My Work

I just realized that I haven’t said much about the actually volunteer work I am performing here. In fact I am working on two major projects.

The first project is collaboration with the SOTENI Local Management Committee of Kuria (a group of community leaders and elders) to build an orphanage for small children on land given to SOTENI by the Kenyan government. This project will include income-generating agriculture on about 10 of the 33 acres and will help sustain the project in perpetuity. Eventually, our hope is to also build a rescue center for girls fleeing the FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) ceremonies, which happen in Kuria every December. The land is bordered by the River Migori to the north, which makes it ideal for farming a variety of crops (we are talking about watermelon, maize, beans and eucalyptus) and has a great view of Masai Mara, which is an added bonus for our children.

The second project involves meeting with and vetting orphans to participate in our sponsorship program. I am using the public schools as my starting point and have been asking administrators to prepare lists of the total orphans in their schools along with their performance records. The numbers of orphans in the communities here are staggering. AIDS and other poverty-related deaths have destroyed many, many families and the children are the most vulnerable to suffer. I have been all over Kehancha and surrounding towns (yesterday we were traveling by motorbike taxi because the roads were unfit for cars) meeting with children and their guardians, which are usually relatives or an especially generous teacher. We are trying to launch the sponsorship program in Kuria with 12 children, though there are at least that many orphans in every one of Kuria’s dozens and dozens of public schools. The cost to sponsor one child is $600/year and includes private school (boarding is a matter of safety for many young girls living in risky situations), healthcare (many kids have never seen a doctor despite bouts with malaria, respiratory infections, and farming injuries), clothes and school uniforms, and food.

If you are interested in sponsoring one of SOTENI’s 12 children or another child in Kuria, please let me know!!!

The work is going well, and I have enjoyed preparing a number of reports and lists to submit to SOTENI when I return. Between organizing work plans for the orphanage and collecting data on each orphan I am keeping busy even when I am not in the field. I feel that I bring a type-A sensibility to the otherwise lax and disorganized Local Management Committee and I hope that my report will help them see their good ideas and noble intentions come to fruition. Visiting with the children is heart breaking, infuriating and humbling. I remember one visit, to the home of a 9-year-old named Grace. Her baby sisters were sitting naked in the dust, sick with the stomach flu, and Grace’s older male cousins, known to have raped a schoolgirl in town, sat on the periphery of our meeting, staring. It's impossible to have these meetings and confront reality in this way, and not want to recommend every child for sponsorship.

I could go on and on about other children's homes which have been equally tragic, or my own complex experience of white guilt and frustration but I think the most important point to make is that if you have the ability to sponsor a child, I hope you will!