I wrote to my mentor, Sigurd Hanson, to thank him for changing my life and to ask him for some information regarding the best way to approach fund raising. After all, Leo moms and dads want and “hand up” not a “hand out” and I wanted to honor their talent and dignity in a good way. I remember reading Kevin Winge’s book, ”Never Give Up” and how he describes a “white lady” who arrives in South Africa, stands up in a community meeting and promises to sponsor two children and then is never heard of again. Reading this account and the disappointment and distrust it caused, scared me and made me feel like a fraud. What if that would happen to me? Here I am, green, naïve and unschooled in the international relief sector. I want to connect the citizens of Kiambiu with opportunities and resources which will value them as economic assets and support their community development. What if I disappoint Leo? What if I fail? Will I become just another “white lady?”

    To my great delight, Sigurd Hanson called me in response to my e-mail. I told him that I was still undecided as to whether I ought to thank him or blame him for the profound change his words had made in my life. I also told him that I was afraid of being a fraud or an incompetent which he understood completely. Most service providers simply want to do their ethical best-anything short of that end is unacceptable. There are even stories of NGO's that have come into communities, promised aid, taken surveys and were never seen again.


    This dream CAN become a reality. Even now, I see similar dreams being realized in our own country and throughout the world as people begin to understand that humankind has a shared destiny. Everyday we see more evidence that we are all in this life together in an interconnected present and future.

    Why should we be concerned? Why try to affect a better life for people a half planet away? While not negating our responsibility to do whatever is needed for the people in our own neighborhood, an investment in the rest of the world decreases the likelihood of suffering, unrest and social inequity everywhere. An investment in education for all moves our world forward to greater peace and justice, diminishing the likelihood of fanaticism and religious radicals. An investment in orphaned children saves them from being carted away as slaves, soldiers, or sex workers or growing into incompetent, scarred adults..

    In the forward to the book, Daily Word for Women, “Silent Unity” a world-wide prayer ministry, explains its spiritual grounding ; ”all people are sacred, God is present in all situations and everyone is worthy of love, peace, health and prosperity.” Add to this a more secular idea: that approximately 12% of any given population is extremely bright, with 2 % in the genius category. It seems so tragic, such a needless waste of the greatest resource the world has, that many parts of the world are losing their human capital and many absolutely brilliant people through poverty, natural disaster, disease, war and bad government.

    By contrast, the poorest individuals in the United States have access to far more resources than those in the third world. The lack of infrastructure, job availability and economic instability there keeps the poor hopelessly locked in poverty with NO HOPE of ever getting out. Most of the residents of Kiambiu want a job-period. They want to be employed. They are on a daily search for ANY opportunity to earn a few shillings. Sick or well, they are talented, dignified, industrious people who want to support themselves and their children. There isn’t even enough menial labor- jobs that almost no one would want to do- to go around in Kenya. These remaining parents want, as we do, their children to have a better life and broader opportunities than they had. They gratefully accept help when it is offered but only as a means to the end of self-sufficiency. They do not evidence the so called “charity wounds” or ”learned helplessness” that one reads about in the literature. Nor do they seem willing to accept endless chronic bad government. Some of the residents, if they have the strength and opportunity, are more than willing to be part of the solution. What amazed me most is that these folks realize that Kenya is only a 40 year old democracy and will be a “work in progress” for many years to come. None of them believe that humanitarian aid is a substitute for good government. But all of them know that it will take time to eliminate corruption and time to develop the fairness and safeguards of a more mature republic.

    The World Bank found that funneling money into governments is the wrong partnership. It has been estimated that for every $1 given in humanitarian aid, $10 leaves the country through corrupt administrations. The answer is not to partner with the elites, but to partner with the poor and middle class on the ground. For Kiambiu residents, self-sufficiency and long term economic growth is the goal. That may mean a small kiosk per remaining family member of guardian, safe water for sale, or providing a service, like day care or sanitation which supports the local economy and which then becomes self-sustaining over time. LECDEN projects can support the individual as well as contributing to the community as per a cooperative.

    In the meantime, foundational funding or aid still needs to be available to sustain them in the interim. A small amount of US dollars or aid from the “developed world,” goes much further in the “developing” nations. $10 USD could provide rice and vegetables for a family of four for a week. $20 could send a child to elementary school for a semester (there are 3 semesters per year) with a second hand uniform, shoes, school supplies and a back pack. $1750 could put up a small cement block house.

    Yet there is one incredibly valuable gift that we can offer our neighbors, whether here in the US or in any other region of the world: it is HOPE. Earlier, I mentioned a beautiful young man, a student at Nairobi University, who said he believes hopelessness kills more Kenyans than does AIDS. Whatever we do, no matter how small a gesture it seems to us, it brings a sense of self-esteem, comfort, and the possibility of a brighter future to those who see only a bleak, pitiless existence. Hope has the unique ability to ease the emotional terror and stress experienced by parents who must often watch each other sicken and die while watching their children fade from malnutrition, sadness and illness. I always put myself in their places. What kind of courage would I be able to summon if I knew that I was to die a painful death without so much as an aspirin? How brave could I be if I knew I had nothing to leave my beautiful children, not even a caretaker to love them when I am gone? When I became an orphan, at least I had a home, meals, education, medical care, clothing and a grandparent who loved me.

    What if you and I, working together could provide the rough equivalent, at least by Kenyan standards, of the care and services I received after my parents died for some of these children? A military general was to have said, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.” Knowing the pain I experienced as an orphan, I know the million deaths cannot and must not be relegated to a line in a census report.

    The truth is, we CAN provide HOPE for a better world, for even the little corner of the world called “Kiambiu.” . Imagine if we could obtain the food and medicine that would allow a mother or father to live longer to parent his or her children for the longest time possible. That would inspire hope even in the direst of situations. If we could provide food, clothing, education and guardianship for an orphan, we could almost be sure we’d have saved one kiddo from conscription by slave and sex traders or child militias. This would give hope to those witnessing their parents’ terminal illnesses that they would not be kidnapped for a life of hell somewhere else. Even a bowl of rice, a stuffed animal or a pencil and pad gives hope because it tells the children that somebody out there cares about them and understands their situation. This gives a child hope that they are somebody of worth and immeasurable comfort that they are not forgotten.

    So, what next? I am looking for partners, partnerships, collaborations, information, grant writing opportunities, donors (both individual and organizational), sponsors for the children and anything and everything that anyone can think of that will help me raise funds and materials to create the model community that would benefit these children and adults. Maybe it could be a model eventually for other communities facing the same challenges. Maybe existing model communities could share their expertise and resources with LECDEN. I see the possibility of such an enterprise as a gift that would keep on giving into the future- a “pay it forward” way of touching and changing lives forever, for both the benefactor and recipient.

    Thanks to Sigurd Nelson and the young founders of LECDEN, my life has been awesomely changed. When we share what we have with others, no matter how small or insignificant we assess our contribution to be, a part of us is healed. When we contribute to the education, health or physical comfort of another, we, too, are positively affected. When we see the divine in another, our own seminal piece of divinity is strengthened. I still don’t know why my parents died that day in 1959…I still know and feel the pain of being abandoned by the two most important people in my life, but almost 50 years later, I am doing my best to make my ”horrific” experience into something closer to an “heroic” effort for the orphans of Kiambiu.