Lindon school assists African village in Kenya

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jan 18, 2007 by Rodger L. Hardy Deseret Morning News

LINDON -- Timpanogos Academy wanted to raise at least $500 to assist the village of Kakamega in Kenya. That works out to about $1 per student.

But the generosity amazed organizer and teacher Kerri Park.

"We raised $1,200," she said.

The academy sent the money to Bernadine Angalusha, a former villager who broke out of the poverty that grips the village and today tries to help.

Ron and Maurine Hatfield of Lindon served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany and started the effort two years ago when they met Angalusha.

Able to attend a Catholic school with the support of her father who paid her tuition, Angalusha learned English and other basic skills. Then she was hired as a nanny where she learned German. Angalusha now works as a postal carrier with the DeutschesPost, Maurine Hatfield said.

Angalusha and her mother are the only survivors of a poor family stricken with malaria. Her three siblings and her father died of the disease. (Hospital policies in Kenya require payment up front or no services are given. Since her family was poor, the policy was their death sentence. Her mother now has malaria, which Angalusha also contracted on her last visit to the village, said Hatfield. Angalusha is being treated in Germany.

When her family was stricken, Angalusha sold what she could and sent money to the hospital, only to learn that it arrived too late. She resolved that she would do more.

With her meager earnings as a postal worker, Angalusha paid to ship a donated well pump so her village wouldn't have to depend on water from a muddy river.

On her trip to see the well, Angalusha filled her backpack with pens and paper for each student in the elementary school.

To reach the village, she must travel part-way by four-wheel drive, then walk the rest of the way.

Children attend school free if they have a government-approved uniform but must supply their own pencils and paper. Most children don't attend because they can't afford the uniform or pencils. Each class of 60 students shared one pencil, said Hatfield.

Angalusha also brought a nursing student and medicine and bolts of cloth. She arranged to have as many as half a dozen school uniforms sewn for some of the children.

She then came up with a plan to assist the villagers -- mostly a group of 16 women -- to get themselves out of subsistence living and foraging in the jungle for food.

The women formed a co-op to grow vegetables and sold the surplus to the school district in Nairobi. Several orphans were hired to work on the property. They are fed a meal in payment.

As the program grew Angalusha bought a five-acre tract of land, two milk cows, chickens, farm implements and seed. She also bought a pair of treadle sewing machines and fabric. Two of the women agreed to sew the uniforms at no cost because Angalusha supplied the cloth.

"Every spare penny she makes she sends to the village," said Hatfield.

Other Lindon residents donated $1,000, which Angalusha used to pay the first year's fees and tuition for three young women from Kakamega to enter Moi University in Nairobi. One of the girls had the highest national test score on the entrance exam but was too poor to pay the fees.

Sending cash rather than supplies is best, said Ron Hatfield. A Provo school sent a large crate full of school supplies that sat on the dock for more than a year as officials tried to get additional fees from the shipping company before releasing it to the school. The crate finally arrived last November.

The Hatfields are setting up a nonprofit organization so donations can be tax-deductible.

In Angalusha's own words, "Usually the fortunate ones move away and never come back. Everyone in the village was amazed that I would be willing to return and use my little bit of good fortune to help others."

To assist:

Call Ron/Maurine Hatfield

Phone: 796-9946

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com