How many of us hit the delete button as soon as we see unfamiliar names on emails in our Inbox? Fortunately, a few months ago I hesitated when I received an email from the West Broward High School in Florida who were checking that Amani UK operated in the Oyugis area of Kenya. When I answered in the affirmative there quickly followed an exchange of emails asking whether I knew of Ondiwa Gamba Primary School. It transpired that the school in Florida had raised $1,800 for the Ondiwa Gamba School but were reluctant to simply send money off to Africa without controls or real certainty of it being spent for the benefit of the school. Although Ondiwa is not one of our UK Schools Link schools, it is one I have visited and I knew our Projects were in contact with them, so I offered our services in making the connection.

This then became an arrangement by which the Florida school would send a cheque to Amani UK and I would transfer the money to Kenya and our respective Project would control and monitor the application of the gift, with me reporting back to Florida, including photos of the new latrines that are to be built with the money.

Unfortunately, the accounts department in Florida missed off our house number and although it was correctly addressed in every other way and had the very specific names of Amani UK and Jim Leftwich on the envelope, the Royal Mail let us down and it never reached us. We then had to advise that the cheque be blocked and a new one issued. This time it was by DHL and I eventually received it some 6 weeks after the original contact.

As I write the work is underway and pupils of Ondiwa Gamba School are delighted and very appreciative of the gift and its result, but I don’t think they would understand anything of the tortuous route the money has taken to get to them or how website technology could have made it possible. We are three points on a triangle of some 8,000km on each leg, which has been connected up by a website search engine, the Internet and a lot of cooperation. What we share is a determination to express our commitment to help the students of this poor rural area of Kenya.

Jim Leftwich
Amani UK Coordinator