Kenya

A few months ago I had the opportunity to chat with Kendall Ciesemier, the 15-year-old founder of the Kids Caring 4 Kids organization, which provides impoverished African children with food and education. This past September, she appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” with former President Bill Clinton, who came to her high school and spoke at a surprise assembly.

Kendall felt moved to fight for justice in fifth grade, when she watched an Africa special on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” about orphans. One girl her age had lost her family to AIDS, and now she carried the responsibility of raising her younger sibling. Compelled by the orphan’s pain and grief, Kendall signed up to sponsor a child through World Vision that day. Later she expanded her sponsorship to include an entire Zambian village. Her charity eventually grew into a nonprofit organization, Kids Caring 4 Kids.

“It’s gotten so much easier for people to join the force to fight AIDS,” Kendall said at a coffee shop in January 2008.

You may have heard about the recent violence in Kenya, including a church burning in Eldoret, and 350,000 people displaced (according to Newsweek). Here are five ways you can help the Kenyan people during this time of crisis.

1. World Vision: Donate to emergency aid disaster response. World Vision is an excellent humanitarian and child sponsorship organization.

2. Kenya Children’s Fund: Donate or sponsor a child. Kenya Children’s Fund is an excellent child sponsorship organization located in Kinyago-Dandora in Nairobi, Kenya--one of the regions affected by the recent violence.

I sponsor 18-year-old Faizo through this organization. I’d like to share some quotes from his letters with you. He wants to be a doctor, which he considers "a marvelous career." His role models are his teachers, who "are sharpening my mind to be full of knowledge, so that one day I could help my society in rebuilding it." He also writes, "I don’t know how I can express my gratitude to you but I’m really happy and glad."

When my violin teacher went to Kenya with Kenya Children’s Fund, she introduced music to their schools and ran a photojournal project.

Many of the people who know me well will tell you a get in these very strange moods sometimes. I will be extra fidgety and blurt out randomly “I wanna get on a plane, I just wanna go to Africa”. See I have this slight obsession with East Africa and the injustices that happen there (well many will say it’s much more then slight).

Relative calm has returned to Kenya, the Rift Valley saw nearly 1000 people killed and 170,000 flee to their ancestral homes. Business are reopened, roadblocks removed, and armed police patrol the streets. Those who have fled may not face the violence any longer, but life in the camps is made no less difficult by the recent rains. The taxi service has resume, but access to food and medications is a rising issue. The armed patrols that used to be known for ruthless brutality are now seen as protectors. Kisumu, which saw widespread rioting, is back to calm. Maseno University is still not open because it cannot ensure security to its students. The Nairobi slums have remained mostly calm as the negotiations with Kofi Annan are taking place, however the slums saw the worst of the post-election violence. There are some reports that say the slums are now divided by ethnic lines. Mombasa, contributing 15% of Kenya's economy through tourism, saw no real trouble except for tourists canceling their vacations. While the calm has returned the hopes of the country seem to teeter on Annan's ability to forge a coalition government. What cannot be forgotten as these talks begin is the political and colonial history of Kenya (read more here).