A charitable La Grande-based organization is taking two villages in Northern Ghana under its wing.

And giving the villagers, none of whom have ever been in an airplane, wings of self-sufficiency.

The stories of 20 farming families in the Northern Ghana villages of Bui and Tompola are proof.

The families have received critical assistance over the past year from the Sabu Help Project. Sabu Help is a La Grande-based project that helps Africa’s needy.

The project, started about a year ago by Doctor Ayeliya, a 2008 EOU graduate from Ghana, presently assists the villages of Biu and Tompola. Bui has about 900 people, Tompola 1,000.

The villages were hit hard by flooding in 2007. Today, though, many of the villages’ people are back on their feet thanks to the efforts of Sabu Help. The nonprofit group, assisted in large part by donations from La Grande residents, has raised $7,000 over the past year, Ayeliya said. Much of the money was used to help 20 farming families in Biu and Tompola purchase seed and livestock. It was vitally needed because of losses in the 2007 flood, which washed away 250,000 acres of farmland in Northern Ghana.

Sabu Help is off to a promising start, the success of which was reviewed by presenters at a fundraising banquet conducted at EOU Thursday and attended by about 65 people.

The organization’s goal is to provide people with long-term sustainability.

“We do not provide people with a glass of water, we give them a well,” said Ayeliya, who now lives in Taylorsville, Utah.

Making people self-sufficient will allow the Sabu Help itself to gain a measure of financial sustainability. All farmers assisted by Sabu Help are required to pay back the money they received once their crops are harvested and sold. The money is returned to the Sabu Help Fund so that it can be used to help other people in Africa.

Farmers provided money for the purchase of livestock are given additional time to pay back the money they received. The reason is that it takes longer to get a return from livestock like goats, sheep and cattle than seed, Ayeliya said.

Ayeliya emphasized that Sabu Help would not be off to its promising start without the help of people in La Grande and Northeast Oregon.

“They have been wonderful,” Ayeliya said.

Ayeliya founded Sabu Help Project with the help of many people at EOU. They made Sabu is a part of the project’s name because it means money in Kassen, a language spoken in Ghana.

Sabu Help provided $2,200 to farming families in Biu and Tompola this year, plus $200 to help fund a portion of a young person’s education in Ghana. Other funds were used for printing brochures and maintaining a website. Sabu Help presently has $2,668 in its account.

Ayeliya said that the impact of donations can’t be underestimated because a U.S. dollar goes far in Ghana. One U.S. dollar is enough money to feed a family of five in Ghana for a week.

At Thursday’s banquet it was announced that Sabu Help’s long-term goal is helping 1,000 people a year in Africa by 2018. Thursday’s banquet was conducted by EOU’s Students In Free Enterprise chapter. Ayeliya was a member of SIFE when he was at EOU. He helped found Sabu Help with assistance from SIFE.

Donations to Sabu Help can be made at any branch of U.S. Bank or sent to Sabu Help, P.O. Box 912, 1118 J Ave., La Grande 97850. Additional information on making donations is available at Sabu Help’s website, www.sabuhelp.org.

Sabu Help has applied for 501C3 nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service. Ayeliya hopes that 501C3 status will be granted in January. Once it is, all donations to Sabu Help will be tax deductible.