GOODBYE is always a SEE YOU AGAIN

Now after exactly 42 days in Kenya it is time to say goodbye. What a time it has been for us. As you might have followed during the past weeks in the blog, we had many extraordinary and exceptional experiences.

After having given so much time and energy day by day towards all the projects and beyond, I have asked myself what we will take with us:

• We have gained huge amounts of personal experiences for ourselves
• We have faced overcome many challenges of the most different sort
• We have gained lots of friends in a far away country
• We have received lots of recognition for our work
• We have had the grateful opportunity of seeing/experiencing this b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l country

For all these small and big wonders I’m so grateful to be counted as part of the ‘We’.

I regard myself as a very lucky person to have been given this one in a lifetime opportunity to be part of this awesome project, to everybody who has been part / contributed to ConTribute Kenya 2013:

“MY DEEPEST AND SINCERE THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED TO MAKE THIS IDEA/DREAM COME TO LIFE”!!!

In light of saying the words of ‘THANKS’ I want to also push out some words which have been nagging on me for quite some time: “LET’S SUSTAIN”.

The thing I have personally learned most about the projects is that ‘Time’ and ‘Know-How’ are the two most sustainable things one can do to help the local population in countries like Kenya.

In the home country of Obama’s father let’s do it again;

ConTributeKenya 2014 –‘Yes -WE CAN’

So, see you again next year ‘Oh Kenya The Beautiful’

(written by Robin)

Last words from Mombasa

It is hard to believe that the time went by so quickly. I still remember our arrival on the 28th of June and now 42 days later, Robin, Mike and I left Mombasa for good. We had five wonderful and adventurous weeks in Mombasa and one amazing week in Nairobi.

While working on three main projects in Mombasa (St. Joseph 's House of Hope, Blue Bell Nursery School and Mombasa Fire Brigade), I can say that we reached and even surpassed our set goals and expectations, not only our own but also the ones from all involved parties. What we were able to change and create within this short time period of five weeks shows the willingness and endeavour of everyone and the great support of many people outside the main project team in Kenya.

To bring home some of this success, we asked the children, students and teachers from St. Joseph's House of Hope to write down or draw their feelings, thoughts and emotions about the time that five of the students had spent teaching them business subjects. Result is a stunning amount of letters and pictures from all kinds of people. All of the letters are positive and everyone enjoyed the time with us, learnt a lot and is hoping that we can come back next year for teaching even more and supporting them during the realisation of their business plans. Until then, we will stay in contact with the students via email and Facebook to provide further business related information.

I hope that everyone will keep us in good memory and actually realise that we were able to make a contribution and change something. Especially at St. Joseph's House of Hope we were able to open up a youth club in connection with Carol the founder of St. Joseph's that will help the entrepreneurs but also the students from Majengo to sustain their life and make a personal contribution to their village. The Mombasa Fire Brigade team opened up people's mind-set and created awareness for the need of fire protection training and rescue service in order to help people and show them how to help themselves. Lastly, Blue Bell Nursery School successfully implemented the accounting system at their school to be more efficient when it comes to cost accounting.

Six weeks later I see what 11 students are able to create and change and I am very proud of this team. Especially Robin, who presented the projects and gave us the possibility to fly out to Mombasa, but also everyone else who was somehow involved in the fund raising process and helped us realising this project.

I sincerely hope we can sustain the projects and visit them again next year to develop them further. Asanti Sana to everyone and I am looking forward to ConTribute Kenya 2014!

(written by Lena)