Michael Frederiksen immigrated to Canada from Denmark in 1951. His career in education spans thirty-five years as teacher and administrator at the elementary, secondary and post secondary levels of education. He has served as chair of Phi Delta Kappa (U of Toronto) and the Toronto chapter of the Royal Commonwealth Society. He has worked on a number of international humanitarian and educational projects in Kenya, India, Pakistan and Grenada . In 2004 Michael was instrumental in founding CES Kenya and presently is it’s President and a member of its board of directors. He is a strong advocate for children with disabilities, particularly those who suffer from polio and HIV/AIDS.
Help Turn the Tide
Kakamega in the Lurambi District of Western Kenya, and school communities like Shikoti, Ibinzo, Navakholo are among the many name locations that I hold close to my heart. Students like Pendo and Benjamin – I think about them often – thankful that CES Canada has made a difference in their lives.
Project PREPARE began 5 years ago. Project to Reduce Poverty and Provide Access to Rural Education is CES Canada’s response to HIV/Aids and the poverty that besets rural Kenya. Providing “Hope through Education” is the key to what CES is all about. We invite needy youth who have been orphaned by the HIV/Aids pandemic to complete their education. We also understand that to reduce poverty and to strengthen the community our students need clean water to drink, health care and nutritious food at an affordable cost.
The main focus of Project PREPARE is education. Sound minds need healthy bodies and healthy learners are better students. That’s the reason we provide a meal a day for our students and seek to offer some love and support through basic healthcare.
Geography and good fortune provide us a home in Canada. We will never know what it is like to witness the ravages of HIV all around us, to lose a parent, a loved one – to be forced to live on the street or in a tree, to care for younger siblings and scrounge in garbage heaps for sustenance. But we can do something and we can make a difference for some. Turning the tide means fighting forces that seek to destroy and weaken the community.
Empathize? That’s not possible or practical. We have not even walked a meter in the shoes of youth so marginalized – and for many there is not a shoe to walk in. What we do know is that lives in a distant, remote land are being saved, mortal illness is being prevented and youth are building a future.
Our purpose is single-minded: To provide access to education for orphans and other youth affected by the HIV/Aids pandemic in Kenya. We seek to strengthen the school community and to raise the level of care and learning for our students. Four of our 15 CES Family of Schools do not have access to clean drinking water. Each needs a well with an electric pump. Despite the needs that surround, our first priority is to ensure that 100 students in 2010 receive a quality education. I believe that there is enough good will and resources to do that and more.
The tragic reality is that Kenya has been decimated by HIV/AIDS. In the Year 2000 14% of the population were affected, mostly young women and children. The staggering numbers of orphaned children who raise themselves or are raised by aging grandmothers has been documented. It is indescribably brutal and inconceivable in this world of plenty. There never used to be orphans, because the extended family would always absorb the children. Now as many as one-third of the children of Kenya are orphans.
Yet there is hope. Kenyan people are resourceful and have the amazing ability to find joy where there is little or no reason to be joyful. Kenyans are capable of a collective warmth rarely experienced in more affluent countries. Kenya is culture rich in song and dance, joyous despite the constant specter of disease and death. Its people are spiritually inclined. Living under the shadow of ancient Mt Kenya, they survive through a deeply rooted sense of community rarely seen elsewhere in the world.
A Swahili proverb says it all: “hapana masika yasiyo na mbu” – There is no rainy season without mosquitoes. Blessing and hardship are always bound together. Kenyans meet their world realistically – head on. They don’t ask for much and they have few expectations in life. And they always have a song to sing.
CES Canada in partnership with CES Kenya has made a bold statement: “We believe in community…we believe there is hope for your future…we are part of your future and you are a part of ours. We believe in equality and justice for all. Together we are better. Deeply rooted in our humanity is the need to reach out to others and to seek justice in our world. The healing that comes about through community is what makes us whole.
It’s all about community – ordinary people like you and I saying “No” to HIV/Aids and other preventable diseases, saying “No” to acute poverty and saying “Yes, CES Canada will help Kenyan youth complete their education and help to create a better life for them.
As for Benjamin (CES Grad ’06), he is now completing his Teacher Training at Tambach Teachers College. Pendo is in Form 3 at St Patrick Ikonyero SS. Despite a life of enormous challenge she consistently achieves at the top of her class. Her story is told in a new CES publication West of the Rising Sun.
Help turn the tide by being part of the change taking place in Kenya
Michael Frederiksen
September, 2009
PS. I leave you with a Samburu blessing:
God Free You
May God free you, may God guard you night and day.
May God set you in your right place,
and may you be spread out like the grass of a prairie.
Spread out like palm leaves; continue your walk,
and may life be with you.
May God place you where God’s stars are placed
at dawn and at night.
Spread out like water of a lake.
Be numerous like the feet of a millipede.
