About Us

Going into the trip, I knew I was going to be working at an orphanage in Kenya but didn’t know what I would be doing or where I would be placed (I went through an organization called Global Volunteer Network, http://www.volunteer.org.nz/).
My first day in Kenya, I was taken into Kibera by a man named Peter Gachanga (who has also worked with the Constant Gardner and National Geographic while they were shooting in Kibera).

The first place we visited was Mama Tunza’s orphanage. My heart was immediately broken by the poor conditions, as I saw five babies sitting in a room by themselves and about eighty children packed into two small classrooms that were so dark that it was hard to see. The orphanage was very small with only the two classrooms, a small, rectangular play area, an office, and a kitchen (with only a fire stove) filled with standing water.

I spent the rest of the day walking with Peter throughout Kibera, meeting the people who live there and visiting a clinic and another school (St Charles). I had been on service trips to a few places before, but I had never seen such overwhelming poverty and it was hard to grasp that Kibera is home to over a million people. You always hear statistics about the people who live in poverty, but it’s hard to internalize that people really live in those conditions unless you see it for yourself.

But I knew Kibera was where I was meant to be.

I spent the next few weeks completely overwhelmed and wondering what I could possibly do that would make a difference for the people in Kibera. But during the day, I was at Mama Tunza’s orphanage teaching multiplication and English to Class 3, taking care of the infants, and playing a lot of futbol (soccer) with the older children. In the later weeks, I also began to work at the school I had visited before, called the St Charles Center.

However, knowing I was only going to be there for six weeks, I couldn’t help but wonder if what I was doing was really making a difference. So I talked to Peter and began to go with him to film Kibera and interview local leaders of the community about the living conditions and to see what could be done to help on a larger scale.

Since coming home, I have attempted to put the footage together to make a documentary about Kibera to raise awareness about the virtually unknown slum, and in the hopes that it will be a mechanism to raise support to set up projects in Kibera that will make a difference in the lives of the people who live there.

The people who live in Kibera and Kenya for that matter are amazing. It’s hard when you think about how much we take for granted (even basics things like food, water, toilets, and education) and how little the people in Kibera have. Yet despite these circumstances, Kibera is filled with a community of people that have come together to support each other and who are the friendliest people I have ever met. The short time I spent with them changed my life and it is my hope and prayer that with your help, we can do something to change their lives.