteer

What are the results? Our youth acquired basic sewing skills to where they are not only repairing their school uniforms but the clothes of their family and friends. Our youth gained the confidence in their own ability to learn a valuable trade. Our youth realized the power of innovation by making a quality product with recycled material. Our youth contributed to the success of our training by showing up to class and sharing their insights on how they benefited from this program.

Our team in Liberia is extremely grateful for the continued encouragement, support and prayers that has been given by the generous and kindhearted Uniting Distant Stars community! Blessings to each and everyone of you! 

Press Release: Uniting Distant Stars is now an accredited NGO in Liberia

Minnesota, May 4, 2015: on Friday, April 30, 2015, Uniting Distant Stars (UDS) received their Certificate of Accreditation by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning as a non-government organization (NGO) in the Republic of Liberia. We started this process in February to legalize our organization. We received our Certificate of Business Registration (Non for profit (NGO)) on February 20, 2015, a requirement for the accreditation. Now as a legally recognized organization, UDS plans to seek out additional support in Liberia for our youth-focused programming.

Uniting Distant Stars, Inc. is a 501(c)3 tax deductible organization, is registered as a non-profit corporation in Minnesota, and registered/accredited as a non-government organization (NGO) in Liberia, West Africa. Its programs serve youth in Liberia. We have been providing educational support since 2011 with scholarships and distributing school supplies. We also offer innovative programming to cultivate future leaders. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.unitingdistantstars.com/ or contact us at info@unitingdistantstars.com.