For many years I have dreamed of visiting Africa. In October 2010 I spent a fortnight as part of a team visiting the projects in Kenya supported by Amani UK. I found a quite extraordinary people, marred with unprecedented need. Whilst the negative aspects of Kenyan life were painstakingly apparent, the overwhelming rewards of the interdependence they find in each other was both humbling to observe and inspirational to learn from: a people with need, but a people with unbreakable community, sewn together by faith.

As a teacher at Beacon Hill School, Surrey, I had a particular purpose for my visit. One of the projects which Amani UK supports through the Umoja Project is Nyabondo School and we have historically enjoyed a relationship of exchanging letters and supporting them with various resources. The trip assisted in strengthening a link beyond these basic functions, and we now have a learning exchange relationship which we hope will be strengthened by further visits by both schools to each other, as well as a much deeper exchange of information about our respective cultures.

Summing up Kenya in a word is surprisingly easy: pride. Where we obviously have such economic and technological privilege in our own country, Kenyans have something far greater and worthy of envy: a binding resolve to submit to hope in all things and a love and commitment for others in their own community.

Spending time with the Amani UK team was a truly life-changing experience. Seeing firsthand the way the Kenyans work as a community developed a resolve in me to help make my own community a better place to live and belong to.

David Paul Crew
Teacher, Beacon Hill School