Welcome

As HIV/AIDS ravages families and communities in Africa, grandmothers have emerged as the continent's unrecognized heroes. Surrounded by poverty, hunger and desolation, they care for children orphaned by AIDS, sometimes as many as ten to fifteen in one household. These incredibly strong and courageous women bury their own children and become parents again, calling on astonishing reserves of love and emotional resilience. But they do so with almost no support. Sub-Saharan Africa has overwhelming numbers of children orphaned by AIDS — an estimated 13 million, projected to reach 18-20 million by the year 2010. As the death rate accelerates, countries and communities simply cannot cope.

Gogo is a Zulu word meaning grandmother. The GogoGetters is a local group of Cobourg, Ontario and area residents coming together to raise awareness about the issues that these grandmothers are facing in Africa and to raise money to support projects funded by the Stephen Lewis Foundation.  Our GogoGetters group is one of the more than 150 groups across Canada who have taken up the call to action and together have raised over $1,000,000 for the campaign.  The Stephen Lewis Foundation directs these funds to community-level organizations in 14 sub-Saharan African countries that provide grandmothers with much needed support such as food, housing grants, school fees for their grandchildren and grief counselling.

Help us to help the gogos.  Find out what you can do here, and please consider donating to The Stephen Lewis Foudation online.  It's quick and easy to do and you'll get a tax receipt.

For more information about this group or upcoming events, please contact Gillian at gillian_berridge@hotmail.com.

For more about the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, refer to www.stephenlewisfoundation.org.

The GogoGetters Present the film "A Grandmother's Tribe"

 
 
The Northumberland GogoGetters present "A Granmother's Tribe", a film by Dean Easterbrook & Qiujing Wong (Borderless Productions), Saturday May 2nd, 2009 at the Cobourg Public Library at 10:30AM.
 

 
 
A Grandmother's Tribe captures the lives of two Kenyan grandmothers who have stepped into the void after the loss of their own children to raise their young grandchildren. Through an "unobstructed lens" the film gives an insight into their world of survival in village and urban life as they prepare for Christmas in Africa. It is estimated that 63% of HIV-infected individuals in the world (approximately 25 of 40 million) live in the sub-Sahara region of Africa. These numbers have created an unprecedented 13 million orphans.

These two incredible women represent thousands of their kind who, in this late stage of life, are literally starting over again to raise orphaned children -- feeding, educating and caring for the "sickly" ones. The challenge is enormous as they deal with the grief of their own losses and poor health in order to feed, educate and care for an ever-growing number of orphaned children. They struggle on a daily basis to come to terms with a disease they do not understand -- an unnamed disease whose stigma isolates them further from the communities they depend on to survive.
 
"When the Grandmothers speak, the Earth will be healed" - Hopi Prophecy"

 

GogoGetters Scrabble Tournament - Spellabrate for a Great Cause

Break out your dictionaries and start studying.  The GogoGetters present our first annual Scrabble Tournament on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at the Salvation Army Citadel on Ballentine St. in Cobourg.

 
If you're interested in participating or you'd like more details, send us an email at goodwordsforafrica@yahoo.ca.

Brad Halls and Laura Harp Provide a Fabulous Evening of Entertainment.

November 15, 2007

Our third musical evening was another tremendous success with a terrific performance by local favourites Brad Halls and Laura Harp at our favourite spot, Meet at 66 King East in Cobourg.   

Thanks again to Edward and Diana for letting us use such a wonderful venue, this time we used both rooms.  Brad and Laura wowed the crowd in the new room while the original room hosted our silent auction, overseen by Penny.  Bidding was fierce.

Marilyn and Donna were co-MCs and did a great job.

The evening couldn't have gone better.

Here's a short clip of Brad and Laura.

 

African Grannies Visit Cobourg!

The GogoGetters were honoured and delighted to host two visiting African Grannies for a short visit with refreshments, wisdom, questions and answers. Mama Zodawa and Darlina held court with a group including our members, young people from the West High School's Interact Club, and pastors and parishoners from St. Peter's Church among others.

All were charmed by the Grannies, members of the South African AIDS activist group TAC, and impressed with their message. We were also delighted to meet Julie Coultas of the Stephen Lewis Foundation who accompanied the women.

A wonderful afternoon!

Click here to visit our blog and read a couple of articles from the local papers describing the event.

GogoGetters Launch new Fundraising Website:

http://www.gogoshoppers.ca

How it works:

Diana and those Guys Charm the Crowd at our Second Musical Fundraiser

Go Go Getters First Musical Fundraiser a Tremendous Success

Our very first fundraiser in support of the Stephen Lewis Foudation was a Coffee and Music Evening held Saturday night, April 28, 2007 at Meet at 66 King East in Cobourg.  The response was fantastic, everyone involved with putting on the event was thrilled. Here's a short video featuring Andrew and Jim along with a chat by group cofounder Jeremy.