Tag Archives: Canada

A letter from Ivan – Kyabazaala, Uganda

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My daughter recently pointed out to me that I was fortunate to be the recipient of most of the feedback from the communities in East Africa that we help through the CanAssist African Relief Trust. She’s right. How can I share that with other supporters of CanAssist?

I do consider myself lucky to have been able to visit the schools, clinics and communities that have been supported, in one way or another, by the CanAssist African Relief Trust…or rather by the donors who give to CanAssist to keep our activities afloat. One of the appeals to our donors is that we pay no Canadian salaries, travel at our own expense and therefore every donated dollar is spent by Africans in East Africa. The cost to us as volunteer travellers, however, is repaid ten times over in the wonderful experience of interacting with our friends in Africa.

Recently a group of Canadians who are supporters of CanAssist visited the B.L.K. Muwonge Secondary School in a remote, small Ugandan town called Kyabazaala. One of the students at the school sent back a letter of thanks to CanAssist supporters. I thought it only appropriate that I share this. I hope you find it as motivating as I do to keep doing what we are working toward to help communities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with their infrastructure needs.

Students at the B.L.K. Muwonge Secondary School in Kyabazaala, Uganda write exams in a building that was constructed with funding from the CanAssist African Relief Trust.

(I don’t know if Ivan’s letter will reproduce well in the blog so I have also uploaded a pdf file of the letter here.)

Hot off the press

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Kennedy Onyango from Mbita Kenya, has sent along this photo of the celebrations happening now at the Kanyala Little Stars school on Rusinga Island. CanAssist and her supporters are most pleased to be a virtual part of this special Day for the school.

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Another “Big Day” for Kanyala Little Stars

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One year ago, twenty Canadian supporters of the CanAssist African Relief Trust joined the children and staff at Kanyala Little Stars School on Rusinga Island, Kenya to celebrate the “opening” of the school farm. With a lot of hard work by the Kanyala team, financial and moral support from CanAssist, and a sprinkling of engineering advice from Canadian Andrew Forsyth, the school turned a dry open field into a lush garden that now produces vegetables and fruits to support the school, both nutritionally and economically. Some of the initial challenges included getting water to this dry property, fencing it to keep the hippos from ravaging the garden at night and enriching the soil to make it fertile.

This week, I received this email message from Mama Benta Odhiambo, the director of the Kanyala Little Stars School :

“I am writing to share with your honourable self and the CANASSIST-Canada Team that we are planning for a Big Event on Wednesday 25th July 2012 to celebrate the 1st Anniversary since our Farm’s launching by CANASSIST. This day-long event will bring together key local goverment officials and local groups and community members to see for themselves how the farm has changed from a drought-strickened, barren Land to a green, beautiful heaven with variety of fruits,trees and crops.

We will also hold a big celebration for the orphans and the Little Stars children, where they will be given fruit salads made from our farm produce on that day.

The Canadian flag will be raised high on that day both at the farm-gate and in the school to show our gratitude and appreciation to CANASSIST and the people of Canada.

We owe you alot and would feel happy if you allow us share this success wih the government of Kenya,locals groups community and the children.”

Val Horsfall and Erin Firlotte ride with students of Kanyala Little Stars School to the School Farm where the school and their visitors from Canada celebrated the official opening of the farm project on July 25, 2011.

There has been another remarkable surprise. The CanAssist farm and the hard work of the Kanyala team has been internationally recognized. Last month, Mama Benta attended a conference in Geneva, Switzerland to present the CanAssist Kanyala farm as a model for mitigating the effects of drought on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Quite a change for Benta to go from rural Rusinga Island to an international meeting in Geneva.

Africans know what to do to improve their lot. They do, however, lack the financial resources to put their plans and dreams into action. CanAssist is happy to be able to provide the needed spark to ignite this development. Following the Kanyala success, CanAssist has also started a second school garden in the Mbita region. The school has named it “The CanAssist Oasis of Hope”.

Congratulations, Kanyala Little Stars, on your success.

This week, several of the Canadians in the group that visited the farm a year ago gathered for a reunion of their own. They were happy to record greetings and messages of congratulations to their friends at Little Stars in Kenya and send them through is short YouTube video.

CanAssist supporter, Susan Potvin, interacts with children at the Kanyala Little Stars “Big Day” on July 25, 2011 when the school celebrated the official opening of the Kanyala CanAssist Farm.


Sanitation – making progress

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A month ago, I wrote in my blog about the need for latrines at an elementary school in Kenya – “Sanitation – or lack of it”.

The CanAssist African Relief Trust board approved of this project and sent money (about $5200 Can) to the school last week to start construction of latrines for the school with 8 stances for girls, 8 for boys and 2 for staff. This will be a huge improvement in the sanitation for the school,

Today, I received photos from the community showing that their construction has already started. Once these people have the funding, they dig right in (literally) to get the job done.

It will be delightful to follow this project through to completion. Congratulations to the community for your enthusiastic initiation of this improvement to your school.

Thank you to Michael Gichia of the Murera Community Empowerment and Support Organization for the photo updates.

1812 all over again

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Outside the Kingston Brewing Company

My blogging safari title says it will be about “Africa and me”. This is one of the “me” parts.

I really enjoy living in Downtown Kingston.

I can walk everywhere. I almost feel annoyed when I have to get in the car. With the amount of air travel that I do I can’t claim to be saving the planet from the changing climate but I hope that the exercise of daily walks is keeping me a bit fitter.

The city core is lively and entertaining throughout the year, with lots of great restaurants, coffee shops, patios, the Lake Ontario waterfront and the start of the 1000 Islands of the St. Lawrence River.

Many outdoor events are held over the summer – concerts, buskers and music festivals, triathalons, parades – but Canada Day celebrations that happen in the centre of the city every year are something that I really look forward to.

On July 1, the streets start to hum early in the morning with people dressed in red and white heading to the streets and parks around the Market and City Hall. The annual “parade” down Princess Street is just a gathering of happy Canadians who are out in the July sunshine waving Canada flags and celebrating the birthday of the country they are proud to live in.

This year the waterfront was the scene of a re-enactment of the Flight of the Royal George – one of the largest war ships on the Great Lakes in 1812. On a blustery November day, 200 years ago, the Royal George was chased along the shoreline of Lake Ontario by American ships who wanted to capture it as a trophy.

Eventually the chase ended right in front of Kingston Harbour. In fact, the last battle took place exactly in front of the place where I now live. And on July 1 this year, it became the site of a re-enactment of the whole chase, complete with cannons firing from the ships and several sites along the shore.

Unlike what would likely have been a dreary November day, the re-enactment took place under sunny skies with great gusts of warm summer wind to propel the ships along. The boom of cannon fire both from the shore and the ships echoed out over the city and the shoreline was lined with tourists and Kingstonians who were there to enjoy the re-enactment.

As in the real battle 200 years ago, the Royal George escaped unscathed and those pesky Yanks were driven back into submission.

The historic re-enactment was both entertaining and a reminder of the history of the very property that is now my home. What a great way to celebrate Canada’s history with other Canadians. And the bonus? We won the battle!

Canada Day in Kingston tops off with a fireworks display over Point Frederick. The downtown core swells again in celebration as hundreds – no, thousands – of people gather along the lake shore to watch the colourful explosions burst over historic Fort Henry.

And once again – lucky me. The best view in town happens to be from the rooftop of my apartment buidling.

A Canada Day Challenge

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Every year around July 1, I unfurl a big, red and white Canadian flag over my balcony with pride. I consider myself fortunate to live in a country where people value the notion of respect for one another.

Collectively, we respect our democratic government process, even if we don’t always agree with our politicians.

We respect and protect the rights all Canadians despite religious, cultural or ethnic differences. Diversity makes up the colourful fabric of our nation. On Canada Day, new citizens from around the globe are welcomed to Canada in ceremonies across the land. I remember attending one such occasion a few years ago when the family of one of my co-workers from Bosnia and Herzegovina officially became Canadian. At that ceremony, the Mayor of Kingston had been born in Scotland, the Governor General in China (both were women, by the way) and the Ontario MP was born in Holland. That tangible recognition of our varied backgrounds reminded me of what it is to be Canadian.

And we are generous to the rest of the world with our support – military, moral and financial.

This week I was reminded of this generosity when I received notice that the Sasamat Foundation in British Columbia will donate $10,000 to the CanAssist African Relief Trust to be put toward building two classrooms for the Hope School in Mbita, Kenya. This gift is being given with no strings other than the accountability of CanAssist and the recipient community to use the money for their school. It is independent of other obligations and given without cynicism or suspicion, cultural or religious bias, but with trust that the community in Africa will utilize it to benefit their children. I think this is a very “Canadian” gesture.


In addition to their generous $10,000 donation, the Sasamat Foundation has presented CanAssist with a challenge. They will donate another $5000 to the school, matching donations that CanAssist receives 2:1. But this has to happen within the month of July.

Are you be willing to support this initiative with a donation of $50 to CanAssist and the Hope School? You can make a secure, tax-receiptable donation online now with a credit card by following the Canada Helps link below. You can even select a small monthly donation option through the Canada Helps link. Indicate that your gift is to bolster the Hope School Fund.

Donate Now Through CanadaHelps.org!Faire un don maintenant par CanadaHelps.org!

CanAssist is always happy to receive a donation by mail.
CanAssist African Relief Trust, 562 Sycamore Street, Kingston, Ontario. K7M7L8

Happy Canada Day!

Check out out the CanAssist web page about Hope School at http://canassistafrica.ca/Mercy.html

Donate Now Through CanadaHelps.org!Faire un don maintenant par CanadaHelps.org!

Something new

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Not sure if this is the place where I welcome you to my blog or you welcome me to the Blogosphere.   Maybe we should do both.

I have returned this week from a very stimulating and helpful conference called MyCharityConnects in Toronto. I went there to get ideas about how to reach out to people about the charity that has consumed me for the past couple of years – The CanAssist African Relief Trust.   I came away with the instruction to “get the story out there” by blogging and Facebook and Twitter so I am going to jump right in.

I have lots of stories. And know lots of very interesting people in Africa.  I hope that by sharing them with you on this blog, I can excite you, too, in some way about global issues, reducing poverty in the third world and just being a global citizen.

I am very proud to be Canadian. But in the past several years I have worked in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and made over a dozen trips to Africa and I have developed close ties with a family in Italy. I have families in all of these places that have made me feel like I am part of them. I have been given nicknames and pet names in several languages – Oseuri, Otim, John Ole Moiko, Amooti.  My family here in Canada all refer to me as Dedo – Bosnian for Grandpa.  So, although I am Canadian to the core, I feel very globally connected.  I care about all these people who have shown me love and respect and connection that is hard to describe…and in MasterCard terms, Priceless.

Since starting to work in Bosnia in 1998, I have published over 80 articles in the Kingston Whig Standard about my experiences. Perhaps I will uncover some of those to share in this blog as well.

I hope I can make it interesting. I hope I can entertain, educate and enthuse you.  I hope that you will give me feedback and that we can chat about issues and stories for which we share some common ground.

And what I have learned from my travel is that we all share a lot of common ground. This world.