Showing posts with label volunteer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label volunteer. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Be a Student Hero

School sponsorships is one of the many ways Tabibu Africa, Inc works to provide aid in the areas we work in. We believe that education is the key for true positive change for the future.

Our main school, Little Giants, in Ruiru Kenya currently has several students that cannot afford tuition. We have yet to witness the Director, George, turn any students away regardless of gender, financial status, or health. Doing this creates a deficit of funding; paying teacher wages, licensing, supplies, and more. Tabibu Africa, Little Giants, and our Director can only continue this valuable work of education through sponsors like you!

You could be the hero for Lewis, a 7-year old very bright young man who always smiles. His mum, Margaret, is a single mother who works as a construction laborer. She has also helped to start up the first PTA in all of Ruiru through the Little Giants School. It is always a joy to follow up with Lewis and interview him in person. He is always so helpful and smiling. He loves to play football (soccer) and he's an amazing artist.


There's also sweet, 5-year-old, John. We have seen him grow and learn to smile again. He first came to us so shy and wouldn't look anyone in the eye. You can now see his bright eyes when he looks up at you and his sweet toothless grin. He wants to become a pilot when he grows up and we know he can do it!



Jane is a seven year old student with amazing goals. She loves to play hide-and-seek and is very grateful at having a sponsor. She was very ill last year and with the help of our medical team she was able to get proper medical attention as well as sanitation education for her family. She is now very healthy and has plans to study and then go onto University to become a doctor. Jane's mother is very active at the school as well, helping to start the first PTA in Ruiru.
With your help you can help students just like this continue with their education and not worry about if or where they can go to school.

With your donation of $155.00 per year (that's just 42 cents per day) your donation will provide one student with a uniform, shoes, books for the year, supplies, 6 month medical screenings and appropriate treatment, and 1-2 field trips. YOU will receive biannual reports on your child; progress note, picture, and letter or drawing from your student. You are also welcome to write letters to your student as well. You will also have the knowledge that because of YOU one more student will succeed and know that someone on the other side of the earth cared enough about them. That makes them smile everyday!

for more information please visit www.tabibuafrica.org or email tabibuafrica@aol.com 
To start your sponsorship process now please click on this link - Student Sponsorship -You will then receive an email within 48 hours giving you more information and then within two weeks you will receive your student information packet in the mail.


Asante sana!

Friday, April 3, 2015

Peace for a Good Friday



Today we are still reflecting, healing, and trying to come to terms with the evils of the world. In the spirit of Good Friday I would like for us to focus on peace, healing, and forgiveness. Though we may never understand let us do our best to keep making this world a better place, no matter your religion, age, color, or gender. We are all in this together. 
Mungu Akubariki

It’s better to allow our lives
to speak for us than just our
words. On Good Friday we get
to take stock of whether we are
achieving this. – Happy Good Friday 2015 for all


Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Little Giants; the Dream into Reality

In 2005 a man started a journey. This also happens to be the same year that I met George Njenga, the man I call ndugu (brother). I'm so happy that both of our paths have come to travel upon the same road. 

George is also the Kenya Director for Tabibu Africa, Inc and we lean on him for everything. I met him in February of 2006 and we immediately became close friends. When Tabibu Africa, Inc was born we couldn't think of anyone better for the job of In-Country Director than George. Even though this is a non-paying position and is on a 100% volunteer basis George didn't hesitate to say yes!

George then let us know his dream and how proud he was that it was finally coming to fruition. It had been George's dream for as long as he could remember to open a school for all children and to make it as cost effective as possible. George understood the value of education and what happens when you don't have it. He lived through a childhood where education had to be fought for and cherished, never handed out, as it still is today in Kenya and other developing countries. He had witnessed too many children turned away from school because of their lack to pay tuition or even because they were HIV positive. George wanted change and he wanted education to not be just a dream for many. He understood what education did for him and his goal is to pay it forward. So he started working and dreaming then worked more.

In 2005 George had saved up enough money to purchase a 1/2 acre of land in the small town of Ruiru, Kenya. Then he started building brick by brick, literally. He would save up enough money for one brick, buy it and take it to the land and place it. Then again, as he saved up enough for another brick...

In 2012, seven years after the first brick was placed, Little Giants opened it's doors to 8 students. Most could not pay tuition and one student was HIV positive. George didn't turn them away. He said that he knew God would provide. George then presented Tabibu Africa, Inc with his school, with his story, the history, and his goal. We absolutely fell in love with his work, the school, and everything it stood for. We immediately jumped on board to do what we could to help out and become partners now not just with Tabibu Africa, Inc but also the Little Giants School.

The summer of 2013 Tabibu Africa, Inc and a team of volunteers headed to Ruiru, Kenya and built on two more school rooms. A medical clinic was also offered for the students and their families for basic medical care and screenings. In 2014 we returned again and supplied a room with a reading table, chairs, and shelves for George's next dream for the school, a library.  You can read about Maureens Corner here. 
 

The Little Giants School now has 56 students with 11 of those students sponsored by people like you! For only $155.00 USD per year (less than $13 per month) can provide a student with tuition, quality education, a school uniform (required in Kenya), medical screenings one to two times per year, and one meal per school day. You can be a hero for the Little Giants School! For more information please click here or email: TabibuAfrica@aol.com


Asante sana! (Thank you much!)

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Where to Rest your Head in East Africa

I get asked all of the time, "Where on earth do you sleep when you're on a humanitarian trip in East Africa?" "how do you sleep?" "is it safe?" "is it clean?"

The answer is we sleep in a bed, we sleep very well because we earn it, it is very safe, and relatively clean. To expand more on that answer we'll have to break it up a bit. Lodging in a city like Nairobi or the surrounding cities is extremely different than staying in a rural spot such as the Maasai Mara.
We work in or around Nairobi for the first week or two and we usually stay at Catholic mission guest houses. We work in Ruiru (Little Giants School) or Kayole (Candle Light School & Orphanage) for about 1-2 weeks depending on the need so we have to stay close to the city. The guest houses are dormitory like; two single beds, a desk, one private bathroom per room and a common dining room. We get to like our roommates very well!
The nuns provide our meals and wonderful conversation! During our last expedition we found a beautiful Catholic guest house to stay at and it's my new favorite, St. Frances Mission Hospital & School. The Mother and Sisters would prepare and eat a wonderful dinner with us and then watch Kenyan soap operas, commenting on how silly those girls are. Then the Mother spoke about how silly it would be go visit the Dead Sea, "It's dead! Why would you want to see it? It's...DEAD!" and then laugh the most contagious laugh I've ever heard. 

Occasionally our travels take us to different towns away from our Catholic missions and we "bunk" up at other hostels. We work so hard during the day we just request a clean & safe place to rest our heads. Most of all, we are grateful to be there to do the work needed to be done.


Once we are able to get out of the city and travel to the Maasai Mara in the Rift Valley I always feel like I am going home. My heart beats a bit faster and stronger and I can breathe!

We  traveled to the Maasai Mara, Nkoilale as a Board Fall 2013 to fine tune what projects we would focus on. We did stay in a Manyatta in our adopted Maasai Village. A Maasai Village is in a circular formation with a perimeter of acacia branches with large nasty thorns to keep the wild animals out. The center is made up of small houses made by the women from cow dung, mud, and straw. They are small houses but the temperature is usually right around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Cows stay in the middle because they are the most sacred to the entire village. Goats have their own pen in the circle but off to the side.  Baby goats have a special little room inside the Manyatta's. Animals are super important to the entire welfare of the village.
As you can see in this short clip the inside of our sleeping arrangements in a Manyatta. We didn't sleep much this night but we had a memorable time for sure!


The majority of the time while in the Maasai Mara we stay at tent camps. Meals are provided, the beds are clean and cozy, you can hear the wildlife yet the Maasai warriors are vigilant guards. We come back to our "home" before dark and have a very wonderful place to rest our heads. We are surrounded by friends, new and old, and we have earned a very restful night sleep. 

Volunteers always tell us that they love their experiences with us and that includes the food, lodging, and companionship. Our volunteers aren't just volunteers any longer, they are friends and family forever. 

Karibu sana (very much welcomed)




Friday, February 27, 2015

Facts you may not know

Facts you may not know.

• 70% of the world’s poorest people are women and girls.
• In some parts of the world a girl is more likely to be raped than learn to read.
• 1 in 7 girls in the developing world will be married before the age of 15.
Tabibu Africa embraces the need to empower women and girls in Kenya, through education and empowerment classes, you can help too.