It's all Happening ... in Kibera

Got home from Sparkseed's awesome ARE YOU DANGEROUSLY AMBITIOUS? Happy Hour last night and after turning on my laptop, first thing I did was look up the video for The Script's "Breakeven." (If you listen to pop radio then you know it; currently #15 on Billboards Pop Singles chart.) Took me a while to locate the video because I thought it was an Adam Lambert song. My excuse? I haven't followed American Idol since the night in May 2008 that my favorite, David Archuleta lost to David Cook:)



But I digress.

After bopping along to Katy Perry's video for "California Gurls" I moved onto an email thanking me for volunteering at Do Something's Social Action Boot Camp this past Saturday. The email mentioned that Do Something will be announcing the winner of their $100k grant, as a part of a live show on VH1 on July 19th at 6 pm. I clicked on a link in the email, and a few clicks later found myself on a Do Something website reading about The Kibera School for Girls and Shining Hope Community Center, founded by Jessica Posner, Wesleyan '09 and Kennedy Odede, '12.

Here's an interview Wesleyan did with Jessica and Kennedy, where they talk about their venture and how it came to fruition:



I like this from Jessica: "We have a responsibility to the world because we went to Wesleyan, you know we got this type of education and we should use that to reinvent, reimagine how things are."

I found Jessica and Kennedy's organization on Facebook and saw that Jessica and Kennedy are in Echoing Green's 2010 fellows class! How did I miss them when I was blogging about the fellows 24 hours ago?

Their Echoing Green video:



By reading about Jessica and Kennedy, I learned that Kibera, the home of their venture, is the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya and the second largest urban slum in the world. It's home to 1.5 million people, yet it's smaller than the size of NYC's Central Park.

Kibera seems to be everywhere, this week.

Last Tuesday PBS showed the Acumen Fund documentary "The Recruits", which I recently blogged about. I watched it online this past weekend. It profiles 3 Acumen Fund fellows, including Suraj Sudhakar, a native of Mumbai, India. As an Acumen Fund fellow, Suraj worked with Ecotact, a Nairobi, Kenya-based sanitation company. In "The Recruits" Suraj visits Kibera and encourages Ecotact founder David Kuria (an Ashoka Fellow himself, I just discovered) to build toilets in Kibera. It was a great eye opening film, and the first time I'd gotten that close to Kibera.

While I had never seen a video tour of Kibera, I was recently involved with a community project that benefits the community.

While attending my friend Lesley's baby shower three weekends ago in Monterey County, I learned that one of her fellow teachers, Caitie Ireland, was about to leave for Kenya, to volunteer at the Daraja Academy of Kenya. Caitie and I caught up at the party, and a few minutes into our conversation I found myself volunteering to collect women's running shoes for the secondary students at the private boarding school for girls - Kenya's first. Some of the students at the school are from Kibera.

After emailing a few select Bay Area fellow runners, and posting it as my "status update" on Facebook, I collected 50+ pairs of women's running shoes in less than 2 weeks from many friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends' co-workers!

Caitie and I met up for a hike at Big Basin Redwood State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California on Sunday, so that I could give her the shoes I'd collected. She shipped them to Kenya a few days ago, and is now enroute to the Daraja Academy of Kenya.


photo: myself and Caitie with some of the shoes destined for the Daraja Academy


photo: me with some of the shoes

So that was my tiny contribution and brush with Kibera.

But now, Kibera is everywhere - late last night, thanks to Facebook, I stumbled upon an article about a solar power project set for Kibera, related to the World Cup.



Also thanks to Facebook yesterday I learned about this TED video: Charles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the slums. I admit I haven't had a chance to watch it, yet.



Also just found out that Suraj organized a TEDx for Kibera last fall. Check it out here.

I am certain that there are many other ventures either already underway or planned for Kibera ... Jessica, Kennedy, Caitie, and Suraj just got me started:)