August 19 - Humanitarian Day

The dictionary defines a humanitarian as being a person who is devoted to the welfare of all human beings and being helpful to humanity. Most people are humanitarians they just don't know it. Many people think a humanitarian has to be working overseas, in poverty ridden areas or with folks who have serious basic needs. But a humanitarian can be working in your own neighbourhood, helping those around you who require assistance like a hot meal in winter through an Out of the Cold Program or Meals on Wheels, perhaps helping provide craft instruction at the local seniors citizens home or long term care facility or maybe even a child who simply helps an elderly neighbour by bringing in the newspaper or shovelling their walk in winter.

And yes there are those of us who do work in foreign countries trying to help those who may have been oppressed or lack opportunities for a better quality of life. For me, being a humanitarian is simply that I and my family, through our family charity The Ronnie Fund, want to help create a peaceful world where all people are equal and have the basic necessities of life. Even though we are just an average middle-class family, we feel we are so blessed by what we have and how easy life is for us while there are so many around the globe who do not have access to clean, safe drinking water, the ability to send their children to school on a regular basis or have enough food for the table. In Africa, it is a real challenge for most people to provide even one meal a day for their family.

August 19th is Humanitarian Day - it is a time to think about how you can make the world a more humane place by using your actions to help those in need, at home, around the corner or around the world. Each of us has the capacity to help all human kind. Support Humanitarian Day by helping someone in need - you'll be glad you helped to contribute to making the world a better place to live.

The Value of Volunteers

Mama Pads - reusable sanitary napkins for girls and women of Wongonyi.

Our volunteer crew included our selves, Kathy and Peter Wood, son Jeremy, his girlfriend Sarah, our friends The Evans-Lucy family (Don, Jan, Omar and Vincent) along with our friend Russ Van der Jagt.

This past weekend we were given the opportunity to raise funds for The Ronnie Fund by helping to clear tables at the Snyder/Montgomery wedding in Bracebridge, Ontario. In exchange for helping at the reception the Montgomery family made a donation to The Ronnie Fund. Without the assistance of our friends we could not have undertaken the job and raised these much needed funds. It is the value of volunteers that we treasure. Our friends were happy to be able to assist us in this way. Sarah and Omar were able to get 4 hours of volunteer hours they need for their high school diploma, so it was a win-win-win situation. And as Omar told his mom, "Hey, I'm actually have a good time."

With that donation, we have purchased an overlocking treadle sewing machine for our new project in Wongonyi Village, Kenya. The girls in the sewing class at the local Polytechnic are making Mama Pads, resuable sanitary napkins which they will sell as a micro business. They have already received training in sewing the pads and in business skills but needed an over locking sewing machine to make a quality product. Ronnie has purchased the sewing machine and it is on its way to the village now. Ronnie will present it to the Polytechnic class when he gets there this weekend. The Polytechnic instructors will be so surprised as they had told Ronnie that they did not have funds to purchase a machine at this time. We can just see their faces when Ronnie shows up with the gift.

The availability and use of sanitary napkins is a big issue not only in Wongonyi Village but in most parts of rural Africa. Disposable sanitary napkins are very expensive to purchase and as a result most girls and women use rags. The girls are very self-conscious and do not go to school during their period, losing valuable education time. Last year the Bracebridge Pathfinder group made some Mama Pads for the girls of our Sere Girls Club and they were well received. We have no doubt that our Mama Pad project will be a great success for the Polytechnic Institute and bring self-confidence to the girls and women of Wongonyi.

We all have special gifts and talents. For some, they have a gift of funds to give charities in need and for others, it is the gift of their time to volunteer during a special event. We thank all our donors and volunteers for their special gifts for together we are making a difference in the lives of those in Kenya.

Day of the African Child - June 16

The Watoto of Wongonyi Village, Kenya. Watoto is the Kiswahili word for "children".

Yesterday was a great day to celebrate children , especially the children of Africa for June 16th has been declared the Day of the African Child.

For those of us who have been to Africa, we have experienced the beauty of these children. Their shy smile as they greet you on the road on their way home from school, the giggles and laughter as children see their own image displayed on the back of a digital camera and the happiness when they are presented with a gift like a new school uniform, textbooks or a solar reading light to assist them with their education.

Kenya and all parts of Africa are home to a great quantity of forgotten children, those whose parents have succumbed to the ravishes of Aids. These children have been shuffled from relative to relative hoping to find support and love or been taken in by someone else in their community only to find that they are put to work or that in the end, the family does not have food or financial resources to care for them, so the orphans must subsist on their own. These forgotten children lack food, clothing, sometimes even a proper home or shelter not to mention the inability to afford school supplies and fees. In Wongonyi Village, Kenya we too have our issues with orphans who lack the love of a family or caregiver, a problem we are working to rectify.

So on this Day of the African Child, we ask that you think about these children and how you might help them to live by supporting initiatives like The Ronnie Fund as we facilitate programs to assist orphans and children by providing food, school uniforms, fees and textbooks, or other programs like Sleeping Children Around the World that provides bed kits and malaria bed nets, or Grannies to Grannies which supports grandmothers who are looking after their orphaned grandchildren.

These vulnerable children deserve our care and assistance. Their gentle ways and beautiful smiles hide the real reality of their lives but we can make a difference in their lives. Please help today.

Bega Kwa Bega Fair Trade Group Offers Hope

It is amazing how simple things like life skills and craft skills can produce hope for those who previously had none. Bega Kwa Bega, a fair trade organization located in the Korogocho District of Mathare Slums in Nairobi offers much to those in need.

Employing between 40 and 90 men and women, the most important feature of their program are the life changes they offer former prositutes, drug users and alcohols who have found a new meaning in life and a way to support themselves and their families. Along with life skills, they learn essential business skills which provide them with dignity. Although the manager Ignatius did point out that a few of the people do relapse into their previous lifestyles, most people welcome the opportunity to create a better life for themselves.

At Bega Kwa Bega, a happy atmosphere ensues where women are gainfully employed in the sewing area making shoulder bags, dolls and stuffed animals. In the beading section, a group of four women chatted in Swahili as they prepared an order of 1,000 beaded cross necklaces for an order for Italy. Upstairs, the men were busy cutting leather and stitching sandels and shoes that comprise part of the standard school uniform for Kenyan children. They even use recycled tires for the soles of the sandels. The other necklace beading area and tie-dye sections were closed the day we visited.

Bega Kwa Bega belongs to the fair trade organization selling their products worldwide. in Japan, Italy, Spain, Canada, the U.S. and Germany. Providing much needed employment is truly the way for people, especially those living in the slums to enjoy a better quality of living. Please support fair trade organizations when making your shopping purchases.

The Value of Volunteering

Volunteering can open you up to a host of new experiences, whether here at home or abroad. It's a way of sharing your talents with others in need, be it the local food bank, tutoring adults to read or helping those in developing countries learn new skills.

We are very fortunate to have our own charity, The Ronnie Fund, working with Wongonyi Village in southeastern Kenya. We just returned from our second trip to Wongonyi and feel blessed to have been able to take our teenagers both times. It has been an opportunity for them to see and live in another culture, to see just how blessed they are and the share the simple pleasures with other children. For our children , they learned that receiving a gift means the giver didn't rush out to a store, for in Wongonyi a shop may just a little stick kiosk by the roadside, but that a gift comes from the heart - a basket woven by hand from sisal or palm fronds or perhaps even a live chicken. And for people who earn only a $1.00 per day, the gift of a chicken is huge, so graciously receiving it is important. Even though you might want to give it back to them for you realize you might be taking their food source this would be an insult. But instead you take it back home (your African home that is!) and kindly share it, where it becomes dinner for all the next day.

If you are bringing others over to help volunteer for your organization, there are a few key points to remember. Create a volunteer package with information on what types of shots, visas, and other documentation they will require to get into the country. Host an evening to inform your volunteers of the cultural differences they will experience (ie. women not wearing tank tops and shorts, purchasing a kanga to wear when in a village location). It is important that you and your volunteers are culturally sensitive, that you fit into village life and not stand out, it will help you be accepted by the people you are working with.

And most importantly, you need to inform your volunteers of the mental challenges they may face and experience. There are vast social differences you might experience - staying in a mud hut with no electricity, no running water (the joys of a sponge bath), eating foods you are not familiar with (goat stew anyone!) and perhaps only one meal per day, washroom facilities (squatting over a pit latrine or even having to go in the bush), and the abject poverty of those living in the slums. Without informing them of what they will see and experience during their stay, it will be a shock to them and they may have great difficulties in readjusting once they are home.

However, when your volunteers are well prepared, the benefits and values they will experience far outweight the challenges they may face. The joyful spirit of people who are living one day at a time, the smiles, hugs and laughter from children when you take their picture and you show them. The welcome songs and grateful thanks when you provide tools and gifts that will improve the quality of their life.

Recently, some volunteers heading to Kenya for a voluntourism trip told me they felt uneasy and a bit nervous because they really weren't sure what to expect when they got there, the unfamiliarity of being in a strange place initially without charity sponosr being present. By taking the time to fully inform your volunteers prior to travelling, you will allay their fears, make them feel more comfortable in the new land and make their experience of volunteering for and with you a pleasureable and profitable experience for them, your organization and the people with whom you are working. And if they have a great experience the first time, you'll find they want to come back and continue sharing their blessings with your organization.

Kenya - Subsistance Farming versus Market Gardening

"Travel can open up a window on the world - it expands your horizons and shows you that the world the media portrays is not always as implied. Often we only hear about the poverty that is Africa and yet there are areas of great beauty and wellbeing."

We just returned from a two week visit back to Wongonyi Village in Kenya to check up on our projects that The Ronnie Fund has been supporting. It's been one and a half years since our last trip and once again, our children Martha and Jeremy accompanied us. What a fantastic opportunity for them to see another part of this great planet earth.

I noticed new changes in Kenya this trip - for me it seemed in Nairobi that the city was cleaner (not as many small piles of smouldering litter at the roadsides) and the Mombassa-Nairobi highway was so much better than the last time. Only one small detour hindered our trip to Wongonyi. But still the road up to Wongonyi Village was the same, a rocky road of deep gulleys that meant 10 km seemd more like 100 as the range rover inched its way up a road that was carved out of the hillside. My daughter Martha knew not to look out the window as we were sitting on the cliffside of the matatu. Thankfully the rain held off until later that evening when we were safely esconced in the village.

Although Wongonyi, located high atop the Taita Taveta Hills is a subsistence farming village where farmers have little access to markets in Voi and Mombassa, that would produce income from their agricultural efforts. The poor road infrastructure is a hindrance to producing more and in turn being more successful. And yet, a trip we took up to the Rift Valley lookout showed us a different Kenya, a more profitable area shown in the photo above. The Rift Valley is much like our Holland Marsh, an area rich in agricultural fertility that thrives on market gardening. And easy access to a continuation of that same Mombassa - Uganda Highway means that Rift Valley farmers can easily ship their produce to markets in Voi and Mombassa on the coast. It is amazing that a simple thing like a proper road can mean the difference between profit and loss, subsistence and successful market gardening, even the distance from the Rift Valley to Voi is so much greater than from Wongonyi to Voi.

Although Africa and Kenya do have areas that where poverty and living on a dollar a day is the norm, where parents often cannot afford school fees or uniforms, villages rely on the World Food Program and subsistence farming means simply that, that people are just subsisting but there are also areas of Kenya where the quality of village life is improving and farming has moved into market gardening, a more profitable way of life. In Wongonyi, we are working in co-operation and collaboration with local farmers and village residents to provide them with the tools and resources they need to move ahead but they still have to rely on local government to provide them with the infrastructure like proper roads to access profitable markets. Hopefully, local governments will see the benefits to all people in providing these essential services.

March 22 - World Water Day

Zach, Eddie, Isaiah, Grandma and Chris show off Biosand Water Filters ready for distribution in Wongonyi Village.

Well, I know I am a couple of days late in celebrating World Water Day but we have just returned from a successful trip to Wongonyi Village in Kenya. Here in the developed world we are blessed to have water ready at our fingertips whenever we need it for drinking, bathing, watering our gardens. We simply go to the tap, turn it on and presto, water at our fingertips. And because of its easy access and availability we are wont to waste this precious natural resource.

Yet in the developing world access to water is not so easy. People often have to walk several kilometres each day to fetch water, carrying the heavy jugs home on their heads, compressing their spines or in wheelbarrows making for aching arms. And the water is not always clean or safe - sometimes it is muddy water from water hole that is also shared with wild animals.

World Water Day is a day of awareness of this important natural resource and the many people worldwide who go without safe, clean drinking water leading to intestinal illness and diseases that keep children from school and adults from their jobs. In Wongonyi Village, The Ronnie Fund is addressing the issue of safe drinking water by providing Biosand Water Filters in homes. These concrete filters are filled with sand and gravel replicating the earth's natural water filtering process. After two weeks from installation, the filtered water is ready to be safely drunk. We were able to see the difference that safe drinking water is having on the residents of Wongonyi. It's amazing how a simple tool like a Biosand Water Filter can have such positive impact on peoples lives.