More Photos... Emergency Relief to Village

Supplies Delivered to Western Kenyan Village

We now have photos of the recent delivery to the village in the western region of Kenya.  Due to roadblocks and dramatic price inflation, basic supplies were in desperately low supply.  The delivery of supplies, financed by the Voiceless Children Emergency Fund, was received with great enthusiasm.   It included supplies of flour, sugar, cooking oil and soap.  

We would like to send our special thanks to Felix Masi who has arranged all of the deliveries, to Nairobi slums and the western village, near the Ugandan border.  He has taken great personal risk to transport goods, including travel through high-alert areas.  

In this post, we share photos from the largest emergency delivery to date.

We anticipate that even with the agreement of February 28th, it will take several months to bring stability and ensure that goods and services are restored to normal.

Thank you for your continued support.  We will continue with our Emergency Fund initiative for the next few months, along with news and updates on this site.

Meet Two Amazing People...

We've been talking about "Voiceless Children", the African-based not-for-profit, but who are they?

The organization was created in 2005 by Felix Masi, of Nairobi, and Susie Banfield, of Sun Valley, Idaho.  One can only say that "destiny" brought these two together.

Felix is a grandmother-raised orphan who brings a great awareness and sensitivity to the plight of women who are widowed or abandoned to raise children on their own.  Now in his mid-thirties, Felix has a family of his own.  As a photojournalist, he has been able to take care of his family and devote huge amounts of time to caring for "grandmother families" in the slums of Nairobi and in the western provinces where his grandmother originally lived.

All the photos on this blog are recent pictures taken by Felix.

One of his many accomplishments, Felix was selected for a visiting Fulbright scholarship.  He was the only photojournalist and Kenyan in a group of sixteen.  During his month-long sojourn in Washington, DC, he met another "son of Kenya"... Senator Barack Obama.

Felix Bio

And then there's Susie.  Once you've met Susie, you can understand how these two dynamos managed to find each other from worlds apart.  Susie had just finished a project on the Johnston Atoll in an extremely remote part of the Pacific when she first arrived in Africa in 2001.  Third trip lucky... in 2005, Felix and Susie met.  The seeds of Voiceless Children came to fruition and the rest is history and a lot of hard work.

Susie Bio

In December 2006, another major intersection with destiny occurred.  Qiujing Wong and Dean Easterbrook were researching their documentary, "A Grandmother's Tribe" and needed to find a point person in Kenya to arrange for logistics and to have on-the-ground savvy to make the right connections.  That's right, Felix!

And so, Felix and Susie were brought into the fold of "A Grandmother's Tribe" and we, into their world.

"A Grandmother's Tribe" website

We are honoured and privileged to be helping them through this very difficult time in Kenya's history.

We thank you for being part of our "global family" and appreciate your contributions!

Deliveries to Kibera...

Photos have arrived and we are pleased to share with you this weekend's delivery of emergency supplies to Kibera.

Felix (pictured in the long sleeve red shirt), Founder of Voiceless Children, was able to deliver some much-needed positive good wishes and supplies to grandmother families living in Kibera. His delivery bundle included flour, sugar, rice, bar soap and cooking fat.

He is pleased to report that all recipients were very grateful for the supplies! 

For those of you who are not familiar with Kibera, it is one of several "slum" neighbourhoods in Kenya's capital of Nairobi.  Kibera is the second largest slum in the world with nearly one million residents.  It is the location of the urban grandmother family profiled in the documentary, "A Grandmother's Tribe".  

Kibera, the size of a major city... with no public sanitation... has been dramatically impacted by post-election and ethnic violence.  Women and children often suffer in silence during these times.  

But today, you made a difference!!  There are people in Kibera who know they weren't forgotten!

Thank you again, to all those who have contributed to the Voiceless Children Emergency Fund!

SPECIAL NOTE...

We have received a cheque for $1,000 US from the Elk Grove Rotary (US).  That brings our official GRAND TOTAL to $2,520... 50% of our original target!!!