Soar Kenya

An explanation from Phil- Head of Wrestling the World.

Several people commented that they wanted to buy baby bottles. Someone found them and they are bought. I know there are many other much needed items. Now is the time to send the people that are there some funds to get these medical items bought and in place before they leave in June. I’m hoping they can also coordinate student nurses or staff nurses to continue to do this work. My thoughts and prayers are with these 3 young people because I know the extreme conditions they are dealing with daily. Our support of their work is so important.  Mary

Hi Mary,

How are you for along time? I hope you and all yours are fine. I have been very, very busy registering class 8 candidates, preparing AGM and taking financial reports for auditing. I was praying God that my BP should remain normal. Thank God that I have gone through all this. We closed School on 3^rd April last week. I went to look for Susan Njambi. I found out that she was taken by her brother who lives in Nairobi . Her grandmother was buried and I gave the grandfather Kshs. 2,000 as you had requested plus the card and the necklace. Unfortunately when I requested that I take Susan with me to live in my home they refused. I regretted having said this because after that I was told they were saying that I wanted to let her be adopted by white people. Sorry Mary but I wish your sister should select another child to sponsor. I received the money for Anthony and I will buy him a bicycle, shoes and pay Ksh 3,500 to School. They are paying Ksh 1,500 for School fees and Ksh 2,000 as building contributions.

You had asked me about him saying that teachers in Tumaini are better than those in Hopewell , well Mary this is what he thinks and what others say. Though they are all trained but does not near that they are better. I am still preaching with him that he should join Hope well. Let us hope that he will rethink and be wise. When the KCSE results were released he was saying that their School was No. 24/73 while Hopewell was 31/73 but Mary not all the candidates did well in their School. I had gone for check up in the Hospital and my BP is normal. How is Don’s mother, your children and Don himself? My family remembers you always. The Self-help Group is going on and we had met with Caro Wanjiku and we decided to construct water tanks and keep poultry. I will be informing you of our progress. Greet all yours.

Pauline

Hello Everyone,

We have not killed each other in the past 5 weeks and are actually getting along ok with the sacrifice of a lot of personal space. The three of us share one bedroom so you can imagine how close we are most of the time. Since we wrote last we have lots of news to to share. Brittany and Allison have continued to work in the hospital two days a week moving around to the different units. They were in the burn unit for 2 weeks, maternity and nursery for 2 weeks and a medical rotation for the past week.

Maternity is exciting because here in Kenya, the nurses deliver the babies, so we feel more like students than professional nurses when we are on that ward. We have not yet had the chance to deliver, but we are hoping to go back to maternity at the end of our rotations to do this. Brittany did get to deliver a placenta, and we have assisted with resuscitation of babies and have had a chance to communicate with some of the mothers. In the nursery, we usually help with feeding the abandoned babies. There are usually about 5 or 6 of them at one time, and they keep them there for a few weeks in case the moms decide to come back. It takes a long time because we feed from cups…they have no bottles. We have gotten attached to this ward, so even when we are assigned to other ones, we always go over there around lunch time to help feed, change, and hold the abandoned ones. On the medical units we have delivered medications, helped with IVs, and done rounds with the doctors.

We’re still teaching first aid at Hopewell. We’re trying to get through all the students, but is difficult because of lack of organization. The kids enjoy it though and ask a lot of questions.

The last few weeks at the dispensary have been very exciting. A supporter of Hopewell, Mary Hoffman, who we met our first week here, has donated $500 to the dispensary. With that money we bought the fridge we need in order to store vaccinations. We will get those next week and hopefully start immunizing right away…pictures on the way! We were also able to buy an adult and a pediatric blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, a thermometer, and various accessories needed for the vaccinations. This is so exciting because the dispensary is the only clinic that many people in the area can afford, so they will be able to get affordable vaccinations. Polio was thought to be gone in Kenya and just recently there have been more cases, so this is very important. We’ll keep you updated with further developments to the clinic. Mason is going to build a desk and maybe even an examination table. If you are interested in donating money or supplies to the dispensary, please contact us and we will make it happen.

Brittany and I also did a mobile clinic, which there are some pictures up of. We went to a village in the bush outside of a town called Bahati. We gave immunizations, did well child check ups, and did assessments on pregnant women.

Weekends are usually our free to time go and see the area. We have traveled to Mombasa, which is on the Indian Ocean. The bus ride was very long and bumpy and was considered the worst trip every by Brittany and Allison. We were greeted by very hot and humid weather when we arrive, which we expected. Once we made it to the beach the trip seemed worth it because they were very beautiful and the water felt very good. Last weekend we traveled to Kampala, Uganda for 4 days to visit a friend (Ann Vogt for those of you who know her) from college who was volunteering in a hospital in Kampala.

We hope that everyone is doing well back home. We will try and write more often but no promises.

Brittany, Allison and Mason

I met these three exceptional young people while at Hopewell in Jan. They are doing great work there. I can’t believe the story of feeding the babies in the hospital. Any contributions remember Soar will send 100% to them. They are only in Kenya until June.

Hi, Caro and Isaac gave a wonderful teaching about the tanks and other things , we had about six groups from the are in the meeting.
My group is trying to raise money to build for one of our member one tank since Caro said that there is more tanks to be constructed , even thought it might be a burden to the group, Rotary is paying 60 percent of the total while group member pays 40 percent  which is almost 22, 000kshs, since we are going on with paying for the plot and we are remaining with a balance of 10,000kshs since it was costing 45,000kshs, we will send for you pro post site. Mason is a wonder to work with.God bless you .
James.

James is a young man working hard to provide opportunity to the people of his village. He is working with rotary to try and get storage tanks and eavetroughs on the little houses. Presently he carries up the mountain about 2 miles or more to bring water from Hopewell. We met the community group and they were wonderful people living in very harsh conditions. Soar has commited to helping them ,along with rotary ,to achieve their goals of water,and trees for their community.