I recently read something said by Nelson Mandela:
Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.
It’s been 3 years now since I moved to Kenya from NY. I don’t realize how the time passed to be honest. And I don’t quite feel the difference from NY anymore because it feels so much like home. But, being in a country like Kenya brings many questions to the forefront of your mind. Questions that you might not be so inclined to mull over if you were maybe in another part of the world, or even here but entrenched in a more sheltered more comfortable lifestyle. I have often mulled over questions of social inequality and justice between continents but even between communities in the same country. And I have to say it is even easier working with HIV/AIDS to get lost in what seems like an endless prolonging of an inevitable prognosis, no matter what you do. Or so one would think.
I have always seen things a bit differently. And if its one thing that is a residual life lesson for me it’s a lesson of opportunity that I wish to share with you. The questions we have in our minds that seem irresolvable… The problems that compound society and the world at large?‚ the gaps that exist for justice and humanity are quite simply opportunities.
These are opportunities to take a stand and commit to making a difference, even if your reach is to your neighbor- where ever you may be. It’s an opportunity to impact someone’s life with a word, a touch, a prayer or even a glance. It’s an opportunity to remind people on the other end of those questions that they are not forgotten, and they never will be.
Seeds for Hope is an opportunity for many young people. And being here on the ground working is giving me the gift to ask questions but also to seize opportunity. Not too long ago when Paul was here doing the entire preliminary work for our upcoming campaign, he introduced us to The Kibera Girls Soccer Academy and its director Abdul Kassim. In this informal school we came to meet young girls whose struggle to get an education became an opportunity for them to break down barriers for girl-schooling not only for themselves but for younger girls soon to walk in their steps.
Abdul works to bring these young people their education not by focusing on the challenges and restrictions, but on the possibility that exists from these girls’ inspired lives. It’s far easier to get lost in the magnitude of barriers before them: the money, the costs, the politics, the volume of people who need help, the culture the families?. It can go on an on. But instead they seized the opportunity to react with what they were able to do… and it snow-balled. SFH has committed to react along side Kibera Girls. We are engaging in a partnership with them to provide them with text books for their next level of academic education. And this, we expect and hope, to be the start of more opportunities to react. Again and again.
Abdul Kassim and some of the girls, from The Kibera Girls Soccer Academy
You have to realize though, that opportunities cannot be put on hold? They pass. Its important to remember that at whatever place you will start, others will join you by the sheer commitment that you exhibit‚ no matter how small a start you take. That’s how SFH began and that that’s how we joined Abdul and his girls.
You see, it’s in reacting to questions that you find your answers. And the biggest and most complex problems of the human condition find their resolve a bit more within yourself because you know you’ve taken a stand and will make your mark. Nelson Mandela’s statement resounds so strongly within me. Most of the complications around us are man-made‚. And even in our pursuit for Divine guidance and intervention, we have the ability and strength from God to take an Action and help change the world.
Nadia Kist
SFH Founder and Chairman