You/I Can Make a Difference
Poli, Poli, Slowly, Slowly, Making a Difference
1 out of 6 people in our world live on less than $1 a day
1 out of 6 people in our world cannot read a book or write their name
1 out of 6 people in our world has inadequate access to clean water
1 out of 3 people in our world lack basic sanitation
My childhood dream was to plant corn in Africa. To realize my dream, I founded the nonprofit, Opportunity Fund for Developing Countries (OFDC) in 1999. We raise money to fund projects in Kenya that improve the lives of poor women and children. OFDC provides small income generating loans called “microcredit”, and trainings to women, educational assistance to children and improved health care to all. Our Kenyan administrators work with villagers living with no electricity or running water and earning less than a dollar a day. Once a year, I go to Kenya and together we develop programs to empower their lives.
For three weeks I travel by foot, donkey cart, boda boda (bicycle taxi), matatu (crowded vans with up to 26 passengers squeezed inside or hanging on outside), three wheeled tut-tut, big Acamba bus with broken seats, and small Nissan taxi (up to 11 passengers squeezed inside – or 8 passengers squeezing with cabbages, corn or sheep filling the back).
I laugh with the children who find it funny when I eat raw cabbage (they only eat it cooked in Kenya). I laugh with them as they touched my hair and white skin.
I see many wild animals including baboon, zebra, giraffe, hippo, elephant and lions. I grieve with Morris when he learns that his cousin has been trampled to death by an elephant near his village.
I watch as the Maasai kill 2 cows for graduation celebration, drinking the blood, eating the raw kidneys raw, sucking the bone marrow and roasting the ribs. I celebrate with the women who wear long satin evening gowns out in the bush as they ladle rice, potatoes, meat and peas and serve over 400 Maasai guests.
I visit children who showed me their OFDC donated mosquito nets they sleep under so they are protected from malaria carrying mosquitoes (every 30 seconds a child in Africa dies from malaria). I deliver basic medical supplies to small health clinics. I meet chochos, or grandmothers, who are raising their grandchildren due to parental deaths from AIDS – 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
I meet many of the children OFDC is sponsoring in school and am thanked by parents for the donated school desks. I meet villagers who now have clean water and latrines, built with their labor and materials supplied by OFDC. I meet mamas who are successful with their small businesses started with OFDC microcredit loans. Businesses such as raising goats and selling the offspring, selling milk from their cow, selling vegetables harvested in their gardens. I see mamas who were not so successful - mounds of red clay that were once bricks made by the mamas’ hard labor recently destroyed by floods. These people are resilient. I see hope. I see hope.
Once home, my mind travels back to Kenya.
You can make a difference.
When I learned about Mohammad Yunus and microcredit, I knew this was the way I could make a difference. In 1999 I completed IRS forms to establish the Opportunity Fund for Developing Countries (OFDC). Ten years later, with a lot of hard work and commitment our grassroots, volunteer-powered organization has raised over half a million dollars to offer a bridge to poor Kenyan women and children to improve their lives.
With donations:
• women start small businesses using profits to feed their families
• girls go to school, avoiding forced child marriages
• children sleep under treated nets, protected from malaria carrying mosquitoes
• villagers build water wells and latrines, improving community sanitation and decreasing illness
Poli, poli, (slowly, slowly) each OFDC volunteer is making a difference. We are little ripples making big waves.
Inspiring