Congratulations to Grace Karabu on graduating from high school! An Imani Project sponsor paid her school costs.  Grace’s mother, Elvina Karabu, sent this thank you note to the Imani Project and the sponsor who helped her daughter finish secondary school.

 

Elvina and Grace

 

I write you this short note just to say thank you very much for all you did for me through my daughters' education.

Now Grace has finished her secondary school and it was because of your support that all this was made possible. Also thank you for your concern for connecting my daughter to a sponsor, tell her please on my behalf that I am very grateful and my prayers are to you all… Now also that Christmas is just around the corner, allow me to send you my warmest best wishes to you for a Merry Christmas and a very Happy new Year 2016.

All my best wishes to you

Elvina

We are sad to report that Chantal Garceau, the founder of Chantal's Little Shoes, is hanging up those shoes and discontinuing sales indefinitely.  Chantal has been a champion supporter for the Imani Project and AIDS orphans for five years.  Her compassion and effort has made a lasting impact on the lives of many in Kenya.  Thank you, Chantal!

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Five years ago this month, I sponsored my first Kenyan child through the Imani Project. Learning about the needs of the children and communities affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya made me want to do more—and that was my inspiration to start my social enterprise chantal’s little shoes. Through the sale of my handmade baby shoes, with the help of generous and wonderful volunteers, I was able to use the profits of the company over the years to sponsor a total of ten children in the Masheheni village.

With additional money raised through sale of our Christmas ornaments, chantal’s little “ears” for helmets, and pet toys, we were able to buy 100 school uniforms for village children and fund the construction and usage training of the village’s first community composting toilet (http://imaniproject.org/composting%20toilets.htm), which improved water purity, sanitation, and local crop yield significantly in its first year.

Having moved back to my native Canada, maintaining the business of shoe making and selling is no longer feasible, so I will be suspending it indefinitely. I give deepest thanks to all those who supported my work: customers, volunteers, fans and friends. This has been a joyful and enriching experience in a thousand ways, and you can all know that you made my life happier as well as many lives in a small village in Africa.

I have been humbled by the great work that the Imani Project does for the victims of devastation and poverty in Kenya, and am proud to have been able to contribute to their efforts. The balance of my shoe and ornament inventory has been sold for their work. My book of patterns, Cozy Toes for Baby: Sweet Shoes to Crochet & Felt (Martingale, 2014), coauthored with Mary King, will continue to be available on Martingale Publishing’s site, http://www.shopmartingale.com/cozy-toes-for-baby.html and on http://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Toes-Baby-Sweet-Crochet/dp/1604684585 and all authors’ profits will go to the Imani Project.

If you would like to continue to support an exceptional cause that really makes a difference, please consider donating to the Imani Project, or sponsoring an orphan through them. The Imani Project (http://imaniproject.org/) is a partnership between Americans and Africans, dedicated to acting against HIV/AIDS and improving health conditions in rural Kenya. The goal of the Imani Project is to enable and empower Kenyan villagers to become educators, advocates, caregivers and HIV/AIDS activists in their own communities.

Thank you to all, and may you enjoy a blessed and joyous holiday season and new year!

Chantal Garceau

Imani Project at Portland Barefoot Soccer Tournament

The Imani Project was once again invited to be a presence at the annual Portland Barefoot Soccer Tournament, held on Sunday, June 8 at Concordia College. 

 

The Portland Barefoot 3v3 small-pitch event is both a tournament and a festival, with the goal of teaching young people about global HIV/AIDS.   Around 520 children participate, and over 1,500 people attend the tournament. 

 

 

 Internationally, Grassroot Soccer is an HIV prevention program that uses the power of soccer to educate, inspire and mobilize communities to stop the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Already, over 630,000 adolescents and teens have graduated from the program in 16 African countries. At the Portland tournament, there were appearances by the Portland Timbers, the Portland Thorns, African drumming and music groups, and many community organizations. 

 

There was also an opportunity for the grown-ups to play bubble soccer, in which each player’s body from the knees up is encased in a big plastic bubble; it’s pretty hilarious to play, and to watch. 

 

This is the second year that the Imani Project has had a booth at the Portland Barefoot Soccer tournament. 

The Imani Project Booth

We raised a little money selling crafts we brought back from Kenya, but more importantly, our presence gave people at the tournament a chance to talk about, and to learn about the global scale of HIV/AIDS, and about the work the Imani Project is doing in Kenya.  It was great fun to be there, to watch the kids play, and to talk with all the people who stopped by the Imani Project booth.  I can’t wait to do it again next year!

There's Lots of Silliness

If you want to know more about the tournament, you can go to www.portlandbarefootsoccer.org.

Virginia Scott, IP Board Secretary

Bellevue, WA teenagers count 50,000 pills for the Imani Project!

A church youth group in Bellevue, Washington held a service project for the Imani Project to help prepare supplies for the Imani Project's upcoming trip to Kenya to conduct medical clinics in remote villages. 30 teens and 10 adults from the Cougar Mountain Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assembled in the church's gym. 

Some counted ibuprofen and acetaminophen tablets and put 30 tablets in a bag.  Others cut zinc tablets in half and put 10 halves in a bag.

The pills are included in Health Kits that are distributed to Kenyans in rural villages who attend classes taught by the Imani Project and who come to clinics for medical treatment.

All together, the group counted the following:

Ibuprofen            32,790
Acetaminophen 325mg   4,500
Acetaminophen 500mg  10,140
Zinc                  2,825
Total                50,255
Wow!  That was a good night's work!  Thank you!

North Bend, WA volunteers help prepare for September Medical Clinics

Volunteers cutting zinc tablets

On April 26, members of the North Bend Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gathered to count band-aids and pills for the Imani Project. 30 members of the congregation, located in North Bend, Washington, spent over 70 hours working on supplies for our September, 2014 trip to Kenya.  Adults and teens from seventeen families joined us for 1-3 hours on a Friday evening.  It was a great opportunity to socialize and count, count, count and bag, bag, bag!

In their 70 hours, the volunteers:

• Counted and bagged 29,600 band-aids of various sizes
• Cut 4205 zinc pills in half
• Counted and bagged 8410 zinc halves

In September, the Imani Project is travelling to remote villages near the coastal city of Malindi, Kenya to conduct medical clinics,  On that trip, they will distribute 800 health kits to families who attend health classes and clinics.

Well done! Thank you!  The North Bend Ward congregation has planned another service project for the Imani Project in North Bend on May 30 at 7:00 PM at the North Bend LDS church building.  Everyone is welcome to join the effort!

Counting and bagging band-aids

Counting and bagging band-aids

Zinc time!  Cutting, counting and bagging

Thank you letter from the International School

We got a nice letter from the students at the International School of the Bellevue (Washington) School District, thanking us for talking to them about the Imani Project in Kenya and letting them help with the upcoming trip!

International School of Bellevue Helps the Imani Project

The Imani Project is working to prepare for our September, 2014 trip to Kenya to run medical clinics in the remote villages near the coastal city of Malindi.  We are taking 800 health kits with us to distribute to families who come to the clinics. We need a lot of pills and band-aids counted and bagged and pamphlets folded to get ready.  We have been getting a lot of help with this enormous task!

Diane and Phil Garding gave a slide-show presentation on the Imani Project medical clinics that we conducted in 2012 to twenty-one students from the International School of Bellevue, Washington.  The students then spent the evening helping prepare materials for the 2014 trip.  In ninety minutes, the students did the following:

• Folded and counted 820 first aid pamphlets 
• Folded and counted 1000 diarrheal disease pamphlets
• Counted and bagged 12,000 cotton swabs
• Counted and bagged 4302 cough drops
• Counted and bagged 5880 acetaminophen pills

Thank you!

New web site, back to the blog

Imani Project friends:

It has been a while since we've posted to this blog. It's not that we have not been busy -- just the opposite. Since the last post, we prepared for and made two trips to Kenya, we had a party for our supporters, we have had fundraisers, we have funded scholarships for Villagers to go to school, and so much more.   We have not spent as much time communicating with our supporters as we wanted, but we are changing that. 

The biggest change is to rewrite our website (http://www.imaniproject.org) from the ground up.

As you may know, our previous website had fallen out of date, and the cost and technical complexity of keeping it updated became an obstacle.  We decided to take a new direction, and recreate the site using tools that we could manage on our own without outsourcing the development. 

We spent the last two months rewriting the pages, updating the orphan descriptions and photos, uploading videos, and getting it all working.  This has taken the work and cooperation of the entire Board of Directors and others. It isn't finished; we will continue to evolve the design and add more information and photos. We hope that you like the new look and navigation, but even more, we hope you find it easier to get information about the Imani Project and our efforts in Kenya. 

The new site is built using Xara Web Designer 9 Premium, which provides a visual design interface for laying out pages  The biggest challenge was to create the page that lists the 90 sponsored orphans in such a way that we can regenerate the page easily when orphan information and photos change (which they do often). We hit on a solution where we keep our master list in a Microsoft Word document for easy editing. We use Word's mail merge to transform the data into a table, and then save the result as an HTML page. After a few search and replace actions in the HTML page, it is ready to publish. The whole process takes about 30 minutes, and no hand coding of the web page is needed!

We hope you like results if our efforts. Please look at the website, share it with your friends, and send us feedback on what else we can do to help you stay connected with your Kenyan friends. 

Kenyan Orphans Like Chantal's little shoes

To look at them, you wouldn't think that Chantal's little shoes would be popular with orphans in rural Kenya, but you would be wrong.  There are ten AIDS orphans in Kenya who are very grateful because the sale of these little shoes in the USA pays for their monthly upkeep.

Chantal's little shoes LLC is a small social enterprise in which volunteers create unique, hand-crafted felted baby shoes. All profits from shoe sales are donated to The Imani Project, helping children in Kenya orphaned by HIV/AIDS.  Each pair of Chantal’s little shoes sold provides one month support for an orphan and his or her fostering family. Chantal's little shoes currently supports TEN orphans in Kenya!

The baby shoes come in 16 styles in 6 sizes, for children up to 24 months.  You can buy shoes directly from their website http://chantalslittleshoes.com. Who could resist a baby in one of these cute and playful styles?

 

Chantal's little shoes is the creation of Chantal Garceau, a former sportswear designer and high school teacher.

Chantal taught high school for ten years, and worked with several non-profit organizations in leadership roles and coordinating events.  Her experiences created a strong commitment to education and its importance in changing the lives of children. In December 2010, Chantal began to sponsor a child through the Imani Project, and she learned about the needs of Kenyan orphans. Now retired from teaching, she decided to turn her time, energy, and creativity to improving the lives of children in Kenya.  Drawing on her many years of experience making little shoes for friends, family and auction donations, Chantal created Chantal's little shoes.

Through volunteer social groups called ‘hands for little shoes’, Chantal's little shoes organizes members in Woodinville, Washington who want to give their time and skills to the project. Volunteers help in many ways: hosting a group, preparing materials, crocheting, assembling and packaging, and shipping finished shoes.

The Imani Project sends a big and heartfelt Thank you! to Chantal and her network of volunteers.  You are making a difference in the world twice - bringing smiles to mothers and babies in the USA and smiles to orphans in Kenya through the food and support you provide!

chantal’s little shoes

give a little love … give a little shoe

helping HIV/AIDS orphans in Kenya

Happy Holidays

All of us at the Imani Project want to thank our supporters for their generous donations, time, and good wishes over the last year!  Without you, we would not be able to accomplish such great things in Kenya.

We will  return in January with more stories and information here in our blog.  In the meantime, you can follow us on our Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TheImaniProject.

We hope you have a wonderful and peaceful holiday season and a Happy New Year! We'll see you again in 2013!

Party Day and Farewells

September 23, 2012

After the last day of work, we always have a party with all of the volunteers.  This gives us a chance to thank the Kenyan volunteers and recognize their effort, spend fun time together, and say farewell.

 The party wasn't until 2:00, so we had a leisurely morning.  A few local villagers showed up to be seen for pains, coughs, wounds, and other issues.  Ever since we held the clinic in Sabaki, we have had a slow stream of people coming in the morning and evening.  With only a few days remaining and a good supply of toys left, we try to give the children a treat in addition to seeing to their medical needs.  It was punch ball day at the Sabaki Clinic today.

Punch balls were given to all child patients today

Diane and I had intended to go for a walk to the river, but we never quite made it.  While Marlene went to Malindi to pick up the pastries for the party and to change some dollars into shillings to give to the volunteers as a thank you, the rest of us worked on preparations at the hotel.  We sorted the last of the supplies, separating items to leave at the regional hospital and supplies for the wound care kits we gave to each of the volunteers. We emptied bins that we raffled off to lucky Kenyan volunteers and set aside a basket of health care kits for everyone. We also set out and organized prizes from America for the volunteers - clothing, jewelry, cosmetics and odds and ends that we were leaving behind. 

A basket of health care kits for the volunteers

At 2:00, the volunteers arrived and assembled under the gazebo.  After a welcome from Rodgers as our host, everyone was given the chance to speak to the group.  There were many heartfelt expressions of gratitude and camaraderie, with good wishes given between the Americans and Kenyans.

The speaking part of the program culminated in a speech by Francis in which he thanked the American volunteers and organization for their care and support of the people in the villages.  "Imani" means faith in Swahili, and Francis said that faith in each other is a guiding principle of the Imani Project in Kenya.  He has faith that together we can create opportunities for improving the conditions of his people.  He then praised the Kenyan volunteers for working without asking to be paid.  That teaching and caring for their neighbors was not a job, but an act of love from the heart, and he was proud to have so many people willing to give their time to lift up those who need help.

Francis praises the volunteers for giving their time to help others

Then each volunteer was given a wound care kit so that they had supplies to help treat people in their villages with burns or cuts.  Many of the volunteers have become unofficial health care workers in their communities, and their neighbors come to them for help.  Names were drawn to give away the empty bins, which are highly valued since plastic storage bins are not available in Kenya.  Refreshments of cake and pop were served while people came one-by-one to choose prizes from the clothing and jewelry.  Henry took charge of the iPod and Boombox speaker to select music for the festivities.

 

The volunteers get their wound care kits

The party ended with a group photo of all of the volunteers together.

Imani Project volunteers, 2012

After the Kenyans all departed, the Americans made a final trek to Hippo Camp on the river.  No hippos were out, but we had a beautiful sunset to end the day. 

Sunset over the Sabaki River

 

HIV/AIDS Support Group

September 22, 2012

The last two weeks have gone by quickly, and things are winding down. For five days, we have had clinics every day, with Wednesday being a half-day in Sabaki.  We are looking forward to an opportunity to go into Malindi, to do a little shopping and find the holy grail of comfort in Africa -- a cold drink.

This morning was the HIV/AIDS support group meeting.  Marlene assured us it would be finished by noon, and it was finished by noon African time: about 1:30.  While Marlene, Earline, Cindy, and I went to Musifini for the meeting, Diane stayed back to sort through supplies to create twenty wound care kits that we can leave with the Imani Project volunteers to continue wound and jigger care in our absence.  After two weeks of intensive clinic experience, the volunteers are actually better qualified and trained than the community health workers (CHW), even though CHWs have to complete training in Malindi to be certified.

Two years ago, the HIV/AIDS support group was chaotic and poorly attended, but not this year.  34 people, mostly women, showed up at a church in Musifini. 

HIV/AIDS support group meeting in Musifini

People from different villages traveled some distance to be there, including a few people from Sosoni who were newly diagnosed due to AIDS tests we administered at the clinic. We also tested three people this morning, and two of them were positive. 

2 positive tests

Marlene stated the purpose of the group very well when she told the attendees they are proof that people with the HIV virus can and do live healthy lives if they take care of themselves. Working together to support each other helps them all to learn what they need to know and keep doing what they need to do.

Francis then gave what Marlene called a "fire and brimstone" speech. There seemed to be two main themes (of what was translated for us, at least). The first was to always use condoms to protect themselves and others. Since men are not always responsible enough to supply the condom, the women should be prepared with their own supply. The second theme was that nothing will remove the virus from their blood and not to waste money paying for "healing" from traveling preachers. Apparently, it is common for preachers to come to the villages and make a show of laying on hands and shouting a prayer that will cure their HIV/AIDS infection…for a fee. The more the people pay, the more powerful the healing is supposed to be. Francis told them that when they give their money to the preacher,  all that happens is that their family goes to bed hungry and the preacher gets fatter.  Only when Jesus himself comes down to give the blessing, he said, could you be healed.

 

Francis works the crowd with his "fire and brimstone" speech

The Imani Project gives a lot of support to these people. Each person who attended got a health kit that Earline put together, six kilo bags of unga (corn flour), three bottles of WaterGuard (chlorine water purification liquid), and about two dozen condoms.

Earline explains the health kit

Handing out condoms

Everyone got so much, we wondered how they were going to carry it home. We distributed what boxes and flour bags we had, but the rest had to make do. 

 

After the meeting was over, everyone was served bread and hot tea.  They only had seven or eight cups, so they served a few people, washed the cups, and then served some more.

Hot tea and bread

Marlene hoped that word would spread of how much everyone received so that others with HIV/AIDS would want to come and join the group.

Carrying their goodies in a conga on their heads

On the van ride home, we finally had a chance to stop at a little valley with four big Baobab trees that I've wanted to photograph. We drove past it every day on our way to and from the clinics, but with a van full of people after a day or working, I couldn't ask everyone to wait while I took photos.   Cindy and Earline I could ask to wait, however.

Since I was riding in the front seat, I had a chance to chat with James, the van driver. While going through Sabaki, he pointed out a local witch doctor and the Baobab tree where he treats people.  We asked Rodgers later about it, and he said it is devil worship.  The witch doctor lives and works at a Baobab tree because those trees are considered sacred places.

The witch doctor's Baobab tree, surrounded by bushes

They call on the spirits of the ancestors to intervene in people's affairs, and use herbal "remedies" in their spells and for more conventional herbal healing. One example that Rodgers gave is when a woman in Malindi meets a visiting mzungu (white) man and wants to bring him back or keep him as a husband, she comes to the witch doctor in Sabaki. He washes her with a special herbal mixture and call on spirits to answer her desire. She pays him a fee then, perhaps 5000 shillings (about $6.50), but if she gets her man, she pays him another fee later, perhaps 20,000 shillings.  Apparently sorcery for hire is alive and well in Kenya.

We did make it into Malindi in time for a late lunch at I Love Pizza before shopping. Since Malindi gets a lot of Italian tourists, the Italian food is pretty good. We were surprised to see that the restaurant had a pizza delivery tuk-tuk, but I don't think they would deliver to Sabaki.

I Love Pizza delivery tuk- tuk

Then it was off to the tourist market!

Malindi Tourist Market

 

Looking for bargains

 

The shoppers

Sosoni Clinic, Day 2

September 22, 2012

Today was the last day of clinics.  Our work here is now over, except for an HIV/AIDS support group meeting tomorrow.  It's kind of odd, but kind of a relief at the same time.  It has been good to be here and to serve these people, but at the same time, it is pretty far outside of the comfort zone of our Western life, so there is a certain amount of "bucking up" we do to venture out into this wider world.  Sometimes I stop and think to myself, "I am standing in Africa," and I picture a map of the world and realize how far away I am from my normal life.

In one way, everything here has become normal.  The life we see of people in the villages, the mud huts and dirt floors, women walking and carrying everything imaginable on their heads is what you see all around.  It isn't like there are two worlds side by side (at least not that we see).  We don't travel to all part of Malindi, but the buildings leading into the city and the roads and stores all have a common aspect to life in the villages.  The walkway in the tourist market is mostly broken concrete and rubble, for example.  The hotel here is very comfortable for the standards of Africa, but still primitive by Western standards.  At least for me, I leave my expectations of Western standards behind and adapt to the surroundings that are here. 

In another way, it can never be "normal" and recognition of the poverty is continuous.  In the clinics, we also see children wearing rags for clothes, with shirts barely holding together. Whenever we hand out anything, there is a huge surge of people wanting to get whatever it is, because they have nothing.  Children don’t seem to be starving, but they have subsistence levels of food, no toys, and inadequate health care.  Many people have rotten teeth and toothaches because they have no dental hygiene.  They don’t have enough money to travel 10 miles to Malindi to see a doctor, and they can't afford the medicine if they do get diagnosed.  Several of the Kenyan volunteers are unable to pay for school tuition.  What they are lacking is anywhere from 8000 shillings ($100) for high school fees to 50,000 shillings ($700) for a post-secondary certificate program to help them be employable. An amount that is not a great sacrifice for Americans can change a life here.  How little it would take to improve the quality of life here.

For our final clinic day, I think everyone was tired and ready to come to the end.  Patience seemed a little short at time.  The number of patients seen today was double other days.  Although Amy and Anya were gone, we had three Kenyan health workers with us.  They moved through patients at lightning speed, for several reasons: they didn't have a translation delay, but they also did next to nothing to evaluate the patients beyond the patients' own statements. They didn't listen to lungs or heart, look in ears or throats, etc.  Their treatment was to hand out medicine that seemed to correspond to what the patient said was bothering them.  So medication was flying off the shelf and patients were flying out the door.  For the first time in either trip, triage was falling behind treating the patients.

Towards the end of the clinic, I was grateful to be called away from triaging to photograph the Imani Project volunteers handing out a bag of flour to each child.

 

 

After the distribution of the flour, I skipped out on doing more triage (since Mr. Baya was handing it :-), and I took a walk through Sosoni to photograph the sign for the primary school that was out on the main road.

Sosoni Primary School sign on the road through Sosoni

It was about a half mile out to the road, and I got to see some of the houses in the village in more detail than is possible from the window of the van as we drive along.  Everything is very humble

Buildings in the Village of Sosoni. The white colored wall is smoothed mud that is whitewashed.

Houses in the Village of Sosoni

 

The "toilet" behind someone's house - a sandy and rocky patch with walls for privacy for "short calls" (urination)

While walking through down the road, three people sitting in the shade called our "Welcome!", so went over.  They offered me a seat, and we chatted for a few minutes.  Their English was very good, and they asked if I came from America and where in America.  I told them "Washington" and they said, "Oh, Washington, D.C.!" (as everyone does). I explained about Washington state.  Then they asked about Obama and how he's doing in the election (as everyone does).  I said it was hard to predict.  The woman said everyone in Kenya is praying for Obama.  We talked about the Kenyan presidential election in March.  They thanked me for coming to their village; Sosoni is remote and does not have easy access to medical care.  I love the Kenyan people.  Everyone is friendly and welcoming; it is hard to imagine a more gracious people!

 

My New Kenyan Friends - Kitsao, Julius and Mapenzi

The ride back was almost our last van ride!  We have two more tomorrow to go to the HIV/AIDS support group.  I can't say I'll miss that daily experience any, although I do enjoy watching the countryside from the windows.  If only we could stop and take pictures!  Taking photos from the moving van is not good, but not entirely without success.

Baobob tree, as seen en route