As of May 13, 2011, only one month until the end of the Canada to Kenya Challenge, we have collectively run and recorded 13,656km! Thank you so much to each of you who put your time, energy and sweat into making this possible! I have no doubt that we will reach our goal of running 15,000km by June 12th; when the challenge will end with the Edge to Edge Marathon in Tofino, BC.
We have been working hard, putting one foot in front of the other on the road, trails, treadmill, beach and even in the snow! Now the real work begins... to raise $15,000 ($1/km) for Teaching, Empowering, Mentoring and Building Opportunity for women and youth in Kenya.
Make your tax deductible donation to TEMBO Kenya here. Read on for stories of how small investments can make an enormous difference.
I received this note from Fredrick about two weeks ago:
Hello Tanya, I with my family are all fine. We appreciated for all what you have done for us as now my mother she is not serious the way she was. She is getting treatment and enough food to add her weight so she is now feeling better. True nothing that I can say the way you have helped me since we met up to now. My life is not like before I will never forget you in my life up to the end of my life. I wish you the best in your life otherwise may God bless you abundantly.
Fredrick represents the under educated, under employed youth that populates rural Kenya. They need only an opportunity to prosper. Fredrick and his wife Josephine are good, hardworking young parents to their 3 year old little girl, Brenda. For circumstances outside of their control, they were not able to attend secondary school and when I met them, had no formal training in any marketable skills. They are capable farmers, but with no land. When I met Fredrick he was my boda-boda driver (bicycle taxi) and he said to me, "I will not be able to do this work when I am an old man." He did not ask me then, nor has he since, for money. Only for a chance to learn a skill that could help him earn his own living.
I paid for his fees to attend trade school and purchase a few tools. Fredrick finished high in his class and is now a certified carpenter. He will be able to use this skill to earn a living and eventually build a business for himself, provide a needed service to the community, perhaps employ and mentor other young people, send his daughter to school, care for his family... you get the idea.
The $15,000 we hope to raise through the Canada to Kenya Challenge will fund training for women and youth in skills which can be immediately applied to increasing family income and alleviate poverty. Many Kenyans, like Fredrick and Josephine, living in rural areas have never completed more than a few years of schooling if that, and are limited by their present poverty to subsistence farming and selling a few vegetables in the local market. They are hard working, very responsible individuals, that just need a chance.
You can help to give them that chance with a donation (click here to donate). The money raised through this challenge will directly fund literacy, trade and technical skill building and business training.
Thank you for your kind support!
