New Year

Happy New Year!

Carolina for Amani had our most successful holiday season yet. We hosted bead shows in housing communities, sororities, street fairs in Carrboro and Hillsborough, individuals' homes in Raleigh and Winston-Salem, and more. The response was incredible - and we were able to far surpass our fundraising goals for the semester. The core leadership team at Carolina for Amani were incredible despite busy schedules at the end of the semester, and we had individuals step up to take leadership roles in organizing shows and coordinating volunteers.

Applications for the Amani Children's Foundation Summer 2011 Internship Program were due on January 15. I could not be more pleased with the individuals who applied for the program! We will be conducting interviews next week and I am excited for the opportunity to get to know the applicants more.

The highlight of this semester for Carolina for Amani will be the visit of John Ondeche, the Director of the New Life Home - Kisumu. John will be visiting the United States from Saturday, March 26 to April 10. Of that time, he will be visiting Chapel Hill and UNC from March 26 to April 2 to speak to students and community members on UNC's campus and the surrounding community.

The New Life Home - Kisumu

Ondeche serves as the director of Kisumu, Kenya’s New Life Home for abandoned babies. Ondeche was appointed by the President to represent those who serve orphaned children on the first National Adoption Committee of Kenya. As he has served with nine other members from the legal, governmental, and social sectors of Kenya over the last three years, they have established a record and a procedure for national adoption of non-kinship children that will have an enormous impact on the rest of Africa and, in fact, on adoption as a national and international “best practice” process.

The oldest of 21 children and an active leader and advocate for children and families in his home city of Kisumu, Ondeche worked for twenty years as a banker, rising to the level of bank manager with a sturdy salary and tremendous health and retirement benefits. His wife, Prisca, an RN worked in the private ward of the most prestigious hospital in Kisumu. In 2001, they left their positions to start the Kisumu satellite home for New Life Home, as a registered Kenyan Charity in Nairobi that cares for abandoned infants until Kenyan families adopt them.

Under their leadership, 500 frail and vulnerable infants have arrived at the Kisumu home from unspeakably difficult situations. Found by schoolchildren or passer-bys, or left in hospitals or police stations, they arrive without a name or a real chance for life. They leave as robust toddlers with their own Kenyan families and full legal rights as their children.

On a continent where adoption has been taboo, baby selling has been the norm, and child trafficking is ongoing, Kenyan families seeking legal adoption for an abandoned child is not only the miracle of a lifetime for their child; it has been a game-change marked by innovations for children’s rights across the continent of Africa.

This will be Mr. Ondeche’s first trip to the United States. We are thrilled to host him at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill to speak to university groups about the ways that he has seen and made change for children in Kenya over the last ten years. Through Mr. Ondeche’s visit, we hope to build understanding, awareness, and collaborative work on UNC’s campus and the broader children orphaned by AIDS in Africa.

John's itinerary is already filling up, and I will post his schedule closer to the time of his arrival. We would love to see everyone come to one of his events to hear his incredible story.

We will continue to meet at 9 p.m. on Wednesday evenings on the second floor of the Campus Y. Again, I could not be more excited for what the semester holds!

Carolina for Amani Winter Bead Sale

Come to Carolina for Amani's winter bead sale!  It's the perfect opportunity to complete all of your holiday shopping... and it goes to a good cause!  We'll have jewelry made from hand-painted beads from the clay of Mt. Kenya, scarves, bags, aprons, kitchenwares, gifts, and more... and all proceeds benefit the New Life Homes in Kenya!  It will take place in the Queen Anne Lounge of the Campus Y on Tuesday, December 7 from 1:30 - 3:30 and 5:30 - 7:30.  See you there!

Confirm attendance on the Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169141166450132

CPS Article on Carolina for Amani

Check out this article on UNC's Center for Public Service's homepage!  The link is http://www.unc.edu/cps/.  The Carolina Center for Public Service administered the Entrepreneurial Public Service Fellowship, which Carolina for Amani received for last summer's internship program.  The Carolina Center for Public Service has been incredibly supportive of Carolina for Amani's efforts!

Again, the link is http://www.unc.edu/cps/.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November Update

It is impossible to believe that it is already November and that the semester is almost over!  The semester has flown by so quickly and so much has happened. 

We have had an incredibly successful semester of bead sales, shows, and parties.   We've hosted shows with Kappa Delta Sorority, Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority, the Campus Y 150th Anniversary Weekend, the College of Arts and Sciences, the town of Chapel Hill, the town of Carrboro, UNC Hospitals, the town of Pittsboro, the UNC Law School, and more.  We are looking forward to holiday shows in Kenan and Ehringhaus housing communities, Delta Delta Delta Sorority, and more. 

Our Holiday bead show will be held on Tuesday, December 7 from 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. in the Queen Anne Lounge of the Campus Y.  It will be a great opportunity for holiday gift shopping! 

Carolina for Amani has also begun assisting in the child sponsorship program of New Life Homes.  For $1,000 per year, families, individuals, or organizations can sponsor a child in the New Life Homes.  Carolina for Amani has begun to create baby books, or small photo albums with photographs of the child, their story, and information about the New Life Homes, for each child sponsor to have to commemorate the child they sponsor.  We've incorporated making baby books into our regular Wednesday night beadings, so that Carolina for Amani volunteers are making the baby books in addition to jewelry for our sales.  Volunteers have loved doing the baby books, for it allows individuals who have never been to the New Life Homes to see the babies and have a taste of the wonderful work of New Life. 

The application process for the Carolina for Amani Summer 2011 Internship Program has begun!  Applications began to circulate at the end of October, and initial applications are due by December 31.  Following initial applications, interns must submit a letter of recommendation from a professor or other community member by January 15, and will also undergo an interview during the month of January.  The team will be solidified by early February.  Applications otherwise are accepted on a rolling basis if interns would like to proceed with an earlier interview process. 

Like in the summer of 2010, we plan to have 2 trips: a three week trip and a two month trip.  The three week trip will be geared toward seeing the Homes and spending time with the children, as well as taking updated pictures of each of the children and other administrative tasks.  The two month team will be writing updated personality descriptions for each of the children in the New Life Homes, for it is our hope that most from last summer will have been adopted!  Thus, a whole new group of children will need personality descriptions for their adoption file.  The two month team will also work with local adoption agencies that work alongside New Life to scan in files regarding the adoption process and the adoptive parents to add to the electronic database. 

The itinerary of the trips in the summer of 2011 will be adjusted slightly from last summer to allow for more focused attention as the intern coordinator and also to allow for easier logistics within the country.  The three-week team will travel to Kenya in mid-May and spend the first week and a half of their time in Kenya traveling around the country and visiting each of the 6 different homes.  At the end of May, the team will return to Nairobi.  At this time (mid-May), the two month team will travel to Kenya and meet up with the three week team in Nairobi.  The two month team will participate in orientation in Nairobi while the three week interns assist in the Nairobi New Life Home.  Then, both teams will go on a safari in the Masaii Mara together.  Following the safari, the three week team will return to the United States.  The two month team will then begin traveling around the country together, rather than splitting up like last summer, and spend time in each of the New Life Homes.  I hope this will allow for each of the trips to be more tailored specifically to the goals and tasks of each of the trips, and will also allow for easier communication and logistics as all the teams will travel together and remain together at all times.

Professors in the Minor in Entrepreneurship, as well as other members of UNC's faculty and staff, have continued to be very supportive of my endeavors, and I am incredibly thankful for their advice and mentorship.  The UNC College of Arts and Sciences has also been very helpful in advertising and publicizing Carolina for Amani.  I am excited about the expansion and progress of the organization's fundraising efforts, and have high hopes for the goals of this summer's internship program!

To arrange a bead show, or inquire about an application for the Summer Internship, please feel free to email me!

Carolina for Amani Article

Check out this article by the UNC College of Arts and Sciences on Carolina for Amani!

http://college.unc.edu/features/september2010/article.2010-09-14.2175101193?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4cb9edbf74059be3,0

Hello from Chapel Hill!

It is so hard to believe that we have been back in Chapel Hill for a month!  Things have been moving full speed ahead and so quickly.

Fundraising efforts so far on campus this year have been fantastic.  We have had record numbers of girls (and a few brave and hysterical guys) for our Wednesday night beadings.   We meet on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. on the second floor of the Campus Y to string jewelry from beautiful, hand painted Kenyan beads donated to us by our partner, Kazuri Beads Kenya.  Kazuri is a fair-trade company that employs disadvantaged women in the community to hand-paint beads from the clay of Mt. Kenya.  Any beads that Kazuri cannot use, they donate to us! We then string the beads and sell them, giving all of the proceeds to the New Life Homes.  We are looking forward to our bead shows starting the first week in October, for we have a busy schedule of sales and bead parties on UNC's campus at sororities, housing communities, and bible studies, and craft fairs in Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough, and sales at individuals homes in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, and Atlanta. 

Believe it or not, we are already getting geared up for next summer's internship program.  The two-month program will be a lot smaller, with around 4 two-month interns that will travel to Kenya for the months of June and July.  Applications became available for the two month trip at the beginning of last week, and are due on a rolling basis, with all decisions made and the team solidified by the end of January.    The three week team will be the larger group this year, with students from UNC, as well as representatives from other groups that are involved in fundraising with Amani.  Three week applications are available as well; but, this team will most likely not be solidified until March. 

I received an email last week from Rhoda, the social worker in the New Life Homes, with an updated list of New Life babies that have been placed with families.  The list was long, and it was so exciting to see the names of those babies and know that the work of the interns over the summer had a direct impact on their placements!  I also received an email from the parent of a boy that was adopted during our time in Kenya over the summer.  He is currently living in the Netherlands, and he looked SO incredibly happy in the pictures she sent!  It served as yet another example of the miracle that is New Life Homes. 

Since the beginning of the summer, I have had the privledge of working with Kim Spurr in the College of Arts and Sciences as she wrote an article on Carolina for Amani in the College of Arts and Sciences Magazine!  You can see the online copy of the magazine at http://college.unc.edu/magazine.  Our article is p. 14 of the magazine!  You can hear some online audio clips of my conversations with Kim at http://college.unc.edu/extras. 

Post-Trip Reflection and Debrief Notes

I know it has been a while since I have posted… our schedule was jam-packed during our last week in Kenya, and time has flown since being back in the US as I transition and prepare for the upcoming academic year. 

Our final week in Kenya was fantastic.  We spent the week in Nairobi finishing tasks and conducting meetings and training sessions with the staff in the Kilimani home.  It was so encouraging to hear the feedback on this summer's newest program in the New Life Homes from the administration, directors, and staff at New Life, for they were so enthusiastic about the work we were doing and the impact we were having on New Life.  Rhoda was so pleased with our work on the personality descriptions, and continually reiterated how the completion of these descriptions for each of the children would significantly increase the speed in which children can be placed with families, and also how much easier it would make her difficult and busy job! Rhoda has become a dear friend of mine and a person that I truly admire, so it was very encouraging to know that our work was so valued by her.  The team also had lunch with Clive and Mary, the founders and directors of the New Life Homes, and it was a great opportunity for the interns to see how the vision of New Life was created.  I also was able to meet with two members of the head administration of New Life for "scanning school."  We trained the administration at New Life as to how to use the scanners and file away newly scanned documents into our online database.  They were so enthusiastic about keeping up the scanning, and it was our hope that we could draw a line from the date in which we had our meeting, so that everything from that point forward would be scanned into the computer upon completion and kept in the online, electronic format.  I also had several great discussions with members of the administration of what else needed to be done that could be accomplished by a team in the future, which will be discussed later in this post.   Finally, the interns had a final debrief, in which we opened discussion for our favorite moments, improvements that need to be made on the program, suggestions, and our favorite part of the work.  This was very helpful for me, for it allowed me to see the program through the lens of the participants and this feedback will be very useful in shaping the future of the program.  We also had a ton of fun in our last week, with one last trip to the market, a trip to Kazuri, and a fun, final celebration dinner for all that we had accomplished on our last night in Kenya.   I could not be more excited about the work we accomplished this summer, and how much we all learned from each other and the work we were doing.   I do not think I could have asked for a more amazing summer experience, for I learned so much about the strengths and weaknesses of my personal leadership style, how to best interact with others, and how to effectively maintain a balance between serving as a leader and a friend.  On top of all of that, I was in a place that I love, working alongside people and an organization that I love, and implementing an organic, new program that has great importance for the children that I love. 

Earlier this week, I had a fantastic debrief meeting with Jane at the Amani Office in Winston Salem.  It was so fun to walk in to the office and see all the scarves, beads, and bags on display for sale that we had brought back from Kenya with us!  We had a great conversation about the trip, what it was like this year, what we accomplished, and our ideas for the future.  We also discussed my observations of each of the Homes after spending extended time there, and what Amani could do to meet these needs of the Homes.  We also discussed what the program should look like in the future, and what other needs could be met by Amani interns in New Life next summer.  Future tasks for interns include making a "quick-reference guide" for the documents contained in the online database, so that the documents available for each child can be quickly accessed.  It would be a significant help for Rhoda to have a team assist with personality descriptions for next summer, for the current kids will be a year older and will need updated reports, and there will be many new children as well.  Also, the New Life Homes would like to begin contacting past adoptive parents to let them know that the information we scanned this summer is available for their child to access, and Amani would like to use this contact to also let the families know that there are ways that they can continue to support New Life Homes.  The contact information of the families can only be accessed in Kenya due to child protection laws, so it is something that would have to be accomplished while on the ground in Kenya.  This is something that again would be a new program in New Life, so it is an idea in its infancy and I will continue to write updates as time passes and we have more time to think and discuss this possibility.  Furthermore, Rhoda mentioned wanting to expand the practices of keeping documents in an electronic format to two partner homes in the area with whom New Life has significant relationships.  This is another idea we will begin to think about for future summers. 

The team in future summers will be smaller (3-4 interns and one leader) so that it is easier to manage and the team will be able to stay together for the trip in its entirety rather than splitting up.  But, we hope to expand the size of the 3 week trip, allowing various organizations, churches, and other groups involved with Amani to send college-aged representatives to spend time in the New Life Homes.  Furthermore, we are hoping to offer an internship for students specifically in the Minor in Entrepreneurship, to either travel for 2 months to Kenya, or to spend the summer interning in the Amani Office in Winston Salem and then travel for 3 weeks to Kenya. 

After this summer in Kenya, I hope to be able to use the practices of New Life and Kenyan adoptions as a basis for research for my Honors Thesis in my next two years at Carolina.  This again is an idea in its infancy, but as a Public Policy major, I hope I can use my foundation in Kenya to write on the subject of the progression of US Adoption Policy in Kenya, and perhaps do a comparative study between US policy towards Kenya and another African nation, or how international non-profit organizations have played a role in influencing Kenyan policy.  So many possibilities!  Again, this is an idea I need to mull over and will continue expanding upon in future posts.

Thanks again to everyone who has supported my endeavors this summer.  I have been so blessed by the support of the Carolina Center for Public Service, the Minor in Entrepreneurship, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative, countless advisors, classmates, and mentors, and so many more.  It is hard to believe that this year-long chapter of Carolina for Amani is coming to a close, but I could not be more excited to open up the next chapter that will unfold this upcoming year. 

July Reflection

It is so hard to believe that the internship program is coming to a close, and that we only have a few more days remaining in Kenya before we all return to the United States.  In looking back, I am amazed at the amount of work we were able to accomplish while building relationships with the amazing children and New Life staff and having a lot of fun. 

All of the following goals that were set for the summer were reached:

1. Completion of updated case summaries and personality descriptions for each of the children currently living in the New Life Homes. Case summaries and descriptions are used by the social workers and administration in the New Life Homes for the children's adoption files.  These reports gave the social workers in the Homes more detail regarding the child's personality because we were able to spend a lot of time getting to know the children before writing their reports. Furthermore, by completing all of the reports, each child in the New Life Home is now eligible for adoption, freeing the social worker to instead concentrate on placing the children with families rather than completing or coordinating the completion of personality descriptions across the Homes. This task was a favorite of the interns, for it involved significant interaction with the children.
2. Completion of child sponsorship blurbs for each child currently living in New Life Homes and taking updated photographs of each child. These child sponsorship blurbs will be used in the upcoming year to find a sponsor for children currently living in the New Life Home. This fundraising project is new within the past few years in the New Life Homes, and we were so excited to be a part of expanding the project. A child sponsorship blurb consists of 2-3 current pictures of the child and a few paragraphs explaining the child's background, story, and personality.
3. Scanning in the current legal and medical files of each child currently living in the New Life Home and each child that has been placed with a family and is currently in the adoption process or in the foster period of the adoption process. By scanning in each child's legal and medical records, the records are preserved in an electronic format so that no files can be lost or damage and thus slow the adoption process. Furthermore, having a complete, electronic database within the New Life Home system allows for easy communication and document transfer between the six New Life Homes in four different cities.  The online database also allows the social workers and administration based in Nairobi to have access to documents in each of the different homes, without having to wait for the documents to be transferred via postal service.
4. Scanning in the archives for all of the children that have lived in the New Life Home - Kisumu, New Life Home - Nakuru, New Life Home - Bethel, and New Life Home - Nyeri since their establishment. Under Kenyan law, adopted children or orphaned children are not given access to their legal and medical files until they turn 14 years of age. By scanning in the archives, we are preserving the archives in an electronic format for when children begin to return to New Life to collect their files.
5. Scanning in photographs of all of the children that have lived in the New Life Homes since their establishment. Each home maintains annual photo albums that contain photographs of every child that has been admitted in the Home.  We scanned in the albums to preserve each child's first years of growth.

Once on the ground in Kenya, the interns took responsibility for several miscellaneous tasks that were brought to our attention in each of the homes. These tasks included typing up various handwritten records for the administration of the satellite homes, such as daily medical records, assisting caretakers and teachers with the creation of learning materials, and, everyone's favorite… playing with the children!

The team on the ground here has had a fantastic summer and it is hard to believe that it is coming to a close. We still have a bit of work to do in the Nairobi home, for we are attempting to scan in the New Life Home - Nairobi's photo registry that has multiple pictures of each child that has lived in the New Life Home.  Furthermore, on Monday, we are holding a staff training to teach the administration of New Life - Nairobi how to use the online database and how to continue scanning in files as needed.  We purchased three scanners at the beginning of the trip; two will be left in Nairobi and one will be transferred to Nyeri, for Gabriel, the director of the New Life Home Nyeri, was very enthusiastic about the scanning and will be able to keep up with scanning updated files there due to the Home's small size.  But, I am confident that we will get the work done and enjoy our last week of fun activities!

My fellowship experience this summer has exceeded expectations.  I was blessed with a great team, and the team developed a great passion for the Homes and for the work we were doing. Furthermore, it has been amazing to watch the impact of the project expand much farther than I could have imagined.  The enthusiasm of the Homes' administration regarding our project has been amazing, and it is so wonderful to watch the Homes adapt this new electronic system and rave about how much easier it makes communication and document transfer!  It has meant so much to the team to know that their participation in the internship program this summer is not a typical internship where you question your usefulness or long term impact.  Rather, the internship experience has truly had an impact, for we have been implementing a new program in the New Life Homes that makes communication easier, the adoption process a little faster, and creates an electronic history for the children of New Life.  We have all learned so much from the children and administration at the Home, and I couldn't have asked for a summer where I learned, accomplished, or grew any more than I have throughout this one!

Post-Nyeri, Back in Nairobi

As we reach the end of our trip, time seems to be going exponentially faster.  Our time in Nyeri flew by so quickly but we had a great time!  Things have been so busy and we've been without internet again so I know it has been a while since I have posted.  We left Nakuru Saturday afternoon after spending our final morning in the Bethel Home.  The kids there are so energetic and amazing and fun that we slept most of the afternoon drive to Nyeri!  We stayed in a new place in Nyeri… it was in the same compound as the house where Chelsea and I stayed a few weeks ago but it was recently renovated and VERY nice.  Equipped with a fireplace, kitchen, table, hot water, the works!  We had such a wonderful time in Nyeri, and highlights were going back to the home and seeing all of the babies we loved and hanging out with Gabriel and Monicah and doing a little more work for them. All of the interns cooked an American meal for our friends in Nyeri and it was hysterical!  They didn't quite know what to make of our apple pie and ice cream for dessert!  I caught some sort of nasty cold in our final day in Nyeri which has carried on to Nairobi which is a bummer.  But, we had a fantastic time in Nyeri, and I am so glad all of the other interns got to see the Home because it has such a different feel and atmosphere than all of the other Homes we have visited!  Because it is so small, the Home really does feel like one big family. 

On our final night in Nyeri, I went back into the Home after-hours with Gabriel to help him send a couple of documents via email to Nairobi.  When we walked home, in typical Gabu fashion he sneaked into the Toddler's room to "check on them."  Turns out the kiddos hadn't wanted to sleep quite yet, so he had lined all of their cribs up in movie-theater style fashion facing a laptop. All of the kids were dancing and watching Happy Feet!  It was hysterical to watch them dancing along and hopping in to one another's cribs to dance together.  The positive, care-free, fun feel in the toddler room that night fully captures the constant feel of the Home in Nyeri - there is just so much love, spontaneity, and energy there!!!

I have been so thankful for Gabriel and Monicah's hospitality over the past few weeks, and they really are amazing directors and individuals.  I can easily say that we have all learned so much from them, and I am so glad I was able to change things up a bit and spend such a large chunk of my time in Kenya in Nyeri!

Tuesday afternoon we traveled back to Nairobi, where we will be for the next week, after making a pit-stop on our way out of town to purchase excellent Pumpkin Chapatis from our friend who taught us how to make Chapatis during our last stay in Nyeri!  We arrived back in Nairobi Tuesday night.  It was so great to see Kaitlyn again, who has been in Nairobi doing various things all summer!!!  We had a great time catching up and hearing about each other's experiences.  We took it pretty easy Wednesday morning, because 4 out of the 7 of us are fighting some sort of icky cold.  We went back to the Nairobi home on Wednesday afternoon, with the "well" interns working on personality descriptions for the babies, and the rest of us scanning photos for the archives. 

Please keep Kenya in your thoughts and prayers in the coming week.  Kenya votes on a new constitution on August 4, the day after we leave.  We are praying for peace and unity as this country votes on the referendum.  All of the conversations around the referendum have been fascinating during our time here, and I have really been learning a lot about how this country works.  But, as memories of the 2007 Presidential elections here loom large, we are praying that everything remains peaceful following the vote!