November 2011

The story of International Peace Initiatives is a great story. It is about RECLAIMING wastelands. When I think of my work with International Peace Initiatives (www.ipeacei.org), I recognized that I had built the Amani Community Children’s Home (ACH) for orphans in a space called ‘rocky, unproductive, barren, and forsaken for it had nothing to offer.’ It was land meant for a cattle deep (which are not dug anymore). Community land that was deserted and left for bushes to overgrow - abandoned. Then I thought of the orphans and vulnerable children I take care of and the women living with HIV/AIDS I work with. They too are a form of wasteland – people who are marginalized, abandoned, ‘othered,’ stigmatized and discriminated against because they are orphans who lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. Similarly, the women living with HIV/AIDS have experienced discrimination and stigmatization because of their status. Many of them have been evicted from their matrimonial homes and live in slums. They and their children are always on the edge, not knowing how long their mother will live, not sure they will get the next meal or money to pay their next term’s school fees.

August 2nd, 2010

The IPI College Scholars Program (ICSP) has a lot to celebrate this month!

Two of our scholars graduated from Kenya Methodist University (KEMU), both with science teaching degrees. Prisca immediately found a teaching position at a local boys’ school until the end of the school year in December.  Within two weeks, Ben was offered a permanent teaching position in Embu, not far from Meru.   But on the morning he was to report, he got a call from KEMU, where he was asked to fill a vacancy in the Student Liaison office—a perfect position for Ben and a perfect choice for KEMU.