Hi! Today I would like to explain the main motivation behind this initiative, the driving force that lead us to start “More for Them” (English translation for our Spanish name “Mas Por Ellos”). In order to understand this, it’s necessary to understand who “Them” are and the reality they face.
Today we went on a fieldtrip to Kibera to interview the people who were going to start out microcredit program. Although we had been there before, this trip turned out to be an awakening and revealing experience for me. Let me try to convey what I felt by telling you a little story. I was standing with the interviewee in the middle of a narrow street which seemed to be the natural flow for a river of black water when a man approached me asking for help for his niece. He handed me a notebook written by a child and I started reading the page he pointed at. The story tells how she was playing in the river when she suddenly saw people running because a fire had started. She decided to go with them. Once they reached the fire they all tried to extinguish it but their efforts were not enough. The story ended there. When I lifted the eyes from the paper I saw a 7-year old girl, with a burnt face, staring at me. Next to her, the man who continued begging for help and the interviewee with a sad look on his eyes due to the lack of attention I was paying to him. I had never felt so powerless and experienced such a deep sadness. I cried. Nobody noticed. I was crying inside.
Kenya is a place where everyone says hello smiling. However, Kenya is also a place where most of the smiles hide what we would consider dramatic life experiences; kids walk through garbage, they live surrounded by flies and their houses are no bigger than what your bathroom would be.
My name is Pablo, and before deciding to move to Kenya I suffered many sleepless nights. Now, I couldn’t be happier. I am determined to fight to change this reality. I am aware it is impossible to change everything, but one thing is clear, nothing is going to change if we don’t try.
Now it’s time to write the hardest part of this blog: asking you to help us with our project by telling our story to your friends and relatives (Facebook is a good way to do so). You will help us a lot by just encouraging your friends to “follow” us. You can participate in “Mas Por Ellos” in a very meaningful way even if you are not in the field with us.
Imagine for one second it works and that in a week we have 10.000 followers… Achieving this outcome depends, partly, on you.
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”
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