From AmCan to Africa

Parish’s Kenyan connection helps destitute young women in Nairobi

By KERANA TODOROV
Register Staff Writer

American Canyon may be thousands of miles from Kenya, but the distance has not stopped members of the city’s Holy Catholic Parish from reaching across the world to help others.

For the next two weeks, parishioners will meet with Sister Christine Munguti of Nairobi’s Cardinal Maurice Otunga Empowerment Center for Girls. The center welcomes teen girls, providing shelter and the opportunity to learn a trade as they try to escape the poverty, violence and despair in the slums of Nairobi.

To date, about 200 girls have graduated from the school, according to Sister Christine.

Sister Christine, who is staying with parishioner Michael Schneiders and his family in American Canyon, will participate in question-and-answer session after Mass at Holy Family Parish and meet with families individually.

“I want to see the people who are supporting the project,” said Sister Christine, who exchanges weekly e-mails with Schneiders to update him on the school happenings.

Since 2004, Holy Family Parish members have raised $92,000 for the school, from donations and the sale of clothing and arts and crafts items the Kenyan students have made, Schneiders said.

Sister Christine estimates the school needs about $600 per student every year.

The Rev. Pat Stephenson, leader of Holy Family Parish, began to raise money for Kenya’s children in 2002. He visited the country to go on a safari, but was moved by what he saw on Nairobi streets: hundreds of children, including pregnant teens and young mothers, begging in the streets.

When Stephenson told Schneiders of his experience, Schneiders offered to help raise money for Sister Christine. He also agreed to come along on three fact-finding trips to Kenya to find out what the parish could do to help Kenya’s abandoned children.

The trips were not for the faint of heart.

Post-election violence erupted in Kenya shortly before they landed in Nairobi on their most recent trip together, in December 2007. Despite the danger and uncertainty, they returned safely and plan to go back in a year.

The Cardinal Maurice Otunga Empowerment Center for Girls opened in mid-2004 on a property donated by Kenya’s Catholic church, a few months after the Schneiders and Stephenson presented a $5,000 donation from parish members to the Archbishop of Nairobi, Rafael Ndingi.

Stephenson asked that the money be used to help needy children.

About three months later, Sister Christine, a member of the order of the Sisters of the Assumption and a high school teacher by training, proposed to use Holy Family Parish’s donation to open the center for girls.

About 80 girls between the ages of 13 and 19 live at the school for two years. Some arrive suffering from AIDS after turning to prostitution to support their families. Many have been beaten or raped or suffered from homelessness.

At the school, the teens receive counseling and medical care and learn how to sew, cook and knit. They also train in how to use computers and make arts and crafts. The students work in shifts to feed staff and colleagues and maintain the property.

“We keep them busy,” Sister Christine said.

Schneiders, an IT worker for PG&E, has created a blog on the project, at www.worldisyours.typepad.com.

He said he hopes to expand the number of volunteers who raise money and sell the clothes and crafts the students make.

On the next trip, Stephenson said, he wants to bring more people with a variety of skills, including nursing.

Schneiders has teamed up with another volunteer to form a nonprofit organization, Kids Hope Over Poverty — or KHOPE International — to raise money for the Kenyan school as well as construction projects in La Morita, Mexico. The group created a Web site, www.khopeinternational.org.

At 59, Sister Christine has worked with Kenya’s youth for most of her 25 years as a nun. She has no plans to retire. Her work means giving hope to the hopeless, she said.

“That gives me a lot of joy,” she said.

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