Thanks for your help to a Kenyan family!
Submitted by Kathleen Harrison on Sun, 2008-01-27 14:54I am in Zambia and scheduled to travel to Nairobi next week to tend to our programs there. However, if it's not safe, I'll stay in Zambia, where our women's poultry co-op has been launched. There is much good work to be done here; Zambia historically is a much more peaceful country.
But I cannot in good conscience ask volunteers to take risks in Kenya. I have contacted many of our wonderful friends in various regions of Kenya and they are all safe.
However, my dear gentle friend and HARAMBEE helper Leonard Chanenga Chwenza has had his house burned to the ground. He has a wife and four children, and is without a job. I am going to depart from the usual protocols and ask your help for Leonard. If 500 people read this and donate just $5 each via PayPal, it will save Leonard's family. Will you please help? He is our greatest supporter in Kenya and deserves whatever assistance we can manage.
Many thanks, and blessings to you.
Keen Harrison, Harambee founder and director
* "All pull together" for Kenya's HIV+ women.
HARAMBEE is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) sponsored organization helping those in sub-Saharan Africa affected by HIV. We do this in a variety of ways: (1) speaking engagements to raise awareness both here and in Africa; (2) health care initiatives using medical and lay volunteers; (3) microeconomics projects giving women & children a "hand up to care for themselves without relying on a handout; (4) marketing craft items made by co-op work groups & accepting donations for our projects; (5) building communication bridges between school groups here and in Africa.
Our work empowers the women to:
- Build community (learn more)
- Earn a living (learn more)
- Save for burial expenses (learn more)
- Stop HIV through education (learn more) ( volunteers)
HARAMBEE promotes partnership with those we want to help. The height of empowerment is the ability to empower another. Therefore, all projects we adopt require participants to give back to their community. E.g., those who receive a dairy goat give the first-born kid to another family; when teaching oral rehydration therapy for infants, we educate trainers who continue teaching when we have left. We foster good management practices, accountability, and sustainability. We have no overhead, salaries, or advertising costs, and every penny gets squeezed ‘til it begs for mercy.
You can use this website to:
- Hear Chicago Public Radio's Worldview broadcast about Harambee
- Learn more about Project Harambee and our founder & director
- Find out about upcoming fairs or events where HARAMBEE crafts can be purchased
- View images and read stories in our image galleries (Don't miss extraordinary letters from our Kenyan friend, Debbie Nabubwaya, working in the Nairobi slums.)
- MAKE A SECURE ONLINE DONATION OR PURCHASE ITEMS VIA PAYPAL . Buy a dairy goat , chickens , honeybees , or a solar cookstove for a deserving Kenyan family or community
- Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest news via email.
- View our 2007 Progress Report and see what's cookin' in Kenya: 2008
- Listen to journalist Debra Solomon's interview with Dr. Harrison, founder of Project Harambee.