Sarah In Kenya

We at Flying Kites love changing the lives of the 16 children in our care, as well as the additional 35 students from the community that we educate.  However, we want our legacy to be larger: we want to effect lasting change for orphaned children across Kenya.

To accomplish this goal, we have implemented the Oasis Program, through which we plan to improve the lives of Kenya’s orphaned and vulnerable children by uniting orphanages and working with them to enhance the services they provide. We are confident that if orphanages around the country are able to share their ideas and communicate with the government as a unified group, they will be able to receive more aid, improve their services, and provide a better life to the children in their care.

Our first step to getting the Oasis Program off the ground is to introduce ourselves to orphanages and assess their current conditions.  Veronica Ciambra and Jessica McCauley, two very dedicated and capable Flying Kites volunteers, have helped me compose a survey to assess Kenyan orphanage conditions.  Fran, a Kenyan Flying Kites employee, will administer the survey.

Fran and I administered a “test run” of our survey to the Flying Kites housemothers – they gave some very helpful critiques that will help make the survey even more effective! They were adamant that a Kenyan should administer the survey instead of me, a muzungo (read: white person), explaining that with a Kenyan asking the questions, the orphanage employees will be more at ease and more likely to respond truthfully and accurately.  In the next few weeks, Fran will begin traveling to orphanages to administer these surveys.  I’ll keep everyone posted as to how this project progresses.

This week, I have implemented the FKKCC Literacy Program.  After meeting with the four FK teachers, they let me know that they have trouble leading an effective class because they each have a few students that are extremely behind in English reading, writing, and comprehension.

I let them know that this is quite a common problem: when I taught an “Introduction to Law” class to high schoolers at a Washington, DC public school, there were several  students that had severely stunted literacy capabilities.

To ensure that all of our students can sufficiently read and write, I’ve launched the new Literacy Program, in which FK volunteers will tutor the students in need of help on a one-on-one basis.  I’ll monitor this program’s progress and let everyone know how it proceeds.  The kids are excited about it – they love the attention, and they love the pass out of class!  I think it will do wonders for the FK literacy rate.

Leila (FK Director): Would you like some ginseng tea?

Me: Oh sure, ginseng helps improve your memory, doesn’t it?

Leila: I don’t remember.

Yesterday, a Kenyan woman stopped Leila on the road from Njabini and told her that she was in Big Trouble.  She needed Help.  Leila invited her back to the Children’s Center to discuss.

An hour later, the woman arrived with a very sick baby in tow, and introduced herself as Esther.  Esther explained that her Trouble was this: her husband brought her and their two sons to Njabini so that he could find work as a day laborer.  However, this promise of work, which would lead to money and sustenance, never materialized.  (As she told her story, her baby was gulping down food as fast as we could give it him).

There was no work, and her husband was becoming increasingly frustrated and taking it out on her older son, a four-year-old, who received nightly beatings from his father – a twisted punishment stemming from the man’s own shortcomings and disappointment.  Would your older son like a meal as well, we asked?  As soon as the invitation reached her ears, she dropped the baby into Leila’s arms and raced down the road through the pouring rain.  An hour later, she was back with the older child, who was in even worse shape than the first.

Esther explained that she wanted to leave her husband and return to the village where her family lived.  She was desperate to protect her sons from any more harm from this man – so desperate that she had been willing to approach a stranger on the road to beg for help.

What would have Esther done if she lived in the US and wanted to leave her abusive husband?  Pick up a yellow pages and look up domestic abuse.   Go to a community center.  There are options.  Here?  No one to reach out to, except for a white person she found on the road.  All suffering is not equal.  We gave her the shillings to pay for transportation back home.  Hopefully Esther is escaping, but what about all the other women who need help, who need empowerment?

The root of Esther in Hebrew is hester, meaning “hidden.”  Esther is hidden, hidden in her poverty, in her despair, like so many others here in Njabini and throughout Kenya.

Esther and her sons

Maggie, a volunteer at FKKCC, has offered some of the pictures she has taken at the Children’s Center.  Maggie is such an amazing volunteer! We are so excited to have her. It’s particularly exciting because she is an Olympian! She competed in the 2004 Olympics in Greece on the Danish rowing team. She’s so wonderful with the children.  Victor (another volunteer) and she will launch the new personalized tutoring program this week (more on this later).

The Children's Center and the playground

The View

The children welcoming a volunteer

Rahab and Maggie

I’ve arrived in Kenya safely and could not be happier! Leila (a Flying Kites Executive Director) and I arrived yesterday morning and quickly made our way out of Nairobi to the Flying Kites Children’s Center.

The Children’s Center is located about an hour and a half outside of Nairobi. On the drive out, as I watched the landscape transform from urban sprawl to beautiful and lush hills, I saw firsthand the importance of Flying Kites building its Children’s Center in the countryside.

The setting of the Children’s Center is gorgeous; I entered the gates to explosions of wildflowers and 50 children (the 16 Flying Kites children along with the community children who come in for school) singing me a welcome song.  It was the best hello I’ve ever had.

After school let out for the day, Leila and the kids took me on a hike around the property to give me the lay of the land.  Flying Kites has smoothed the rolling landscape, making a flat area to play as well as a soccer field. They bulldozed an amphitheater into the property which doubles as a theater space for the kids as well as a gathering area for the community to meet.  Beyond this is an orchard of apple and pear trees, and fields filled with vegetables.

Have I arrived in heaven?   Possibly so.  I look forward to getting to know the kids better – they seem so smart, outgoing, and caring.   I constantly found a little hand in mine, someone wanting to show me their school work or their own special spot at the Center.  These are some happy kids, and I want to give them everything they need to thrive.

On Monday, I’m going to Nairobi to get a Blackberry (yes, a BLACKBERRY, my law firm friends), and get my laptop hooked up to the internet properly.  I can’t wait to post some pictures and let everyone see the beautiful spot in which I’ll be living for the next year.

Last night Flying Kites premiered a documentary, created by Chad Shagren, which details the work the Flying Kites founders did at By Grace Orphanage, located in the Nairobi slums, and how this experience inspired them to create Flying Kites.

We had a wonderful turnout – it was a packed house!  Below are a few pictures from the event.

Flying Kites staff before the premiere

The Jane Pickens Theater

The full house!

Myself with Deb Curtis, who is on the Flying Kites Board of Directors, along with other Flying Kites supporters

What’s the first question that comes to mind when you want to assess how effective a nonprofit is?  For most people, it is “What percentage of your donations go to the cause?”  However, I am learning this is not the best method for assessing a nonprofit’s success.

Consider two soup kitchens.  One advertises that 90% of its donations go to its cause.  While this is true, it only serves 25 people, its staff is disrespectful to the kitchen patrons, and its soup is thin and not nutritious.  A second soup kitchen directs 50% of its donations to its cause.  However, it serves 200 people, employs well-trained staff that is courteous to its patrons, and serves soups that are hardy and healthy.  If you rely on the statistic of how much donations go to the cause, you will not be able to accurately assess which nonprofit organization is more effective.

Dan Pallotta, a social entrepreneur who created AIDSRides and Breast Cancer 3-day walk, events that netted $305 million for charities over nine years, addresses the above misconception about charity assessment in his book, Uncharitable.  Additionally, he argues that society’s conception of how nonprofits should run – that they should not use the same strategies as for-profit businesses – prevents nonprofits from reaching their full potential and restricts their ability to good.  For instance, Pallotta asserts that nonprofits should be able to offer competitive compensation to executives so that nonprofits can recruit talented leaders who can effectively grow their organizations.

Dan Pallotta made the time to meet with the Flying Kites team, for which we were very grateful.  Meeting with someone who has so much experience in the charitable world and has effected so much change was a very inspirational experience for us.  Reading his book and talking with him reinforced our commitment to pursue creative fundraising strategies for Flying Kites (more on these later!) and to stay true to our unique vision of providing exemplary care to Kenya’s orphans.

I highly recommend reading Uncharitable.  Whether you work in the nonprofit world or are a supporter of charities, the book will prompt you to question some long held societal conceptions about charities – conceptions that are in need of an update.

The most amazing thing has happened at Seyfarth Shaw, the law firm from which I am departing.  Everyone had been so supportive of my career jump, and I have been very excited to share the vision of Flying Kites with everyone there.

However, Seyfarth’s response to what Flying Kites is doing is beyond anything I could ever imagine.  Bob Nobile, a senior partner at the firm, along with Lori Almon, a managing partner, came up with the idea of throwing a fundraiser for the children of Flying Kites to coincide with my departure.

They sent out an invitation explaining their idea to help the children of Flying Kites.  A few minutes after the email went out, responses – and pledges of very generous donations – began to inundate my email box.  I sat there the whole day reading my colleague’s kind words, unable to wipe the smile off my face.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get better, it did. John Sabetta, a partner in the litigation department, challenged the firm to take the giving to the next level.  He offered to match any donations up to $1000 that came in during a one-hour period from those at the firm who had not yet donated.  In one hour, Seyfarth employees gave an additional $2400 to the Flying Kites children.

The event was amazing!  It was held at Chez Jacqueline, a restaurant in the West Village.  The owner of Chez Jacqueline generously offered his space, food, and drink to us.   There was a great turnout, and I am so grateful for everyone’s support at Seyfarth.  The firm raised over $11,000 for the children of Flying Kites, which is an absolutely amazing amount that will support our center for over two months.