People need a safe refuge. Women and children need food and shelter. Many have already arrived at the Joseph Waweru Home School seeking shelter.

Expanding Opportunities will continue to send 100% of any donations received for this emergency directly to Kenya to be used for food, shelter, clothing, blankets, mattresses, and security as needed. Assessments of each family at the Joseph Waweru Home School have been completed. In addition to the basics listed above, funds will be used for school uniforms and supplies, and resettlement. The funds will be administered by Expanding Opportunities (a U.S. 501c3 organization and an NGO in Kenya) and expenditures reported to both the USA and Kenyan offices for examination by donors upon request.

Donations can be made by:

• check sent to 84 Payson Road, Brooks, Maine 04921,
• internet through PayPal with a major credit card using expandingopportunities@yahoo.com as the recipient address,
• phone using Visa or MasterCard at 207-722-3708, 1-888-760-7943
• cash at The Working Art Gallery on Main Street, Belfast, Maine.

For more information please email info@expandingopportunities.org.

In the words of Expanding Opportunities’, Program Developer, David Mwangi:

Jan 2nd
"In Nakuru, we have been sleeping outside of the houses in Mangu (so they will not burn alive inside). Pastor’s brother out in Rongai (less than 10 miles from our children’s home in Mangu), their houses were all burnt. There is no one with a roof over his or her head. They killed old men in their house. We have to hide the food mum bought in the shamba (garden). We have dug a man hole and have buried it there. It is the 3rd night now that we have been out watching over the hills as the houses burn.

Kericho (where our feeding program is) is among the most affected areas. Kalenjins have sworn that there is not one Kikuyu that will live in that town. Nothing is standing. Shops have been looted, Peris's kiosk (Expanding Opportunities loan recipient) was reduced to ashes, all our family’s friends that I visited with you - their shops are empty shells now. Hundreds of families have left their houses and are living outside the police in town. Half of the houses in Nyagacho area where Collins lives are ashes. It is so bad. Business in Kericho has been taken back many years.

Kisumu is the most affected area in the whole country - not one business installation is standing. All the shops in the town GM and Toyota were reduced to ashes with so many new cars in there. It’s believed that it will take many years to bring it back to its glory. There is massive looting going on there. They say its time to reap back what the Kikuyus have stolen from them.

Jan 4
When you talk of help -it's so big - people didn’t even get out with a pair of clothes. I have given out all my shoes am left with one pair that am wearing now – no clothes, no food. They burnt down food in shambas (gardens) and in storage, they burnt down houses. If you go to ShoShos (the widow Expanding Opportunities assisted) now from the hill where we alight the matatu looking down the hill there is not one house standing, all is black ash. There was a sick old man that was burnt in his house. The family has not been able the recover the body for burial. The best help we can give them is food now and a place to sleep till things calm down. Mum and Ginger have tried to help as much as they can. I have spent like 4,500/= ($70.00) just on the phone. I could not sleep from the calls people were giving me to help them.
--David Mwangi, program developer for Expanding Opportunities.

Ginger Wilson, a Belfast resident, is currently in Kenya and she writes:

Thanks for helping us. I could use a few shillings to buy milk for the kids. They haven't had meat or dairy for over a week, some 2 weeks and I am worried for them over the long run. Yesterday I was able to gather enough money to buy familia enriched with vitamins and we have started cutting it with corn unga to make it go farther.

I am here at internet with Mwangi and we decided I would write as I write much faster then he does. We have both gone to the Red Cross, I have gone to the Archdiocese of Nakuru and he has gone to African Purse, Save a Life Fund and of course Pastor has appealed to the churches here.

We have all been told the same thing. They have allocated all the resources to the refugees camps and they don't know how many more refugees will be coming so they will not give us anything until they (the refugees) stop coming. Then they will go around to all who have applied (we all have) and see what needs we have and how they can help us. In other words you/we are on our own. I expect it to be at least 2-3 more weeks that the refugees will be coming.

We don't have an accurate count of how many refugees they expect but talking to Father Daniel (catholic church) they expect it to be in excess of 500,000. We have about 100,000 so far. There is still violence in the coast provinces and western provinces. Nakuru is still experiencing some violence in Sha-bab and Kaptembwa. Dorcas has been unable to go home yet to see if she has anything left. She was able to get another house in a better area but I don't know how she will be able to pay for it long term.

The Government wants us to wait until they assess the situation before we make any long term commitments. Theywill resettle but haven't decided how they will go about it yet. They are afraid that if we take refugees we will have them for years.

When I asked for food to help out the ones in my house they told me to bring them to the show grounds and leave them. I will not take them out of a clean safe environment to live in those conditions. Pastor and I had a meeting with Baba Kinyanjui yesterday and he (Pastor) said he couldn't do that either. We will do our best to take care of the ones we have already I will not send my people to the camp, I have been there and it is horrible. So it looks like the only help we will be getting in the near future is from our sources at home.

Let us give thanks that we live in a country with peaceful elections.
Please give what you can.