Support for a small Kenyan village

Hello family and friends!
We would love some help in helping a Kenyan village!

Tracy and I are on the last leg of our journey, and currently residing near Lake Victoria in Western Kenya. We have been staying with the Orwa family who live in a very small agricultural village near the town of Dede (“grasshopper”). This remote area is inhabited by the spirited Luo tribe who came originally from southern Sudan, and most youth have never or rarely seen “white” people (“Mizungus”; some children were convinced I was Jesus). More than half of Kenyans live below the poverty line and villagers in this region are no exception. Most families live without electricity and running water, and survive through subsistence agriculture. A family may have a couple of acres of land which they must work very hard year-round to grow food for themselves. Any food or products that they produce beyond this would be sold at markets and would be their major source of income. To sell these goods women, generally, must hike up to 10 km multiple times a week to markets that are scattered in cardinal directions. They also must hike this distance to grind maize (corn, basically; which makes up a large part of their diet) into flour at a posho (POE-show) mill. This also often involves long lineups and high charges since flour is a basic necessity.

As a gift to the community, we were asked if we could help set up a posho mill that would serve local families within a few kilometer radius. This would be overseen by the Orwa family who would provide land and a shed for the mill, and who would charge a minimal usage fee to villagers to cover the cost of fuel to run the mill. In essence this would be a non-profit service run by the Orwa family who have been involved in a number of community service projects with villagers and schools in the area.

Tracy and I have made a goal of purchasing and having the mill installed and pumping out flour by the time we leave at the end of September, yet we can not afford this on our own. We are hoping to raise enough money to purchase a mill and, if possible, leave a small cash reserve to help ensure longer-term sustainability of the service (i.e., to cover general repair and maintenance costs for a while). We are hoping to raise $1700 CDN (115 000 Kenya Shillings, KSh) for the mill and about $75 CDN (5000 KSh) as a reserve fund. It is hard to put this amount into perspective, but in this village, it would take years to afford this without outside help. This is a huge amount of money here.

We would sincerely appreciate any financial help that you could give us in achieving this goal. If you would like to help financially, we can arrange payment via mail (John and Lana Churchill, P.O. Box 56, Port Williams NS, Canada, B0P 1T0; jchurchill@ns.sympatico.ca) or in person when we get back in October. If you would like any more information about anything please ask us (james.churchill@ualberta.ca, tlc6@ualberta.ca). We will not have reliable access to email until we get home, but will do our best!

Please pass this along to others you think might be interested. We hope to hear from you soon, and we will give an update with pictures as things progress. Thank you in advance for your support and prayers,

Love, James and Tracy Churchill