Heroes for Health

August 2018 Update

An update and request from HAMI Board Member and Christ Church Executive Director Jeff Kimmel, who recently traveled to Sakwa Kenya to visit Hope Educational Centre.

Dear friend,

If you think about it, our lives are a series of investments.

We invest time in relationships; we invest in ourselves by learning how to do things or to get ourselves in better shape physically; and we invest our money to ensure we have enough for when we get older.

Every day is an investment—every time we make a decision to do one thing over another, we are determining what the best thing to invest in is.

There are other investments we can consider as well—people who don't share the same blessings we have been given here in America.

I recently spent 10 days in Sakwa, Kenya, with the Lead Pastor from my church. We spent time with the 400+ boys and girls that come to the Hope Educational Centre to learn every day. Given this was my first time visiting the school in Sakwa, my Pastor tried to prepare me for what life in Sakwa is like. I was overwhelmed by the sweet, amazing joy these little ones show in the midst of complete, abject poverty.

One of the things that struck me the most was the overuse of the sanitary facilities at the school. There is no running water at the school (or anywhere nearby), meaning toilet facilities are extremely basic—holes in a cement floor, surrounded by bricks, and a tin roof (see the photos below). When the school moved to this permanent location, the Kenyan government allowed it to operate with one toilet block of eight stalls, with the promise of building more. With over 400 pupils using these these facilities five-days-a-week, nine-months-a -year, they are on the border of becoming a health hazard.

Now is the time! Hope Educational Centre needs another block of toilets to provide for the pupils' needs and to keep this first-rate school healthy and sanitary. The emphasis of the school has been correctly placed on good education, retaining teachers, providing supplies, and building a new school building. Rather than cutting into the funding that provides for ongoing projects to address this issue, it was decided that the better approach was to separately solicit funds for this project. The cost to build an additional eight-toilet block is only $8,000. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to rectify this issue and provide the pupils with all the facilities needed.

Please Donate through Paypal (On this website, using the donate button) Or send a check to our address: Hope Africa Ministries, Inc., P.O. Box 150113, Alexandria, VA 22315

So I ask you—isn't that worth investing in? In Jesus’ name - Jeff Photos of the current sanitary facilities, HAMI would like to add a second toilet block of 8 stalls to help serve the 400+ pupils of the Hope Educational Centre: