Help My Widowed Kenyan Friends & Their Children

Posted by Iris J. Arenson-Fuller, PCC, CPC

Friends, Acquaintances and Contacts,

This to share with you something I have been engaged with. I have thought for weeks about doing my Kenyan widows fundraiser again this year. It was very successful last year. I just hesitated to ask at this time, because so many here are also struggling. 1 in 5 Americans is now unemployed. Food banks and food kitchens have seen an unprecedented demand. I do my best to help where I can, but continue to be moved by the plight of a number of Kenyan widows I have come to know and to communicate with regularly on and off.

Right now, these widow are struggling more than ever because of the quarantines and curfews imposed due to Covid-19.

After enormous sacrifices to try to send their kids to schools that are rarely free there, my friends there have found those school closed, just as we have. This has imposed extra hardships. Jobs are very scarce. A couple of the women my donors helped to start very small businesses are not able to conduct those businesses now. One women managed to make a few shillings here and there doing laundry for others. Now she can't risk going out. She cares for her kids as well as her elderly mother. Twice this year she has lost her home and belongings. The first was due to flooding and more recently to being unable to pay rent. The landlord locked them out and took all of their possessions. She doesn't have money to go to court to try to recover them. The police have been no help.

I am especially sad about her plight because my kids and I were once without our home and belongings for a year. We were forced to move to the homes of various friends and neighbors till we found a rental after my first husband was killed in a fire that made our home unlivable and that destroyed most of our belongings. It was a very long time ago, but I will never forget how it felt.

I have helped on and off in extremely modest ways, but I can't make a dent in the need right now, or ever really.

I would like very much to help the woman I mentioned and some others at least keep some food on their tables in these lean and scary times, if nothing else. I know many of you don't have extra now and there are plenty of very worthy causes. Also I do not have a non-profit. It is just people who know and trust me who want to help and know I will send (and have sent) every penny directly to the women in Kenya. I am not expecting a lot right now (though am always happy to be surprised). I have already received one donation pledge yesterday and that convinced me to try again. I am very happy to receive even $5 or $10, so please don't hesitate to send even a small amount, if you are able to do that. If you are not able, I understand and thank you for reading this and for sharing if you will and telling your friends you know me, if you are comfortable with that.

Any pictures shared are not of the actual potential recipients of any help. I would not violate their privacy by posting their photos.

If you are interested in helping, please check my FB profile, Iris J. Arenson-Fuller. You may donate there. I also invite you to look at my other pages, if you are so inclined..Vision Powered Coaching and Author/Poet Iris J. Arenson-Fuller.

HELP FOR MY KENYAN WIDOW FRIENDS & THEIR CHILDREN