Greetings!
We hope you all are ready for an exciting summer! At CLCL, we are planning to spend our summer getting ready for our first Kenyan trip in two and a half years. Read on to see what we have planned--this trip promises to have all the same highlights from prior trips with some new adventures as well. If you’ve been thinking of going on a trip, this would be a good one to consider! We also have some exciting news to share about our growing food program and our library construction. And if you’re in Colorado, read on for information about our presentation at Westview Presbyterian, Sunday, June 12 in Longmont, Colorado. We’d love to have you join us!
This newsletter’s featured children are Lucy, one of our vocational students whose sponsor has made a huge impact in her life, and Pablo, a fourth-grade student in search of a sponsor.
In March we featured Mitchel, a young pre-K girl who was recently orphaned. Due to her high need, we had also featured Mitchel in January. I am thrilled to inform you that Teresa decided to sponsor Mitchel. Teresa told me that she did not step forward to sponsor Mitchel in January, because she assumed someone else would. When Mitchel was still without a sponsor in March, Teresa spoke up immediately and began sponsoring sweet Mitchel. Mitchel got lucky. Usually when we feature a child for sponsorship, no one comes forward. For various reasons, we have lost quite a few sponsors lately and have many children who are waiting for their sponsor—some for a very long time. This causes a significant financial strain on CLCL and leaves the children with the feeling that they aren’t wanted.
Please don’t wait for someone else to be a sponsor. There probably isn’t a “someone else.” Sponsor Pablo or another child today!
See You on the Road,
Jennifer Wynne
President of CLCL
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Join CLCL in Kenya this September! |
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Mark your calendars! On Wednesday, September 7 CLCL will be sending a team to Kenya! We’ll be gone for approximately two weeks. While there, we will have our traditional activities of sponsored children’s day, school and home visits, and the experience of a photographic safari. However, this year we will also be visiting an informal settlement in Nairobi, where we will be treated to a day of thanksgiving for the feeding program we provided during COVID’s darkest days. We also plan to meet with a human rights attorney and the U.S. Embassy while in Nairobi. For the first time we will be initiating a water treatment program. Another non-profit has approached us about installing a water-treatment system in some of our communities at no cost to CLCL.
The trip will cost about $4,500, which includes airfare, lodging, and most food. Tips and additional spending will be extra. We hope you’ll join us as we meet our Kenyan friends again after a long hiatus! Space is limited, so if you’re interested in joining us, please email me soon at jennifer@changinglenseschanginglives.org.
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Colorado, Come Learn More about CLCL! |
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If you’re in the Colorado area, be sure to mark your calendars for Sunday, June 12 at 11:00 am at Westview Presbyterian Church in Longmont, CO. Jennifer will be updating everyone on CLCL’s latest activities and projects, plus we will be reporting on our last Kenyan trip from February 2020 and inviting people to join us on CLCL’s return to Kenya in September 2022.
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Results of School Feeding Program |
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As you may recall from our March newsletter, the parents at one of our schools, Ndiine Primary, began a school-wide feeding program after CLCL started delivering food supplements to the school. In addition to Ndiine, CLCL also distributes food once a trimester to four other primary schools. The poorest of these schools, Kathurine, only has food when CLCL provides it. We asked Wyclif, our social worker, to speak with the head teachers at these two schools about the impact the programs are having on attendance and test scores. The results are astounding! Here they are, in a nutshell:
· Ndiine’s school absenteeism dropped by over 44%!
· Ndiine saw a rise in enrollment of 15 students.
· Kathurine, which currently has only a part-time feeding program saw test scores rise by 17%!
The head teachers at the two schools had the following comments,
· “Before we had the feeding program, if pupils were sent home for tuition fees or books, they would come back to school after two days or more. But with the feeding program now, pupils report back to school before noon, even without tuition money or books, simply because there is an assurance of a meal”. Headteacher, Kathurine Pry Sch.
· “We used to solve food theft cases among the pupils every other day as children who didn’t have food or those without good food would steal from some of the privileged kids. As teachers, we are happy that we do not have cases to solve as the feeding program is providing a similar meal”. Head teacher, Ndiine Pry Sch.
Due to the success of the programs, CLCL’s board voted to increase our food supplements to Kathurine Primary for the rest of 2022. It would cost an additional $3,000 a year to give Kathurine a full feeding program. We had earmarked $2,000 to buy a house for one of our families. The board decided it would be better to help 190 students than one family, so we reallocated the budgeted house money to our feeding program. If you would like to see the children at Kathurine have lunch every day, please contribute to Kathurine’s food program. Together we can fill children’s bellies, so they can concentrate on filling their minds!
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by Wyclif Gitonga
With the vision of encouraging a reading culture and boosting the knowledge among the pupils at MCK Ntumburi primary school outside Meru, Kenya, CLCL organization sought to establish a library for the school. After sharing this vision with our partners, a few months later we have been able to construct a library fitted with shelves ready to be stocked with books that will enable learners and the neighboring community to explore the world from the perspective of different authors and publishers.
Basic resources required for the library to become functional include course books, storybooks, maps, globes, supplementary reading materials, and historical books among other publications. We, therefore, are calling upon you to help us raise funds that will get hundreds of pupils enough materials to encourage vocabulary development, improve word comprehension and instill a reading habit among the pupils. We have already raised over $700 to buy books for our library, but we need an additional $1,300 to ensure the library is well-stocked. If you would like to buy a book in honor or memory of a loved one, or in honor of your sponsored child, you may purchase this for $50. As a thank-you, we will send you a picture of your book in our library with a plate commemorating whomever you chose.
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Sponsor A Child: Pablo
by Wyclif Gitonga
The death of a parent is an incalculable lasting blow, simply because no one can love like a parent can. The pain is greater when one loses both parents at a young age, leaving few or no memories with the child. When Pablo was born in 2013, he only experienced love and care from his mother for two years, as she died in 2015 when she was six months pregnant. Following her death, Pablo and his elder sister started to live with their aged grandmother. Five years later, Pablo lost his father to COVID-19. This loss resulted in a lack of basic commodities for the family, as the father was the sole provider.
Pablo, a bright, healthy nine-year-old and a fourth-grader, has been living with his aged grandmother, who cannot work or complete manual work to provide for her family. As a result, she has been struggling to provide quality education, food, and clothing for her grandchildren. Before his death, Pablo’s father had been providing for them, including having constructed a house for them. Having no other alternative source of financial help, his grandmother has been relying on support from well-wishers and a few relatives.
We invite you to partner with Changing Lenses, Changing Lives (CLCL) and become an important lifeline to Pablo by becoming his sponsor. Through your sponsorship, Pablo will be cautioned against the brutal effects of malnutrition and give him a life that he may not otherwise have experienced. Help Pablo become an engineer today by becoming his sponsor.
Sponsor Pablo or another Child from our gallery!
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Lucy, a Success Story through Vocational Training |
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Lucy
by Wyclif Gitonga
Changing lenses, Changing Lives (CLCL) Organization supports students at different levels of education since it plays an important role in poverty alleviation among families in Meru, Kenya. Vocational training is one of the levels supported by CLCL, which has allowed some beneficiaries to acquire specific skills for various types of jobs which are mainly technical such as plumbing, electrical, or catering.
Lucy, a twenty (20) year old and a young mother who has been under CLCL’s sponsorship and a beneficiary of the Ruby Cup program since 2017, is the recent recipient of CLCL’s vocational training scholarship. She is joining tens of other CLCL students taking various technical courses to pursue a course in tailoring and dressmaking. When she sat for her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examinations in the year 2019, she did not attain a grade that could get her admission for a diploma or a degree course. In addition, as a result of the closure of learning institutions due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the larger part of 2020, she became pregnant, which added to her problems of being orphaned and born into a poor family. In this case, the option of vocational training will create employment opportunities for her and help Lucy have source of income that will help her sustain her family financially.
Unlike other young girls whose educational goals get cut short by early pregnancy, Lucy is privileged to continue her education by training as a tailor and a dressmaker through the help of CLCL. The aforementioned skills will be an important tool that will help her familiarize herself with the real working environment and contribute to the development of both her family and the society at large. Lucy is, therefore, a representative of several vulnerable young people that CLCL is helping to secure their future by proving vocational training scholarships designed to improve their transition to various technical opportunities after their high school education.
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