introductions

Let me introduce you to some of my community and life in Kenya.  Here I am demonstrating how to use one of the latrines that Yang'at constructed just a few months ago.  This is the first time this interior community has had sanitary excreta disposal, which will drastically improve health and reduce prevalence of water borne diseases.

Pini brought us to her home in West Pokot for our internship.  We have been so blessed to be taken care of by her family and community.  Pini is the founder of Jitokeze and spent the past two months researching the impact of food insecurity on women in this region.  Here she is doing a Pokot dance in the traditional beads.

Meet Keela, my classmate and dear friend from Vancouver.  We share the muzungu and Yang'at experience together.

This is Micah, our security guard, and his son Joshua.  We have been blessed to share life with Micah, and he has taken great care of Keela and I. One of our goals is to raise funds to increase the salary of our co-workers like Micah.  He is currently without salary, volunteering full-time.  Yang'at supports him when funds become available.

Here I am interviewing one of the girls that Yang'at sponsors for school fees.  On the right is Deborah Katina, the co-founder and director of Yang'at.  She embodies what it means to be a servant leader, and she has graciously welcomed Keela and I into the Yang'at family.

Lilian (left) and Everlyne are diligent hard-working volunteers that we have come to love at Yang'at.  I will share Lilian's story in a post to come.  Both girls are praying to secure funds to attend University in the coming years.

And our dear co-worker Elizabeth.  She is a field co-ordinator at Yang'at, facilitating construction of sand dams, latrines and teaching on health, hygiene and sanitation.  Here she is speaking to a community where we performed baseline surveys.  Sand dam construction will commence here in the coming weeks. 

in the beginning

Yang'at was started by four University educated Pokot women who were aware that there were very few Pokot women pursuing higher education in Kenya.  These four friends  thought there was something more that they could do to encourage education - so they started to visit schools in West Pokot, encouraging girls to stay in school and achieve their dreams through education.  Through speaking at these schools, these women realized that more girls would be in school if they were not subject to FGM (female genital mutiliation) and early forced marriage.  These four women started to find school sponsorship for rescued girls, and their reputation for valuing the girl child in this region of Kenya began to grow.  Yang'at was born from this vision of a few friends wanting to make a difference in their home community.  The current Director of Yang'at, Deborah Katina, was one of these orginal four founding members. 

We found Yang'at through our colleague, friend and classmate, Pini Chepkoech, who is also native to West Pokot.  Her family and friends have helped us to make this community home, and we hope to continue the important work of empowering girls and women through our research for Jitokeze (swahili for Emerge). 

giving thanks

Happy Thanksgiving friends, near and far.

Welcome to my belated introduction to life in Kenya. 

I am interning with an organization called Yang'at whose mission is to value the girl child in Kenya through programs in water, sanitation, health and education.  I will be introducing you to their work in the coming days.  We are also wrapping up research for a start-up non-profit called Jitokeze which my dear friend Pini has spearheaded.  We are looking for innovative sustainable solutions to empower women for food security in West Pokot District in Kenya. 

My friend and colleague Keela and I celebrated Thanksgiving by spending a full day at the office working on a USAID grant and preparing for our upcoming Yang'at fundraiser in Kapenguria on Dec. 4th.  Then we ate sauteed kale in a peanut sauce, french fries with heinz ketchup and pineapple for our Thanksgiving feast.

  I am unable to load pictures at the moment due to spotty internet, apologies.

Stay tuned increasingly exciting posts to come...