The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum will honor Carolina for Kibera (CFK) as the recipient of the 2008 Reflections of Hope Award. The award, established in 2005 as part of the 10th anniversary commemoration of the Oklahoma City bombing, honors a living person or group whose extraordinary work has significantly impacted a community, state or nation. It also exemplifies that hope not only survives but also thrives in the wake of political violence. This prestigious international award also includes a $25,000 honorarium, which CFK can use to further develop programming and develop young leaders in Kibera and across Kenya.
Carolina for Kibera, its founder U.S. Marine Captain Rye Barcott, Vice President Beth-Ann Kutchma, Executive Director Salim Mohamed and Youth Sports Program Officer Abdul "Cantar" Hussein from Kenya will be honored at a reception and dinner on April 19, 2008, at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City. The keynote speaker for the event will be ABC anchor Bob Woodruff, who was seriously injured while imbedded with American troops in Iraq.
“Carolina for Kibera focuses on helping the people of Kibera by giving them the tools and the resources to help themselves. The development of sports programs, centers for girls and medical clinics in one of the poorest districts in Kenya gives the citizens of that community great hope for their future,” said Kari Watkins, Oklahoma City National Memorial Executive Director. “The programs train Kenyans to take action to change their own circumstances and make the future of their neighborhoods much brighter for generations to come.
The Reflections of Hope Award was created by the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation to recognize those who find and, by their actions, exemplify hope in the midst of tragedy, respond selflessly and give of themselves to improve the lives of others.
For more information on the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, call 888.542.HOPE or visit www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org.
No one could have predicted the degree to which chaos, destruction, and fear would sweep across Kenya last month. The Kibera slum of Nairobi has been one of the places most adversely affected by the ethnic violence gripping the country for nearly two months. We at Carolina for Kibera (CFK) received countless messages and phone calls from concerned supporters and friends across the United States, Canada and Europe, asking “What can we do to help?”
The youth in Kibera are now telling us what we can all do to help: demonstrate our solidarity with the Kibera community by spreading their unique message of peace and healing.
This week CFK staff and volunteers in Kibera launched the JAMII YA KIBERA (Community of Kibera) peace campaign throughout the slum. For the next four weeks, campaign organizers will be covering the community in JAMII YA KIBERA logos, posters, billboards, t-shirts, and stickers. Radio spots in Swahili will run on local stations. A team of youth leaders in Kibera has completed a one-week, intensive mediation and counseling training, and is reaching out to residents to bring people together at community forums. The team is facilitating critical discussions about issues of ethnic tension, cooperation, and conflict resolution. The JAMII YA KIBERA campaign will end with a Kibera-wide clean-up project, as well as a CFK sports event, which will bring together residents from all different ethnic groups.
CFK staff and campaign volunteers on the ground in Kibera have been working with local artists and community leaders for the past several weeks to develop a distinctly Kenyan campaign message in Swahili that will resonate with Kibera residents. The artwork was tested in youth focus groups in order to select the most impacting images. The youth are very excited about the JAMII YA KIBERA logo because it gives them ownership of the Kibera community and of the peace campaign. This is a message of peace by Kenyans, for Kenyans.
As friends and supporters CFK, or just as concerned global citizens, we are all part of the Kibera community. Please show your solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Kibera by spreading the JAMII YA KIBERA campaign message through e-mail, Facebook, blogging, and personal websites, as well as inviting your family and friends to do the same, over the next four weeks.
Add the JAMII YA KIBERA FACEBOOK APPLICATION to your Facebook profile.
Download the JAMII YA KIBERA LOGO to use on your blog, personal website, in your e-mail signature line, or as your profile photo on social networking and other websites where you maintain a profile.
CFK's Kicking AIDS Out (KAO) project empowers 32 young Kibera leaders trained as peer educators to help thousands of youth in the community tackle the challenges they face, including poverty, HIV/AIDS, gender, rape, substance abuse, tribalism and conflict through alternative means of education. KAO peer educators use sports-related games, theatre, community forums, and informal school discussions to discuss these difficult topics, as well as the life skills young people need to develop in order to lead healthier lives.
Managed completely by the Kenyan KAO peer educators, this program builds the leadership skills and confidence of youth in Kibera so that they may have a vision for achieving their goals, while also supporting them through secondary and post-secondary scholarships to further their education.
This film is a short overview of the project, including interviews with some of the peer educators, and action shots of how KAO integrates sport and education to spread information throughout the community. The film was produced by CFK Youth Development Officer, Rehana Tejpar.
Rye Barcott, Carolina for Kibera (CFK) president and founder, will address students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) on Fri., Feb. 8 at 5 p.m. in the Global Education Center. In light of the current political situation in Kenya, Rye will talk about how the recent post-election violence in Kibera and Kenya has affected CFK and the Kibera community. The lecture is sponsored by the Senior Class Campaign for Carolina, which has selected CFK as the endorsed fund, as well as the Carolina Annual Fund, Carolina Career Services, and Carolina for Kibera. The lecture will be followed by a networking reception with Carolina alum with international careers. Learn more about the lecture here.
Rye Barcott graduated with a B.A. in Peace, War, and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Triangle Institutes for Security Studies Millennium Fellow and a Burch Fellow. While an undergraduate at UNC, Rye founded CFK in Kenya with Salim Mohamed and the late Tabitha Atieno Festo, who each shared the conviction that the poor have the solutions to the problems they face.
Rye served on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps for five years and is currently a joint MPA and MBA candidate at Harvard University, where he is a Catherine B Reynolds Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fellow. He is co-editor of Armed Conflict in Africa (Scarecrow, 2003).
Rye is a member of the Harvard University’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and Committee on Rights and Responsibilities. He also serves as a member of the UNC NROTC Board of Directors.
On Saturday, February 2nd, bring your dancing shoes to the Independent in San Francisco as Sila and the Afrofunk Experience performs a benefit for Carolina for Kibera, Kenya. Nominated for Best World Music at the San Francisco Weekly Music Awards, Sila and the Afrofunk Experience mixes the legendary sounds of Fela Kuti with some tricks gleaned from James Brown and P-Funk. Sila (who sings in Swahili and English) and company create a dancefloor-ready throb guaranteed to move you.
The band not only offers an evening of funk, but a chance to dance for a cause. The band leader, Sila Mutungi, has decided to use this opportunity to raise funds for his homeland of Kenya, which has recently erupted into post-election violence that has claimed the lives of hundreds and the homes of thousands. Proceeds will benefit non-profit Carolina for Kibera, which serves 25,000 people living in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi. Kibera has been devastated by the recent violence. The organization's program serves the community through a health clinic, a summer youth sports program staffed by volunteers and other programs.
"The political figures need to call for peace and harmony and directly reach out to their supporters to stop the violence. Only Kenyans can resolve this strife by speaking out as a nation against ethnic violence," Sila says
"I am currently working together with Michael Wanguhu, a Kenyan film maker (Hip-Hop Colony), to shoot a music video of a newly written song encouraging peace among Kenyan people and calling on the political leaders to put aside their pride and greed for the sake of the country," Sila adds.
Joining Sila and the Afrofunk Experience will be the Afrobeat sounds of Dj Jeremiah and the Afrobeat Nation (from Liberia), The beat box sounds of Radio Active and the tropical beats of Dj Felina.
What: Sila and the Afrofunk Experience: A Benefit for Carolina for Kibera, Kenya
Where: The Independent, 628 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Why: Raise funds for Carolina Kibera, Kenya
When: Saturday, February 2nd, 9PM
Who: Sila and the Afrofunk Experience, Dj Jeremiah and the Afrobeat Nation, Radio Active and Dj Felina
Tickets: $16-$35. Available at ticketweb.com. 21+
Contact: Jeremiah Kpoh, Email: Jeremiah@maishaproductions.com,
Phone: 415-377-4879
More Information: afrofunk.net, Carolina for Kibera
Many of you have called or e-mailed asking for information and sending your thoughts and prayers to the Carolina for Kibera (CFK) staff and volunteers who are on the ground in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Thank you for your solidarity and support.
To our knowledge CFK staff and volunteers have suffered only one relatively minor injury as a result of the recent ethnic violence. However, large numbers of volunteers of all ages have had their houses burned and looted. There are no Americans volunteering with CFK at the moment on the ground in Kibera. CFK has kept its office and clinic closed since the election. However, today we began a short-term feeding program out of our youth center.
The violence stems from the December 27 presidential election in Kenya. At first, the election seemed to be peaceful and well orchestrated. It appeared as though the main opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, had a significant lead in the early polls. The violence began after President Kibaki was prematurely declared the winner in a small, hasty ceremony at his Presidential estate. It is unclear whether or not Kibaki won the election, but elections monitors (including the Kenyan head of the Kenyan Electoral Commission) have publicly called the election results illegitimate.
Although ethnic divisiveness is no stranger to Kenyan politics, no one anticipated the level of violence that has engulfed Kibera and much of Kenya. The situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly as each day passes. Stores in Nairobi are looted and people, particularly the poor, are running out of food. Food prices are soaring. Large swaths of Kibera are burned to the ground. Criminal opportunists have joined the fray and there are incidents of wanton violence. Yesterday we received reports that a group of community members repelled a gang of thugs from looting and burning our youth center.
It should be noted, however, that those perpetrating the violence in Kibera number perhaps in the hundreds. Over 700,000 people, half of whom are under the age of 15, reside in the slum. Nevertheless, the level of hatred and divisiveness throughout Kenya today is unprecedented. People are afraid, and those with the means are fleeing from Kibera and other multi-ethnic communities racked by violence. Each day of violence besets the next and further solidifies more ethnic enmity.
The violence must stop now. Efforts to unite Odinga and Kibaki and encourage these leaders to lead and bring a halt to the violence have thus far been futile. None of these leaders have been on the ground in Kibera since the violence began.
In the face of this current tragedy, we must take stock of where we are as an organization. Some commentators suggest that these events signify a hopelessness of development and progress in Kenya. We who have labored on the ground with our brothers and sisters in Kibera see it much differently. We initially started CFK as a small soccer program with a hundred youths from every village and every ethnic group in Kibera. A key goal was to help promote ethnic cooperation and support the education of remarkable young leaders living in some of the most austere conditions imaginable. The violence reminds us that development depends on good governance and security. But our charge is still very clear, and even more important in light of the current bloodletting. CFK staff and volunteers are the forces and voices of positive change that will help create and sustain an equitable and peaceful society.
We will post updates about new developments to our website. If you are interested in learning more, below is a powerful UN article that features CFK and Binti Pamoja member Fatuma Roba. Her two-minute radio interview is particularly powerful. Also included is a link to a front-page article about CFK and Kibera from the Raleigh News and Observer, an insightful op-ed in the Financial Times from long-time CFK supporter and dear friend Michael Holman, and a graphic video of the violence in Kibera from CNN.
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kenya_42314.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/higher_education/story/857429.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bdd9159c-b8d4-11dc-893b-0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/01/03/mckenzie.lok.kenya.protestor.standoff.cnn?iref=videosearch
Please keep our brave leaders and volunteers on the ground in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead. It is likely to get worse before it gets better. If you are so inclined, we could as always use your financial support.
Tumeshukuru (Gratefully),
Rye Barcott Kimberly Chapman Page
President and Founder Chair, Board of Directors
You can make a donation online at: http://cfk.unc.edu/support.php
You can send a check to:
Carolina For Kibera, Inc.
ATTN: Beth-Ann Kutchma
CB#5145, FedEx Global Education Center
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
As many of you had heard, there has been widespread ethnic violence and looting in Kibera in light of the presidential election over the last several days. To the best of our knowledge no one from CFK has been injured, and our clinic and youth center have not been attacked or looted. However, the situation is still very volatile. Please keep our brave leaders and volunteers on the ground in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead. This first-hand account of the situation from CFK Binti Pamoja alumna, Fatuma Roba (as reported by UNICEF) is helpful in understanding the gravity of the situation.
