This is the story I shared the Boca Grande Women’s Club. The photos in this post are part of the slide show that was shown at the event. All photos were taken by Tricia Heaton, Kura Omar, and friends of KDEF
Good Afternoon Ladies, I am so very honored to be here. My name is Tricia Heaton.
I often spend my Monday afternoons down the hall needlepointing with a group very happy rug hookers. Many of you have popped in on your way into the these meetings and I have always wondered what it was like in this room. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream that this would be the viewpoint in which I get a peek of what was happening in here!!
Today I have come to share with you a story about love and hope, about friends across the globe, chance meetings, and the universe providing poignant moments when paths cross and ideas are formed.
I have these two magnificent friends Sarah Hadden and Kura Omar. They met ten years ago in Kenya, where Sarah readily admits, she went for the first time because she had seen Out of Africa. Together these big hearted souls would set out to create a better life for others. A man in Kenya and a woman in Vermont decided to partner to keep girls in rural poverty in school. They started the Kenya Drylands Education Fund also known as KDEF. In order to meet their mission, they needed to address two issue, girls in poverty have no feminine hygiene products and many students can’t afford secondary school.
Kura has a knack for making the students laugh as he explains how Opportunity kits work and why staying in school is so important.
Everyone finds Kura’s talk both funny and interesting. Even the teacher!
Dr Deb Henley makes the girls who are holding their new opportunity kits laugh!
Sarah would rapidly become “the Madame of Maxi Pad". And she would pave the way for the rest of us around the country to join her on this journey. Kura would break religious, gender, and cultural barriers and partner with Sarah educating men and women in his country about menstruation! As a Kenyan, a muslim, and a father of daughters, Kura speaks to both mothers and fathers about why their daughters need to be educated.
Sarah and Kura developed “Opportunity Kits” which contain washable, reusable products that will last each girl one year. To this day Sarah and Kura have raised the money and distributed close to 10,000 kits.
Team KDEF en route to the north with their American visitors.
KDEF began a scholarship program to help educate high achieving impoverished students. Two weeks ago on the first day of school, 87 high school scholarship students started their new year. 11 students have graduated from the program. There is an approximate ratio of 70% girls and 30% boys. One goal is to uplift the girls, and not leave the boys behind.
My family and I have been enthusiastic supporters of this program for the past four years.
Last spring in Vermont I sat in a group like this here today and listened to Kura and Sarah speak about this life changing organization. I was listening to Kura’s presentation updating us about what was happening in his homeland when he mentioned there were severe drought problems in Marsabit County, the area that KDEF supports. I sat in a room filled with people watching a beautiful presentation and I had this weird little ADD fixation on this one sentence about drought. The truth is…I had never really thought much about droughts.
I offered to help KDEF. Sarah and Kura decide they would broaden the scope of their project, because quite frankly, you can’t educated people who are dying. KDEF’s great work would continue when all were safe.
I thought I could get a couple trucks of water to help. My husband Don and I decided to throw a fundraiser which Sarah dubbed the “Emergency Party”. While the water truck party was in it’s planning stages I began looking for help. This was urgent, I didn’t have time to wait for the fundraiser so I started where all little sisters start…with our siblings. My beloved older brother Henry was the first to jump on board, and the rest of both of our families followed immediately.
Kura was driving for hours and hours each day in the drought ridden areas and finding more and more devastation the farther he got into the more remote lands. The situation was very dire. Women were walking 10km in the heat to get water. (That is about the distances from Uncle Henry’s to the lighthouse on the South end of our island) The elderly, lactating, and pregnant women were in the most danger. A few children had died in the process of water collection. I was heartbroken to hear this news.
It was at this point that I took to social media. I have a needlepoint design business and use both instagram and facebook to share my work. I love the format of instagram, it’s almost like your own personal magazine. I had to put myself way, way, WAY out of my comfort zone to do this. Sending a truck of water to each village was life saving and we did that immediately but these people needed water for 5 months until the rains came. FIVE MONTHS!! I was so committed to this, I broke all of my personal internet safety rules. I also did something I had never done before, publicly ask for money. I started asking strangers to join this cause.
A woman washes her dusty legs after everyone had a drink and all the water bottles were full. What a relief this village felt when their first water delivery arrived!
Kura and the water truck driver left their families for weeks at a time to deliver water all over northern Kenya. When I spoke to them about it, they said it was so worth it to be able to help these people.
And magic happened.
Envelopes started arriving, online donations started coming, and people started handing me checks. Needlepointers, Needlepoint shops, childhood friends, and instagram follower joined in. One middle school boy in Vermont named Nick O’Donnell challenged a bunch of retired golfers to a ping pong tournament, he beat them all and raised enough money for a truck load of water.
Every time Sarah Hadden and I looked at each other we burst into tears. I’m not that much of a crier and I was in tears all the time! It was like the Folgers coffee commercials were on a loop ALL DAY. At this point Sarah was managing the funds and Kura was driving day and night all over this huge rural remote beautiful county supervising and personally helping deliver every drop of water. Every single dime we raised went directly to water. A family in our Vermont community purchased a 60 thousand dollar water truck for KDEF. We raised almost 25 thousand dollars for the water fund and KDEF was able to supply 15 thousand people with water for 5 months. 15,000 people!! Some of the money went to providing permanent water solutions for 3 of the villages. A well was repaired and rebuilt in one community, and two water catchment systems were revamped in two other villages and now all work beautifully to hold precious rain water for drinking. Many people in this room saw this story and sent donations and I am eternally grateful to each of you! And it is because of you I am standing here today sharing the happy ending to this story. One of the things which struck me was how far 25,000 dollars went. 25,000 dollars kept 15,000 people alive for 5 months. That math blows my mind.
One of the repaired water catchments now collects rainwater for future use.
Sarah sits with KDEF Board President Ellen Leeds and Board Member Pam Art.
At the end of October Don and I jumped on a flight from London to Nairobi and joined 9 friends from Vermont to travel through Kenya with KDEF. It was my one of the greatest pleasures in my life to have the opportunity to visit several of the communities which were on the receiving end of this water. In each community the villagers showed up in celebration to meet the people across the globe who heard their cry for help. The chiefs were waiting to greet us. The villagers greeted us with hugs, songs, dance, and beads. I will never forget their words of thank you. I was especially moved by the chief who began with the words “the world has forgotten us, but you did not.”….WOW!! “The world has forgotten us but you did not”……. In every village but one, we were only thanked and no one asked or even hinted for anything else they needed. In my favorite village, my favorite woman said “Do not forget about us. We will do great things for ourselves, but we still need your support.” I loved her spirit and the guts she had to speak up.
The only thing she asked for specifically were uniforms for the children for primary school. Kura explained to me how very important uniforms were for making children feel part of something special and making the other children want to go to school and get one too. My children donated 100 uniforms and last month Kura met families at the gate on their first day of school with a brand new uniform for each child. Kura had the uniforms made by a local seamstress in Northern Kenya so the community benefited in multiple ways. A hand made cotton school uniform in Kenya costs 6 dollars. Another family on our trip donated a kitchen to the school.
Now that this is behind us and we have seen how what was so little for us, is so big for them, I am inspired to continue to support this magical program in my new found love….Marsabit County.
Last Sunday I was sitting in a pew of a church on the island when I read lyrics which really resonated with me. “will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known”. That sentence really sums up to me what I witnessed while in Kenya last fall. This is a grass roots organization which partners loving donors with people who are working hard to do their best, who are so appreciative and open to love. These are pastoralists, herding families who live in huts in the nomadic lands. They know nothing about getting aide, handouts, or services. It means something to them when something from the heart happens, when they know someone across the globe didn’t forget them. I’ve seen the magic of this water delivery. I’ve seen the beauty of this rural country, and met it’s people. I have witnessed the amazing outcome of our life saving water collection and delivery first hand. My heart is full of dreams that more work will be done.
Sarah, Kura, and KDEF are boots on the ground. I am always in awe of their visions for the future and their goals. For 2020 they have created a wishlist to fulfill their mission of education. Their scope will broaden a bit, while growing their current projects of distribution of opportunity kits and secondary school scholarships for high achieving girls. They will also strive to build 2 classrooms, implement a feeding program for local rural preschools, and raise the funds for more uniforms. I’ve recently learned from Kura that there are a group of boys in one of the boarding schools who have given up their dorm so the girls can sleep in it. Those boys now sleep on the floor of their cinderblock classroom. That is an issue KDEF would love to rectify.
KDEF will be running another Safari fundraising trip in September. It will involve both stunning Safari camps and visiting the beautiful pastoralists people of Marsabit. Last time I saw the big 5, visited the real African home where Karen Blixen lived, and Meryl Streep and Robert Redford filmed Out of Africa, I slept for one night in a mud hut, had a cocktail in Kura’s backyard in Korr, overlooking the most gorgeous African night sky and mountain range, and was serenaded by Maasi warriors at a bush dinner in the Maasai Mara. I fell in love with the north and met one of our 3 scholarship students, Sarafina. I can’t wait to go back, I plan on being on the trip in September. If you love adventure and want to meet my friends, come with me!
A family in Vermont donated a kitchen to this wonderful school. Like other countries around the world, providing meals at school is crucial.
What a joy to have Sarafina surprise us on our trip. We have been her sponsors for 3 years. She wants to be an accountant.
After a picnic in Maasai Mara.
KDEF Board President Ellen Leeds visits the student she sponsors at his school. He attends a very competitive school in Kenya and is doing extremely well.
When we arrived in villages we were met with song and dance. Dr. Henley joins in!
Ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of a renovated school with a new classroom, latrine, hand washing systems, and a fence to protect the children from animals running through the school yard.
I was so honored when I saw this. This was a group effort with so many water warriors sending support.
Sarah celebrates to successful installation of the well.
little helper helps full water cans.
