We told you William’s story a while back, so here’s Charles story. I first met Charles in January 2012. He was one of 100 people in Kenya’s first pilot of Leadership for Hope. I remember Charles because he stood up on the morning of day 3 and told how he gone home and ‘lifted up his head’ (one of the 7 different mind sets we teach on day 2). He told a jaw dropping story of how he had stopped to speak to a ‘mad’ woman on his street corner on the way home the previous evening…….and changed her life. He found her lodgings, recovered her dreams and got her hooked up with a project that would help her learn to make clothes and sell them……all in one evenings conversation! That was Charles.
I’ve met Charles on every visit back to Kenya since and he has been a solid and safe ‘pair of hands’ in arranging some of our work here. Last Wednesday we got a message from him asking if Jane and I would come for lunch and visit a school he’d started after Leadership for Hope. We were both curious and encouraged. So, this morning, with William driving us, we headed into Rongai community in inner Nairobi. We met Charles at an obvious land mark in the main street so he could guide us through the back street, dirt-roaded maze to his home. As we climbed the two stories of his apartment building I was aware how dark the corridors all seemed. Inside his flat we were warmly greeted by his wife Rose and then his 2 yr old son…..and then four other children they had simply adopted off the streets. I don’t have words in my heart to capture that level of generous, lifelong hospitality they have shown to these four children.
Charles was on our first Train the Trainer programme in September. And he’s using it. He is now running Leadership for Hope at work, he has been sharing the principles of it to his church groups, sharing the principles with visiting Catholic leaders from Italy who’d been hearing about the life changing work Charles was doing. Charles told us stories over lunch of the lives that are being changed as a result of the Leadership for Hope’s that HE is running (not us). I cant tell you how exciting it is to hear the stories that come via others training, rather than our own. It means the story is growing.
“The story is growing” became the repeated phrase throughout the day. William was invite into lunch with us and shared stories that beget more stories. We all sat humbled and amazed by what we were hearing. “The story is growing”.
After photos on the cramped balcony it was time to head out to the actual project in K. Charles told us the full story. In January 2012, the time of our first Kenya Leadership for Hope, he was living in K. (and having just visited the area this afternoon I can honestly say you have to see it to believe it). Down the dirt track of K is a quarry, a rock quarry.
After attending the programme Charles took a walk to the quarry and this is what he saw. There were literally hundreds of women sitting breaking rocks, surrounded by hundreds of children in rags. He talked to the ladies about their lives and asked about the children. The children were breaking rocks with their mothers. Why weren’t they in school? The mother’s couldn’t afford the money or
the time. It was easier to just have them swarming around them for the day and used as child labour for the family income.
Charles did a base line study and then met with the village Chief and built a vision for these 261 children from the quarry. They took over some derelict sheds as classrooms and started a school for 66 quarry children, looked after by 4 teachers. EVERY day Charles wife Rose goes to the school centre to encourage, help and lead the way forwards. After school more children come and sing and play. With the help of our very own Louise they have got some partner funding from Sweden and the children even have some Swedish pen pals. These children now have a safe place, food in their stomachs and an education……..all because Charles lifted up his head and took responsibility for what he saw.
Today we saw the tiny tin-shack school, played with the children, visited the plot of land that they hope to get a 10 year lease on, to build more classrooms to rescue more children from the quarry……and then we started walking with John the Chief and Charles and Rose and William to….the quarry.
We noticed no one wore glasses to protect their eyes from the flying flint. Why would they? You earn £1 a day and a pair of glasses cost £3 and you need to feed your children…..what would you do? We started calculating how much it would cost to source 100 pairs of protective glasses to get them started (which we aim to do before we leave) - Having spent a week with Chiefs who are only interested in lining their own pockets, what a joy it was to spend an afternoon with village Chief John.
So we saw what happened when Charles lifted up his head. We saw the quarry community where he lifted up his head, we saw the children and the mothers who were benefiting. We saw Charles wife who has caught her own leadership vision for these seriously vulnerable children (We asked her quietly if she had seen any difference in Charles since attending Leadership for Hope in 2012? She responded so positively “he is a different man”).
And as we walked back towards the car to head back to our secure, comfortable, base, we reflected to ourselves with full but pained and sobered hearts that……The story is growing.
TW
