karen africa trip short

Lambi Fund fellow, Masters degree in sustainable agriculture from Makerere University and advisor to Access for Action

Karen and Alex Zizinga in Uganda

Access for Action has severable sustainable development projects: Clean drinking water for community

Raise pigs, cows, goats and chickens for food security and income

Beekeeping

Women’s association

Makes charcoal from plantain leaves and candles from beeswax

Met up w/ 1st Congregational Church in Nairobi, Kenya

We stayed at Desmond Tutu Conference Center

Kibera – one of largest slums in world – in Nairobi

Action Foundation Center for special needs kids in Kibera

We brought books and art supplies for the kids

Karen with Akili Dada founder Wanjiru Kamau

Akili Dada – leadership incubator for young Kenyan women. Training for the next generation of leaders

Akili Dada team – strong powerful feminist leaders

Empakasi School

It was winter 72 degrees so they had to bundle up!

Green Belt Movement

Founded by my friend Wangari Maathai, first African woman to win Nobel Peace Prize

Mercy came to Haiti several years ago and met her again with GBM

Heard stories from Global Education Fund scholars

Presented SAT prep books

Visited John Mwangi and his family

He was a Lambi Fund fellow and trains people how to start up sustainable enterprises and become self-supporting

Had to show off that I could operate a well

It was hard!

I gave them a laptop

Teaching them how to use it

I gasped when I saw what was in their backyard

A crocodile!!!

We worshipped with the Church of the Holy Spirit of East Africa

Here is the church

Safari time

Zebras like to maintain eye contact

A rare sighting – a leopard!

Mama lion and her babies

I danced with Massai women

16 women married to two men

Singing with Massai children

Inside the chief’s hut

He showed us the medicinal herbs they used

Baby elephant walk

Our safari camp was next to a hippo community

The last afternoon there I had a glass of wine on the deck

When a family of giraffes walked by!

Umoja East Africa Fund

• Alex, John and I formed an organization to help people in Uganda and Kenya become self-sufficient. A hand up, not a handout.

• Education, training, food security, small enterprises.

• Filed paperwork and some of the groups you have seen here will be its first recipients of funding.

We will work together to make the world a better place!