Lightforce One Empowerment Campaign
The mission of Lightforce One is to uplift and empower the underprivileged and the marginalized of the world.
To date, our work has been focused on a large orphanage and primary school in Uganda where thousands of lives have been impacted by a well and irrigation system. We have also funded crops, started a chicken farming project, started a brick-making project, opened a third orphanage site for secondary school children who would have normally aged out of the orphanage, started a program for sponsoring children with either annual or monthly donations, and numerous other projects.
We have also begun working on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In a community where alcoholism is reported to be around 80%, we have launched the first AA meeting that we are aware of on the reservation, with more planned!
Now, we are going to start making bigger differences and impacts with larger projects intended to have meaningful impacts on even more lives!
Lightforce One is raising $300,000 for ambitious projects planned throughout the end of 2022 and all of 2023 (18-Months). Our efforts will be focused on continuing our work in Africa and beginning work on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, located in South Dakota.
Lightforce One is not affiliated with any religion and as such, does not proselytize. We are simply here to make the world a better place for the less fortunate with no strings attached.
Uganda
While the whole world is being hit with inflation, Uganda is being hit particularly hard. The price of staple foods like corn, rice, and beans are up from 225 to 275% year over year! You can imagine how this affects already tight budgets.
Lightforce One works with an orphanage in Uganda that has over 500 children in primary school and almost 100 children in secondary school. This work takes place in and benefits two villages and one small city. The primary focus of our work there is to help them become financially self-sufficient with projects like agriculture, making bricks, and soon metal fabrication.
Problems like drug and alcohol abuse and AIDS are large contributors to children becoming orphans in Uganda. So, we want to start working on root causes and prevent the problem of children becoming orphaned from happening in the first place. We will be starting some community programs such as alcohol abuse recovery by starting and supporting A.A. meetings.
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At the orphanage in Uganda that we work with, we will restart the chicken livestock business. We decided not to rear another crop of chickens last year due to the COVID shutdowns limiting demand for chickens in Uganda. Now that restaurants are open again, we will restart this project and expand it to full capacity. This helps raise funds for the orphanages operating expenses leading toward self-sufficiency with the goal of not having to rely on donations one day.
In Uganda, metal fabrication is an important trade. Almost all doors and windows are made by metal fabricators, as well as the higher quality bunk beds (which are sorely needed at the orphanage).
We will be purchasing all of the necessary equipment and protective gear to start metal fabrication. The items mentioned above can be made either for the orphanage to use or for them to sell and raise money for the orphanage operations.
With the war in Ukraine, a major exporter of wheat, there is a developing serious shortage of wheat. We will be renting additional land to farm wheat, which again can either be used or sold. With the higher wheat prices, this will be a significant help to the budget at the orphanage. It will also help with the developing worldwide wheat shortage, at least a little bit.
We recently opened a 3rd orphanage site for secondary school-aged children who would normally have just aged out of schooling. Currently this site is just an orphanage and not an orphanage/school. The children are sent to public school, which is a more expensive and lower quality education. We will buy land, build a campus, and hire staffing in order to school them ourselves. Private school education is far superior to public school education in Uganda, and it is our goal to give these kids the best chances for success possible.
Currently, there is only one A.A. group in the entire country of Uganda. It is located in Kampala, the largest city of the country.
We will be working to establish an A.A. group in the city of Jinja and then expand some meetings into the villages.
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Pine Ridge is the most economically challenged community in the United States and among the most challenged in the western hemisphere.
- The alcoholism rate is believed to be about 80%
- Median household income is about $5,000 per year
- Unemployment ranges from 80 to 90%
- Often 3 and 4 families live in single-family homes, many of which are mobile homes
- High school drop-out rate is over 70%
- The teen suicide rate is 3 times the national average
The founder of Lightforce One has wanted to work to help these people for years and has finally begun this work in the summer of 2022! Below are some of the projects that we have planned for 2022-2023.
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While the alcoholism rate is reported to be 90% and there are 40,000 people on the reservation, there is not a single AA meeting on the reservation that we are aware of. The closest one is in Rapid City which is about a one-hour drive for a large portion of the population and even farther for others. While AA is not the only answer for alcoholism and it doesn’t work for everybody, as Father Joseph Murphy, a respected speaker on the subject, says: “AA is what works best for most”
Lightforce One has already started one AA meeting there and has plans to start others, building out a robust AA presence on the reservation.
Lack of housing is a big problem on the reservation. There is not enough housing and as a result multiple families or generations will live in a small single-family residence. The weather is very harsh in South Dakota and a lot of the buildings were made cheaply or are mobile homes and do not hold up to the hailstorms and other harsh conditions. Since there is so little money on the reservation, many of the homes are in disrepair. Many of the homes also have severe mold infestations.
Lightforce One will be helping with this problem by repairing broken down homes and building new ones out of brick, which holds up much better to the weather there. In addition to using volunteers, we will be hiring tribal members to do the building and repairs which contributes to the local ecosystem.
Many cannot afford to heat their homes during the winter or have to really limit their heating and this sometimes even results in deaths. Lightforce One will use infrared camera technology to identify heat loss in homes and businesses during the harsh and very cold winters. In response to the findings, we will make improvements in energy efficiency such as insulation or upgrading doors and windows.
The many benefits of this project will include staying warmer in their homes and businesses, money being wasted on heat loss can be used for other things and hopefully even stay on the reservation. In addition to the volunteers, there will also be tribal members who are paid to make these repairs and upgrades, contributing further to their ecosystem, and some will even be learning trades!
There are homes with wells that have run dry and some with no wells at all. Additionally, wells are needed for agricultural projects. Lightforce One will be providing wells where needed and improving existing wells that are no longer producing water for whatever reason.
Unemployment is 80 to 90% on the reservation. There is very little opportunity for work on the reservation. There are also very few businesses on the reservation. For example, there is no laundromat. Lightforce One has a number of plans to work on making a dent in this issue.
Lightforce One will build and run an online marketplace for natives to sell their goods online and reach a worldwide market. Unlike other platforms like Amazon and eBay, this is not a profit-driven project for Lightforce One. As such, the sellers will have much lower fees to pay for their sales to cover operating costs and bank fees only.
All of the reservation land is owned by the tribe and leased out to individuals and businesses. Most of the farming and ranching that is done on tribal land is done by non-tribal people and businesses. So, while the land is profitable, most of the farming and ranching is being done by non-native business people. So, the tribe gets their money for the land, but agricultural profits go off the reservation!
Lightforce One will begin a campaign in which we help natives to lease land for their own agriculture, get then training and coaching on succeeding in these endeavors, and start a co-op for more expensive equipment such as tractors and their attachments. Acre by acre tribal members will begin controlling and profiting from more and more of their land. As more and more land is farmed and ranched by tribal members, more money is made on the reservation. The GDP goes up!
A number of businesses on the reservation have struggled and some even failed, due to a lack of certain skill sets. These skills could be anything from equipment maintenance to small business management.
There was a laundromat on the reservation that failed because the owner did not know how to repair the machines, so he had to spend a large portion of his revenue on bringing out a repair technician. That laundromat might still be open had he had those skillsets.
Lightforce One will help with training and coaching on small business management as well as general professional development for the business owners.