Sara was born in a rural village in Kenya with a bone deformity from her hips to her feet that left her unable to walk. As a young woman, she married and lived a simple but productive life on a small farm with her husband and 4 children. When her husband died, unable to do the farming herself, she left for a nearby city and took to begging. For 6 years she sat along the same walkway that cut through the city’s central park collecting enough money to keep her kids fed and in school.
One day, a woman who had walked by Sara countless times, stopped and offered help. She paid for Sara to learn to crochet and then bought materials for her to begin making shoulder bags and hats. She also connected Sara with an organization that built her a hand crank tricycle that allowed her get around independently.
With her new independence and first profits, Sara set up a small stand at the side of the road where she sold her crocheted items and everyday necessities like matches, soap, and toothbrushes. Her business supported the family well until several years ago when Kenya’s economy took a turn. Sara felt pressed, for the first time ever, to take a loan. She borrowed $100 from a neighborhood money lender at a high interest rate. After the initial financial relief that the loan gave, Sara began feeling the strain of having her small income divided by repaying the loan and supporting her family.
Fortunately, just as the loan repayment date was coming due, goal4.org arrived with 30 bras that had been donated by Soroptimist clubs in the US. Bras from the US and Europe are hot items in Kenya and sell well. Sara sold them at her roadside stand and made not only enough money to help herself, but shared her good fortune with her community. She used about 20% of the profits to feed orphaned children in her neighborhood and donated two of the bras to her church. The remaining profits totaled more than a month’s earnings for Sara. With it, she paid off her debt and invested in a new small business – making & selling potato “crisps”. Not only can she sell the crisps at her roadside stand, but also from her door on off hours or days when her roadside stand is closed.
Janerose is a trained Community Health Volunteer, a counsellor, and a farmer. She joined the Sega health volunteer team in 1988 and is currently responsible for 134 households, going door-to-door with health education and support aimed at preventing common illnesses.
Monica Akinyi Odongo is the head of Sega’s public health facility, Sega Dispensary. She is a registered nurse whose broad responsibilities at the Dispensary include administration of the facility, managing the staff, and treating patients.
Rabin is the nursing officer in charge Sega Dispensary, the only public (free) health facility in Sega. He manages the facility, coordinates all health services, sees patients, and is responsible for community health. He was recruited to Sega to help develop and grow the Dispensary’s maternity service, including promoting the service to mothers in the community. In his past job, at a similar small, rural dispensary, he did just that – improved the maternity services and influenced a shift in the number of women who give birth at the health facility rather than at home. He is a skilled mentor, manager, and communicator.
Albert has worked in education throughout his professional career. He began as a classroom teacher, later rose to the position of headmaster, then Approved Graduate Teacher. He went on to become an inspector of schools in Uganda and Kenya. He was born and raised in western Kenya where now, in retirement, he dedicates his time and skills to supporting local schools and community organizations.
Colm is a technical project manager on Google’s robotics team. Throughout his career, he has specialized in large-scale, multi-national telecommunications projects, in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. At Inveneo, a non-profit social enterprise that delivers low-powered networks to rural Africa, Colm participated in the post-earthquake response effort in Haiti, supporting the field team as they set up emergency communications for first-responders in the field. Prior to a decade managing non-profit projects, Colm managed global telecommunications projects for Ericsson in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Botswana, Macau, Canada, and the USA. He helped establish Ericsson’s US presence, building the technical support organization and managing the build-out of Ericsson’s US network.
