The road to raising funds

Our first goal is to build a small school for the Maasai community of Lenkisen in the interior of Kenya. Lenkisen has three thousand inhabitants, but they have no running water and also no safe, protected place where children can go to school. I saw this for myself on a visit there in November 2010 when I also heard earnest pleas for help and support from all the community.

Our project is supervised by a young leader in humanitarian work, Justo Casal, a professional journalist and photographer who graduated from the University of Kenya, having read International Relations, at the time when his father was Argentine ambassador to this country.

He later took a Master degree in Human Rights at Birmingham University, England, where he was chosen student of the year, 2010, for his dedication and leadership. Justo has been working with needy and refugee communities in East Africa for several years now and has at times been called on by the United Nations as a consultor and guide on future actions to be taken in those countries.

In our city, Uruguaiana, we have been in touch with Rotarian directors, who have been very supportive, offering us the possibility of sending funds to Kenya through the club´s bank account. We also have the valuable and fundamental help of a Rotarian member from Nairobi, Dr Balbir Panwar, an Indian doctor who has chosen Kenya for his humanitarian work. He will be our representative there.

The importance of this project is to give the Lenkisem children the opportunity to study and be able in the future to help the older members in the community to survive and keep alive their rich culture of customs and traditions.