Good Giving | To walk the walk
There is an African proverb that perfectly sums up our time in Kenya with Free the Children, “Mikono mingi kazi haba” in Swahili, or in English, “many hands make light work”. While helping with vision screening, distributing prescription eyeglasses and sharing the importance of eye health our team was also invited to get to know the families of the communities we were partnering with. For today’s #FlashbackFriday we reflect on our time visiting and working with the amazing community members we met in Kenya, and specifically the Mamas who shared their homes, their families and their way of life with the Clearly team. With gratitude for these amazing women, we’d like to share our experience walking the walk.
For this part of our journey, we’d like to introduce you to Liz G, our amazing Call Center Manager and self-proclaimed “crazy cat-lady”. Liz was among nine team members who visited Kenya through our partnership with Clearly’s Change the View and Free the Children, now We.org, to help remove barriers to vision health and vision correction. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing Liz’s reflections of the team’s time spent with the communities in South Narok, Kenya.
Being given this amazing and unique opportunity to visit one of the Mama’s homes and learn about her way of life was so eye opening and we felt so lucky to have been given the chance to meet this inspiring woman. Not only did she provide for her family with her cattle, she also took care of all the household duties, which included gathering water from the river multiple times a day. The walk up to her home was amazing and surreal as we got to see the community up close and personal as we passed others herding their donkeys or cattle and watched children playing in the fields. There was even a small hut labeled as a movie theatre of some sort. It had rained earlier so the roads were muddy and difficult to walk in, so it’s even more amazing to think that heavy water jugs are carried multiple times daily in the rain or sun!
After meeting the Mama, she was so proud to show us her home as they had recently just built a new addition that gave them more reliable shelter and was decorated with newspapers and pictures. Shortly after, our group was taken to the nearby river with running water where the mamas traditionally fill large jugs of water to bring home to use for the agriculture. It was only about a 10-15 minute walk but once those jugs were full of water it was definitely challenging!
As we took off in pairs back to the house with the jugs strapped to us using the front of our foreheads to help distribute the weight and backs to support the rest, it really sunk in and made us quickly realize that this is extremely challenging. The fact that the women in the community did that water walk multiple times a day made us realize how very fortunate we are to have easy access to water and it was really a testament to what they do for their families.
The women in these communities were so talented and intelligent but also physically strong and capable and I was very inspired by them. Although it felt good to be able to help the Mama that day with her water duties, it made me think about the 364 other days a year that she and her daughter have to do this and it really put things into perspective. Being able to help even just one family can make a huge difference and I was so proud to have been involved with Free the Children who are constantly looking for ways to partner and improve lives in developing countries.