This year’s Annual Gathering, themed “Ready, Willing & Able”, was held at Surly Brewery on Monday, November 13. It was a huge success thanks to the many who came to hear an update on the program, the success of the students and meet Maureen Mulievi, Ngong Road Children’s Foundation Program Director who was visiting from Nairobi.

Paula Meyer, Friends of Ngong Road Founder and President, highlighted the success of the first ten years of the organization that is proven through the organization’s own data. 91 percent of students who have completed their post-secondary education are employed or in internships on their way to employment. This compares to an estimated 60 percent employment rate in Kenya and only 15 percent for young adults entering the labor market for the first time. Paula noted that this organization is “Ready” to continue transforming lives going forward.

Maureen Mulievi, Program Director in Kenya, then shared about her background growing up in rural Kenya in a large family. Her father was a teacher and farmer and believed in educating girls. At the time, the popular belief in the rural community was that educating a girl was a wasted investment as the girl would marry young and only enhance the new spouse’s family, not her own. Maureen recognizes how lucky she was to be raised in a home that believed in education for girls, and she has carried that passion into her work.

Finally, Evan and Meghan Feige, young professionals from the Twin Cities, talked about their experience launching a pilot life skills program in Kenya In January 2017 and their plans to return to Kenya in January 2018 to launch a comprehensive life skills program for all secondary students and recent graduates with the support of Rotary International.

As always, the gathering was a reminder that the mission of transforming lives is only possible because of the committed and diverse community of people who care about providing access to education for children who otherwise would not have a chance.

If you did not get to attend the event, we invite you to listen to the Illumini Podcast produced by longtime volunteer, Steve Kotvis. Steve has interviewed Paula and Maureen and plans to publish a third interview with the Feiges to give those unable to attend the Annual Gathering a better taste for what was said. It is fun listening for anyone new to or already familiar with the organization. Check it out!

Friends of Ngong Road has added an educator to its board of directors. A native of Iowa, Sally J. Kenney earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Iowa, a B.A. and M.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.  From 1989-1995, she held a joint appointment in Political Science, Women’s Studies, and Law at the University of Iowa.  She served on the faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs from 1995-2009 where she also directed the Center on Women and Public Policy. She joined Tulane University in 2010 as the first Newcomb College Endowed Chair, the executive director of the Newcomb College Institute, and a Professor of Political Science.  The Newcomb College Institute is an interdisciplinary, academic center whose mission is to educate undergraduate women for leadership.  In that role, she has pioneered a service learning summer program to bring Tulane students to NRCF’s annual camp.  Last year, she led three students.

Sally’s research interests include gender and judging, judicial selection, feminist social movements, women and electoral politics, the European Court of Justice, exclusionary employment policies, and pregnancy discrimination. Her latest book is Gender and Justice: Why Women in the Judiciary Really Matter (2013).  She has close relationships with the Kenyan Women Judges Association.  Her current research focuses on sexual assault on campus and women’s leadership.  She is also studying Swahili.

Sally has been to Kenya four times, first in 2011, as a sponsor of Sharon Akoth.  In the intervening years, she has begun sponsoring three more children and has gotten to know many NRCF students through her participation in camp in 2015 and 2016. Sally and her husband Norman Foster have no children of their own.  Last summer, when she met former child warrior Emmanuel Jal, who runs a program similar to NRCF for Sudanese orphans in Kenya he said, the Sudan has a proverb that whoever takes in an orphan will never be lonely in old age.  Sally reports, “I now feel as if I have 400 children, and I am so lucky to be involved with this great project.”

In the Illumini Podcast, Steve Kotvis interviews Sally about how volunteers bring their unique talents to Friends of Ngong Road and Ngong Road Children’s Foundation. Sally also describes insightful findings to research about the value of sponsor connections with the children in the Ngong Road Children’s Foundation program.