Kenya Connect: Support for Education in Rural Kenya

Jon: 00:00:09

Welcome to Good News!

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.We're brought to you by Listening for Clues.

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We are Lauren Welch and Jon Shematek Deacons in the

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Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

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We sure are, and today we're really excited to bring

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you some good news from Kenya.

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Our special guest today is Dr.

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Sharon Runge, who is the Executive Director of Kenya Connect (USA), a

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nonprofit that's working in rural Kenya with the mission of enriching

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and engaging students and teachers with 21st century skills through an array of

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programs at 63 partner government schools.

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In this position, Sharon works with Kenyan-led staff to develop partnerships,

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raise funds, develop and expand programs and lead volunteer trips, which sounds

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interesting to me right off the bat.

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Sharon holds a PhD from NYU, an MA from Boston College in Higher Education

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administration, and a bachelor's degree from the University of New

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Hampshire in Child and Family Studies.

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Welcome, Sharon.

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We're so glad that you're here with us today.

Sharon: 00:01:21

Well, thank you.

Sharon: 00:01:22

I'm really glad to be here too.

Lauren: 00:01:24

We are happy to have you Sharon.

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So to begin with, you have been involved with Kenya Connect for a long

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time, not just as Executive Director.

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What was it that inspired you to be involved in Kenya Connect?

Sharon: 00:01:40

Well, that's a great story.

Sharon: 00:01:42

So my children went to St.

Sharon: 00:01:44

John's Parish Day School in Ellicott City, and they started a pen

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pal program with Kenya Connect.

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That's how Kenya Connect originally started as connecting kids around the

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world as a way to learn about each other.

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To practice writing and to be global citizens.

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And so at St.

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John's, they started the pen pal letters and I was working at the school

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at the time doing fundraising in the newly expanded lower school, and I

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was helping out with the project and the executive director at the time,

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Tim Gregory, said, you know, I'm going to Kenya, you can come with me.

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And, you know, my brain was on fire.

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Cause I thought, geez, I I, I would love to go to Kenya.

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And so I went home and I said to my husband, Mike, what do

Sharon: 00:02:27

you think if I went to Kenya?

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And he goes, I think you should do it now.

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Meanwhile, I had two young children.

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I had like a seven and an eight year old.

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Wow.

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And I found myself on a plane going to Kenya.

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With Tim Gregory, the executive Director, and Reverend Rosemary Beales, who was a

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chaplain at the Day School at the time.

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And Rosemary and I at one point looked at ourselves on the plane and

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said, we barely know these people.

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What are we doing?

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But we got there and my life changed.

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You know, I met James Musyoka, who was the Executive Director on the ground.

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And I just fell in love with the community and what they were doing.

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And at that point they were doing a lot of pen pal programs.

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Schools like St.

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John's were raising funds for our partner school.

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And there were just so many needs.

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So I started volunteering with the organization and then eventually

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became Executive Director after Tim had stepped down.

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So it has grown since then.

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What more are you doing now?

Sharon: 00:03:24

So around 2012 we shifted from just doing the pen pals and assisting

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with school repairs and adding water tanks to really looking at how we can

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strengthen education in a holistic way.

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So part of that was looking at what the needs were by talking with the

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teachers, talking with community members.

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And although, you know, putting on school roofs and, adding new desks was

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needed that wasn't really strengthening education, that was infrastructure that we

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believe the Kenyan government should do.

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So we shifted our focus to have our program be more about enrichment.

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So we started a small library in 2012.

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We built our first building and opened the first ever computer lab in the

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sub-county for students and we started to do more educational program.

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And probably most importantly at the time, teacher professional development,

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because most of the teachers at that point were teaching in a very rote methodology

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where students came in the classroom.

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There were right and wrong answers.

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Mostly students were memorizing.

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All to prepare for the high state testing.

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And we started working with teachers to have them look at students in

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a more student centered approach.

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Really encouraging them to have students be reading, not just for the test, but

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just so they could improve their fluency and comprehension and have fun reading.

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And then learning, doing the digital learning.

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So we really started looking at education from how can we help students?

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Learn more, not just for the test, but for their future lives.

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At the same time, we started looking at some of the barriers

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that students were facing and why they weren't coming to school.

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And we, we had been doing that for a bit with installing water tanks.

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But then we started thanks to a volunteer trip installing hand washing stations

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so students could wash their hands.

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Before that was really the COVID thing to do.

Sharon: 00:05:27

Mm-hmm.

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Cause it keeps healthy.

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And one of our volunteers at the time was a nursing student and she

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really thought this was important.

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So she looked at some low tech hand washing stations

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and sent us some pictures.

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And the local craftsmen created these hand washing stations,

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and we now have 75 hand washing stations at our 63 partner schools.

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And we're making liquid soap.

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So we really tried to look at those barriers as well as educational programs.

Jon: 00:05:56

Well, that's, really amazing.

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So you're actually involved with 63 different schools at this point?

Sharon: 00:06:03

Yes.

Sharon: 00:06:04

Yes.

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One of the things that early on when Kenya Connect was founded and then we

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continued with the mission is working within the system, you know, a lot of

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NGOs go over to Kenya or other places in Africa and they say, geez, I'm

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gonna build a model school and improve education cuz we know how to do it.

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But what happens usually is, you know, it's hard running

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an ngo and after 10 years you.

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Kind of burn out a little bit.

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And , it's hard to raise resources.

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But we felt it was more important to work within the system because we

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could reach more students that way.

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Often model schools wind up charging tuition.

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You know, we're working within the government system, which

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means we're working with students and families who really have no

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other resources for education, they can't go to private schools.

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So we've been training those teachers and working with those

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students and the Ministry of Education supports our efforts.

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They're pretty excited because we're bringing in resources

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that they just don't have.

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And so Sharon, was that always kind of the case when

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you started working there?

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It seems to me like, you know, going to a country that is really completely

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different culture from from ours.

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How was that accepted initially?

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I.

Sharon: 00:07:17

I think, you know, because, you know, when Tim started the organization he

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had a music educator background, so he was really interested in the culture and the

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music and dancing within the community.

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And, you know, communities love to bond together.

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Especially the community in Maruni where we work.

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Is especially welcoming.

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And I think that's probably what drew me to the community because I don't think

Sharon: 00:07:42

I've, and I've traveled, but I don't think I was ever at a place where people

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were so welcoming and excited to see you despite not having a lot of resources.

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And , even though we were coming from the west, They were excited

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to hear what we had to share.

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So from the beginning it truly was a partnership and we've continued

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that model of partnership.

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So when I travel over with volunteers you know, it's always hard to know

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who's getting the most out of the trip, the volunteers from what we've learned

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from our colleagues and our friends in Kenya or what we've brought over.

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And I think that model of working together as a team, not us in the United States

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saying, Geez, we know the best way to do education and you should be following it.

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We now have a staff of 21 on the ground who are, taking our germs of ideas

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and making them culturally relevant for the community and, designing

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them in ways that work for them.

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So you have a model of truly empowering people.

Sharon: 00:08:44

That's our goal.

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And we in the United States do a lot of the fundraising and

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friendraising and partnership building because we have access here.

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It's hard for NGOs in Kenya.

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To raise money just within country to fund the kind of the program we're doing

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and having people from outside of Kenya helping with some needed resources have

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been really essential to the growth.

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But, but we see it as a partnership.

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When I've brought volunteers over, they feel like they're part

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of, the Kenya Connect family.

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I mean, when we go there we actually get Kamba names and Kamba is one

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of the ethnic groups in Kenya.

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And the first visit when Reverend Rosemary and I were there, we went

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to visit our partner school, . And there were 300 children there.

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And.

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We're being introduced and all these children are, looking at us.

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You know, sometimes when people from the US come, it's the first

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time they've ever seen an American.

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And so we're, we're standing in front of the school and James

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Musyoko says to the children, well, what should their Kamba be?

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And suddenly, , there was this murmur with the children and

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they were all like chattering and suddenly a name comes forth.

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And I was given the name.

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Mutanu which means joyful.

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I think the whole time I was in Kenya, I never stopped smiling.

Sharon: 00:10:04

Every volunteer that's come over to, Kenya Connect gets a Kamba name, . It's

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special to bestowed something like that.

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Sharon, you've mentioned a couple of times so far about volunteers

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and, how do you find volunteers?

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What do, they do?

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Do they need certain skills or training?

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How does that all work?

Sharon: 00:10:24

Yeah, so we I usually lead two to three volunteer trips a

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year over to Kenya, and they're usually about 10 days in length.

Sharon: 00:10:32

And initially because I'm a member of St.

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John's Episcopal Church, we had volunteers that were coming with me from St.

Sharon: 00:10:39

John's or St.

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John's Parish Day School.

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And now that the scope is enlarged, some of them are still from St.

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John's.

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We've had members from Trinity Episcopal Church.

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We have a member from the Severna Park United Methodist

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Church coming with us this year.

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And then just people who became friends of our work and were

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interested in traveling over.

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We have a partnership with PayPal and we've had PayPal employees come with us.

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And basically when volunteers come they work in the classroom with us or

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on some of our enrichment programs.

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So unlike , some nonprofits where they go and might build a building or, or

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dig a well what our community really needs are people to come that might

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model an effective teaching method.

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Help teachers learn how they can do teamwork in the classroom.

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So we've had non-teachers come over who have helped demonstrate something like

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engineering and team building through building towers together out of toothpicks

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and gum drops and carried over, you know, and the students have a competition

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who can build the biggest tower.

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So, so we try to model lessons in the classroom.

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Sometimes we have volunteers help us with distributing our reusable sanitary

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pad kits that are locally made by women.

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Sometimes people with business expertise work with our business manager

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and our executive director there.

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So, we can find different projects that people can work on.

Sharon: 00:12:07

You know, we just ask when we have volunteers, you know, we, we screen,

Sharon: 00:12:11

because we are in a developing country, conditions are not the same as the

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US So, if you get uncomfortable on bumpy roads, cuz when we visit

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our partner schools, they're up on riverbeds and we're on a school bus.

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Bounce, bounce, bounce.

Sharon: 00:12:23

You know, if you get sick on a bus, it's not a good trip for you and if, you're

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looking for Hilton kind of accommodations, that's, it's not gonna happen.

Sharon: 00:12:30

Right?

Sharon: 00:12:30

Yeah.

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You know, and, and we want people who are open to the community

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and, willing to work alongside.

Sharon: 00:12:37

While people are with us, we also do some cultural things.

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We visit traditional homestead.

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The volunteers learn some traditional Kamba song and

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dance and get to participate.

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We see basket weaving.

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And the village we're in is also known as the center of wood carving in Kenya.

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The Wamunyu wood carvers are fairly famous, so we go in and we see the

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men wood carving and if people are interested, they can purchase items.

Sharon: 00:13:01

I don't think we've had a volunteer who has come with us that it hasn't

Sharon: 00:13:05

changed their life in some way.

Sharon: 00:13:06

. Lauren: Sharon, this sounds wonderful.

Sharon: 00:13:09

I, I wonder what obstacles have you had to overcome with this?

Sharon: 00:13:14

One of the challenges always is funding, of course,, to run an

Sharon: 00:13:17

operation like this, you need to be constantly raising funds and, a lot of

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times funders wanna give for specific projects, which sometimes is wonderful.

Sharon: 00:13:25

But sometimes we just need general operating support because really

Sharon: 00:13:29

what makes our work happen is our program staff and we work with the

Sharon: 00:13:35

most amazing men and women who just are dedicated to what they're doing.

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And about six of our staff actually went to our partner schools

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as primary school students.

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And they were inspired by Kenya Connect and went to university

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and now are working for us...

Sharon: 00:13:50

the effects of climate change are real.

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In a country like Kenya Last year, they missed three cycles of rains.

Sharon: 00:13:58

And, it's a real challenge at our schools when the rains don't come

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because it means crops are failing.

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Which means families are often hungry and students are coming to

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school hungry, which means they don't learn as well in school.

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So that's, been a real challenge for us.

Sharon: 00:14:15

In our community most of our homesteads have no electricity or running water.

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And internet access is scarce except for what we're doing.

Sharon: 00:14:24

And so really trying to think creatively about how we can bring Chromebooks

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to the classrooms with a hotspot so students can learn computing and coding.

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Which is mandated by the Kenyan curriculum, but there's no devices in it.

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So there's obstacles there of infrastructure, , obstacles with

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climate change and, certainly, the, never ending need for funds.

Sharon: 00:14:49

But we've always been fortunate and people have been generous with us and

Sharon: 00:14:53

so we just keep telling our story.

Lauren: 00:14:58

And as you continue to tell your story, I'm sure that your volunteering

Lauren: 00:15:03

and your funding will only increase.

Sharon: 00:15:06

Yes.

Sharon: 00:15:07

Yes.

Sharon: 00:15:08

And I think one of the things too for people who travel with us, and

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especially people who have some kind of, faith belief our, our community has.

Sharon: 00:15:18

Deep, deep faith.

Sharon: 00:15:20

And when I go , as an Episcopalian I, I often find my spirit is

Sharon: 00:15:26

renewed in ways that, it's not always renewed here, I hate to say.

Sharon: 00:15:30

I see people deeply faithful and living in extreme conditions.

Sharon: 00:15:34

When I was there in October last year and the rains didn't come for three

Sharon: 00:15:38

cycles, I was worried and thinking, Who should we be contacting about

Sharon: 00:15:41

trying to get some food assistance to some of the schools, and our staff

Sharon: 00:15:45

would say, have faith, the, the rains will come and sure enough they didn't

Sharon: 00:15:48

come when they were supposed to come, but they wound up coming in February.

Sharon: 00:15:51

I learn from the staff each time I come, each time I go.

Sharon: 00:15:55

And I think our other volunteers feel that too.

Jon: 00:15:59

Yeah, I was gonna ask you what this has meant to you

Jon: 00:16:01

personally, but you just answered

Sharon: 00:16:03

Yeah, yeah.

Sharon: 00:16:04

I, I mean, it's been it's been a, such a gift to me and, I'm so

Sharon: 00:16:07

grateful that Tim invited me to go to Kenya and that I said yes.

Sharon: 00:16:11

Sometimes when I reflect back on my experience with Kenya Connect,

Sharon: 00:16:16

I think sometimes in our life we're offered opportunities and

Sharon: 00:16:20

sometimes we say no just because we think it's too much of an obstacle.

Sharon: 00:16:23

Like, you know, will the kids be okay without me?

Sharon: 00:16:26

Mike's working full-time.

Sharon: 00:16:27

Will he manage, is this really the prudent thing to do?

Sharon: 00:16:30

And for some reason, my inner voice said, go.

Sharon: 00:16:33

And, my husband was incredibly supportive and, and I went and, I never would've

Sharon: 00:16:37

guessed at that point that this is where I was gonna be and, and really

Sharon: 00:16:41

become, Maybe the most important life work I I've done besides raising kids.

Sharon: 00:16:47

It's just been such a dream for me personally.

Jon: 00:16:51

Oh, that's great.

Jon: 00:16:52

I'm sure the needs are ongoing.

Jon: 00:16:53

You've talked mostly about the educational piece

Jon: 00:16:56

. If you could identify the, the

Jon: 00:16:59

that, that people can help with?

Sharon: 00:17:03

Funding's always important and if there's one of our programs

Sharon: 00:17:05

when you visit our website, we're happy to designate funds that way.

Sharon: 00:17:09

Or if you want 'em to go to general operating.

Sharon: 00:17:11

One of our newest programs right now is a program called The Girl Boy

Sharon: 00:17:15

Empowerment Program, and it, it came as a result of during the pandemic.

Sharon: 00:17:21

There was a three month period when schools were first shut down,

Sharon: 00:17:24

that the Kenyan government started monitoring unplanned teen pregnancies.

Sharon: 00:17:29

And we found out in our county alone that 3,964 girls became pregnant

Sharon: 00:17:35

during a three month time period.

Sharon: 00:17:37

And we found out at our partner schools, 98 girls became pregnant and

Sharon: 00:17:41

26 of those were in primary schools.

Sharon: 00:17:44

So we're talking about sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.

Sharon: 00:17:47

And we were horrified and just knew we needed to do something.

Sharon: 00:17:51

So our team on the ground wound up meeting with stakeholders,

Sharon: 00:17:55

so they pulled together.

Sharon: 00:17:57

The child protection officer, the local nurse, the police, the

Sharon: 00:18:01

teachers, parents some of the local pastors and said, we're seeing this.

Sharon: 00:18:06

What are you seeing?

Sharon: 00:18:08

And everybody was seeing the same things.

Sharon: 00:18:10

And The stakeholders were like, Kenya Connect?

Sharon: 00:18:13

We need you to do something.

Sharon: 00:18:14

So we wound up doing some interviews with parents and teachers and students and

Sharon: 00:18:20

found out that yes, this was going on.

Sharon: 00:18:23

But what was more horrifying than the pregnancies was that probably two thirds

Sharon: 00:18:27

of those pregnancies were Not consensual.

Sharon: 00:18:30

So, you know, young girls being taken advantage by the,

Sharon: 00:18:34

uncle or by a family friend.

Sharon: 00:18:37

Sometimes girls exchanging sex for sanitary pads because they didn't have

Sharon: 00:18:41

it, or food because you know, the pandemic put people in such a bad spot and.

Sharon: 00:18:46

We realized we needed to do something and so we started a program called

Sharon: 00:18:50

The Girl Boy Empowerment Program that we've had faculty and students from the

Sharon: 00:18:54

University of New Hampshire helping us to design and craft where we've been

Sharon: 00:18:59

working with fifth and sixth graders.

Sharon: 00:19:02

To a year long program where they meet weekly to talk about sexual reproduction,

Sharon: 00:19:07

how it happens, but also more importantly about things like peer pressure,

Sharon: 00:19:12

bullying, consent, respect, boundaries.

Sharon: 00:19:16

And we have the girls meet separately with one of our mentors

Sharon: 00:19:20

and the boys meet separately.

Sharon: 00:19:22

And the program has been just amazing.

Sharon: 00:19:25

And last year when we did our first pilot of it, No child in any of the schools

Sharon: 00:19:30

that we, worked with, four schools became pregnant, which we thought was a win.

Sharon: 00:19:35

But more importantly, we started getting some stories, especially over the holiday

Sharon: 00:19:39

break in December, we had one girl tell her head teacher that her father

Sharon: 00:19:45

started touching her inappropriately.

Sharon: 00:19:47

She knew it was wrong.

Sharon: 00:19:49

She didn't give him consent, and she fled to her grandmother's house because she

Sharon: 00:19:54

didn't, wanna participate in that, and that she told another adult and that she

Sharon: 00:19:59

knew it was wrong and just didn't do what her dad wanted, I think was a real win.

Sharon: 00:20:05

And, and we know that there's other girls that that's happened to, and we also

Sharon: 00:20:09

engaged the boys because sometimes you know, there's, there's so much work and

Sharon: 00:20:14

it's needed work about educating girls, but if you leave the boys out of the

Sharon: 00:20:18

equation, They need to understand about respect and boundaries and peer pressure.

Sharon: 00:20:24

In one of the boys group, when the mentor said, what's peer pressure?

Sharon: 00:20:28

One of the little boys said, it happens when you're 19 years old.

Sharon: 00:20:33

We all giggle when we hear that, but the boy didn't know what it was.

Sharon: 00:20:37

And when David, our mentor explained, The little boy was kind of silent and then

Sharon: 00:20:42

said, I think I was involved in peer pressure because my friends all wanted

Sharon: 00:20:46

me to steal mangoes off one of the trees.

Sharon: 00:20:48

And I, I went along with it and by the end of the class, all

Sharon: 00:20:51

the little boys were confessing about things that they had done.

Sharon: 00:20:54

Wow.

Sharon: 00:20:54

Yeah.

Sharon: 00:20:56

But it makes it real for them, and our hope is, That those students going

Sharon: 00:21:00

through this at a, at a kind of a pivotal stage will help them go through.

Sharon: 00:21:06

And then at the same time, we've just started this year a program for

Sharon: 00:21:09

parents because parents are having trouble communicating with their

Sharon: 00:21:13

children about sex and other topics.

Sharon: 00:21:15

So we're trying to work with them on how you talk about it.

Sharon: 00:21:18

And I know that's hard in the us.

Sharon: 00:21:19

I mean, I remember talking to my kids about sex and it's

Sharon: 00:21:22

never an easy conversation.

Sharon: 00:21:24

But yeah, really trying to help the parents have some accurate tools and

Sharon: 00:21:27

letting them know that it's never okay for perpetrators to attack children.

Jon: 00:21:32

Wow.

Jon: 00:21:33

You are making such a difference in so many people's lives

Jon: 00:21:37

in so many different ways.

Jon: 00:21:39

The breadth of this, of your programming is just astounding.

Sharon: 00:21:44

Yeah.

Sharon: 00:21:44

I sometimes get amazed every day the staff shares pictures with me

Sharon: 00:21:47

about what's going on, on the ground.

Sharon: 00:21:49

Because I post on social media about things and I am just blown away.

Sharon: 00:21:54

I think it's important that our staff on the ground have a lot of

Sharon: 00:21:57

autonomy in running the programs.

Sharon: 00:21:59

We might help shape the framework and garner funding, but then they

Sharon: 00:22:03

make it, make it run, I think that really works very well.

Jon: 00:22:07

They sound like an amazing group of people.

Sharon: 00:22:11

Yeah, and they're a lot of fun.

Sharon: 00:22:12

Like, so anybody who wants to volunteer with us, please reach out to me.

Sharon: 00:22:16

Because, you go over and you're doing this work, but you laugh and you have

Sharon: 00:22:21

fun, and you're in relationship in an, in a way that I don't know if you

Sharon: 00:22:26

normally would have that access to a, a, a rural community like that.

Jon: 00:22:30

So, Sharon, do you have any final kind of wisdom or advice or

Jon: 00:22:34

comments that you'd like to make?

Jon: 00:22:35

We certainly will want to know the best way people can support you, reach you

Jon: 00:22:40

if they wanna make donations and so on.

Jon: 00:22:42

You know, we'll put lots of the appropriate links in the show notes.

Jon: 00:22:45

But anything before we get to that, that you'd like to just

Jon: 00:22:48

just to add to the conversation.

Sharon: 00:22:51

Yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's so much important work going on

Sharon: 00:22:55

in Africa and, Africa has one of the youngest populations in the world, and

Sharon: 00:23:00

when I walk into a classroom and students and I look at this, 40 eager faces in this

Sharon: 00:23:07

packed classroom, and, you look into some of the students' eyes and you can just see

Sharon: 00:23:12

that they're bright and they wanna learn.

Sharon: 00:23:15

But they lack even the most basic resources.

Sharon: 00:23:18

That's true of a lot of other communities in rural Kenya and

Sharon: 00:23:21

other places on the continent.

Sharon: 00:23:23

And so, , I encourage people to, like when you read your newspaper

Sharon: 00:23:27

and you see articles about Africa, read them and think about the work

Sharon: 00:23:31

and how you can make a difference.

Sharon: 00:23:32

Because it's, really fulfilling, whether you get to volunteer with

Sharon: 00:23:36

us or you donate .. We do a lot of newsletters that lets you know how

Sharon: 00:23:40

your funds are making a difference.

Sharon: 00:23:41

A $50 donation helps us, a hundred dollars donation helps us.

Sharon: 00:23:45

So, certainly donating follow us on social media, like I

Sharon: 00:23:49

can promise you, you'll just.

Sharon: 00:23:50

You'll smile some mornings when you see, what our staff is doing.

Sharon: 00:23:54

. If you're ever interested in volunteering, please reach out to me

Sharon: 00:23:57

and you know, you can reach out to me at sharon@kennyconnect.org or go

Sharon: 00:24:01

to our website www.kenyaconnect.org

Sharon: 00:24:05

we're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn so we're around, we have some great

Sharon: 00:24:11

videos on our website that you can see what our village looks like.

Sharon: 00:24:14

And, and then I would just say follow your dreams.

Sharon: 00:24:17

If you ever get that invite or have that little n nudge that, geez,

Sharon: 00:24:22

like, I might wanna do this.

Sharon: 00:24:24

Like, do it, do it while you can, cuz I think it, it just makes you realize I

Sharon: 00:24:30

don't feel like I'm just a US citizen.

Sharon: 00:24:32

I see that I'm a, a world citizen and that we're, , we're all on this

Sharon: 00:24:36

earth together and how can we work?

Sharon: 00:24:38

How can we learn and work with each other?

Jon: 00:24:40

That's the connect in Kenya Connect, right?

Jon: 00:24:42

Yeah.

Jon: 00:24:43

Just it's there.

Jon: 00:24:44

It's all about relationship and being with people.

Sharon: 00:24:47

Yeah.

Sharon: 00:24:47

It, it re it really is.

Sharon: 00:24:48

And I, I think that's true of our board here in the US and our staff in Kenya

Sharon: 00:24:52

and, and just, just the communities.

Sharon: 00:24:55

Yeah, it's, it's really an amazing place.

Sharon: 00:24:57

So, we'd love to have a donation.

Sharon: 00:24:59

We do an annual 5K race every year in Ellicott City in March.

Sharon: 00:25:04

So stay tuned for that.

Sharon: 00:25:05

And you can walk or run or you can do it virtually.

Sharon: 00:25:08

It's March 23rd, 2024.

Sharon: 00:25:10

It'll be our 10th anniversary race.

Sharon: 00:25:12

Oh, okay.

Sharon: 00:25:13

In September, we're actually doing just a fun, you know, friendraising little

Sharon: 00:25:18

fundraiser at the Manor Hill Brewery in Ellicott City called Kegs for Kenya.

Sharon: 00:25:23

And I think our director of technology, Patrick Mungunti, will be here with us.

Sharon: 00:25:28

So, you wanna meet one of our staff from Kenya.

Sharon: 00:25:30

It'll, it'll be great and it'll be a fun event with some

Sharon: 00:25:34

good food and some beverages.

Jon: 00:25:35

Lots going on.

Jon: 00:25:36

You're doing so much good.

Jon: 00:25:38

And Sharon.

Jon: 00:25:39

We, both appreciate so much for being here and taking

Jon: 00:25:41

the time to be with us today.

Jon: 00:25:43

And hearing so much about Kenya Connect, as I mentioned earlier, there'll be

Jon: 00:25:47

slew of links in the show notes.

Jon: 00:25:50

All those social media links will be there.

Jon: 00:25:52

And again thank you and, and this has just been a great a great

Jon: 00:25:56

educational resource for me today.

Sharon: 00:25:59

Appreciate it much.

Sharon: 00:25:59

Well, thank you Lauren and Jon.

Sharon: 00:26:01

This has been really fun for me too.

Sharon: 00:26:02

I, I love talking about Kenya Connect, as you can tell, thank you to your

Sharon: 00:26:06

listeners and viewers for tuning in.

Lauren: 00:26:09

Thank you Sharon.

Lauren: 00:26:11

Jon and I want to thank those who watched and those who

Lauren: 00:26:14

listened to this good news today.

Lauren: 00:26:17

We are so grateful that you took the time to to be with us . We couldn't do

Lauren: 00:26:21

it without You .We ask you to comment, like, and share this good news that

Lauren: 00:26:28

you've heard today from Kenya Connect.

Lauren: 00:26:30

Until next time, peace and blessings.

Jon: 00:26:36

Good news is being brought to you by listening for clues.

Jon: 00:26:40

You can find us on our website, listening for clues.com, our YouTube channel,

Jon: 00:26:45

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