One
of the groups which my daughter most wants to work with are the people living
in the IDP camps outside of Nairobi.
One
day while I was in Kenya we visited the IDP camp at Maai Mahu. Talk about
heartbreaking. Most of these families were displaced following post-election
violence in 2007. Before that they had decent homes and jobs. But when the
political party which lost the presidential election challenged the results,
violence broke out first in Kiberia slum and then throughout Kenya. Over a half
million people were forced to leave their homes or lose their lives and when
things quieted down, they had no place to return to. Their homes had either
been destroyed or taken over by someone else.
Known
as IDP or Internally Displaced Persons, groups of families across the
countryside made make-shift shelters, hoping it was temporary. But as the years
dragged on, they realized that this was now their home. They had become refuges
within their own country.
Various
outside groups have come in to help them build permanent housing. But the fact
remains that they still are displaced. They have little income and little
chance to move on to a better life.
While
Val is in Kenya for three months, she hopes to work mostly with the people in
these camps, empowering the women to earn their own income, seeing to the needs
of the school children, and finding ways to raise money and awareness once she
returns to the States. She’ll be working closely with Gee who has a passion for
the people living in the camps.
2 comments:
Please keep us informed on how we can help her
Val comes home from Africa the end of July. Her plan is to hit the ground running and have her nonprofit going shortly after that. I will certainly keep everyone posted.
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