 | During the holiday break, students climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya to raise money for programs to alleviate poverty in Kenya and New Haven. Standing atop the latter mountain are (from left) Kaitlyn Trigger, Dana Frasz, Mohammed Kinya (the students' guide), Diana Swett and Andrew Towne. |
On the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa's tallest peak, and at the summit of Mount Kenya, the nation's highest mountain, a group of Yale students and a fellow traveler from Sarah Lawrence College recently looked out on the world from a new perspective.
During a three-week trip to Africa over the Christmas recess, Yale students Andrew Towne '05, Diana Swett '05 and Kaitlyn Trigger '06, along with Sarah Lawrence junior Dana Frasz, ascended these mountains for a cause: to raise money for the Yale Hunger & Homelessness Action Project (YHHAP) and the Watoto wa Lwanga Project (WWL), a charity in Nairobi that assists the children living in that country's largest slums.
Calling their mission "Climb for a Cause," the students raised $12,000 for their trek, which they divided evenly between YHHAP and WWL. On the summits of both peaks, they raised a banner decorated with the names of the two charitable organizations.
Towne, who took a leave of absence during his junior year to study Swahili on a scholarship in Nairobi, organized the fundraising initiative. During his year in Kenya, he worked as volunteer for the Catholic Brothers of St. Charles Lwanga and their Watoto wa Lwanga Project, which operates four schools in the slums in addition to other programs for children. Through this work, Towne witnessed firsthand the hardships and squalor of the thousands of impoverished Kenyans who live in the Nairobi slums.
Towne was so affected by what he saw in Kenya that he wanted to do something to help New Haven's poor, so he joined YHHAP, eventually becoming the group's treasurer.
Having already climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro -- a mountain associated with numerous American fundraising drives -- Towne thought that it could be an adventurous trek for others who felt a commitment to doing something about the issues of poverty and homelessness.
"I didn't want us to climb an African mountain just to benefit YHHAP, without giving something to the people living in that part of Africa," says Towne, who is majoring in political science. "Through my previous work with the Brothers of St. Charles Lwanga, I knew that WWL could also really use the money too, and realized that the climb could also call attention to the plight of Kenya's poor."
Towne began holding organizational meetings about the climb on campus last spring semester, and then opened the trip to college students anywhere who wanted to take part. Participants were required to raise the cost of the trip plus an additional $2,500 to benefit YHHAP and WWL. Originally, more than 100 students expressed interest in participating, but ultimately, only Towne, Swett, Trigger and Frasz were able to meet the fundraising requirements by the deadline.
The small group size allowed for the climbers to easily become acquainted and bond together, says Trigger, in spite of their different personalities. (Swett and Frasz are childhood friends.) In addition, the four students were able to stay with the same family that hosted Towne during his first stay in Kenya.
The long length of the trip allowed the students the opportunity to mountain climb, go on a safari and spend some time visiting the slums to observe the efforts
Before attempting their six-day trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro, the students spent five days climbing Mt. Kenya in order to acclimate to high altitudes.
Although Kilimanjaro is rated as a "non-technical climb," meaning that climbers do not need any previous experience or special equipment, many who attempt to summit the 19,340-ft. mountain fail to reach the top because of altitude sickness.
Towne, who comes from the non-mountainous state of North Dakota, and Trigger, a Los Angeles native who had never done any mountain climbing before, note that ascending slowly and taking the time to acclimate are essential to a successful climb. The climbers were accompanied by guides and two porters each, who carried their supplies.
"We took the easiest route -- called the Coca Cola route -- which has a perfectly defined path that is well maintained and is not really steep until you are approaching the summit," explains Trigger, noting that this mountain just south of the equator boasts a wide variety of environments, from tropical rainforest to savannah to alpine desert to glacial plateau. Kilimanjaro also has three dormant volcanoes.
Disappointingly for her and the other climbers, Trigger was unable to summit with her fellow climbers. A stomach illness forced her to stay at a lower-altitude camp hut waiting for Towne, Swett and Frasz to return so they could then all descend the rest of the mountain together.
"At first I thought I had nerves; then I thought it was altitude sickness," recalls Trigger. "A guide encouraged me to head back, saying, 'Respect the mountain.' But once I had descended some and I wasn't feeling better, it was apparent that I had a stomach ailment."
While the mountains -- and the sightings of African wildlife while on safari -- were awe-inspiring to the students, the Kenyan slums were particularly eye-opening, they say.
"In Kibera, which is the second largest slum in the world, there are about 700,000 people living on two square kilometers," comments Towne. "Many of them live in mud huts with tin roofs. You'd see homes with a four-foot by four-foot floor space with a charcoal stove in the middle for cooking, and two bunk beds on either side." The Yale senior adds that the government provides few services in the slum; there is little running water, and the residents often rid body waste in plastic bags, which they then fling outside, letting them land where they will.
Towne added that girls as young as 11 often quit school to become prostitutes and that a large number of young children are addicted to the physically and emotionally destructive habit of sniffing glue. Many of the children have AIDS or tuberculosis.
"When we first arrived in Kibera, a school director announced that a 6th-grade girl, who had been the top scholar in her class, had just died during a back-door abortion," Towne recalls. He noted that half of the money each climber contributed to "Climb for a Cause" can pay an entire year's salary of a WWL teacher.
While Towne thought that he would be less affected seeing the slums on his second visit to Kenya, he said he found himself viewing the poverty through the eyes of first-time visitors Trigger, Swett and Frasz.
"It was really poignant for me to see that three new people understand the silent voices of the 700,000 people in Kibera," states Towne.
The group also visited the large Nairobi slum of Mathare.
"On the first day in the Mathare slum, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing," remembers Trigger, who is also majoring in political science. "It was really dismal. The Watoto wa Lwanga School, however, felt like a breath of fresh air: The children were laughing and playing and swarming all around us. It was amazing to see that even in such poor situations, there could be such cheerfulness."
Just as Towne's experience of the Kenyan slums inspired him to become interested in issues of hunger and homelessness in New Haven, Trigger says that her visit to Kenya, and the questions that have resulted from that trip, piqued her interest in exploring some of the problems facing the developing world. She signed up this semester for the course "Politics of Development Assistance."
"In Kenya, I thought a lot about why so many of the charitable institutions in the country are so corrupt. I'm hoping this class can answer that question," Trigger says.
Towne, likewise, says that he was attracted to WWL because it is one of the few effective charitable organizations in Kenya run by Kenyans.
"There are a lot of American non-governmental organizations and charities that are efficient and ambitious, but it seems that many of them lack the cultural perception necessary to really bring about change," Towne says. "Because there are so many corrupt charitable organizations in Kenya, it was good to find one [WWL] that I believed in."
One of Trigger's favorite moments during her trip to Africa came on Christmas Eve, when she and her fellow mountain climbers were sitting in a tiny bar in a small town in the Serengeti region. There, she had an experience that showed her how cultural differences can also lead to meaningful connections.
"These Maasai warriors came into the bar," says Trigger. "We were listening to reggae music. Eventually, I taught them some swing moves, and they taught me some Maasai dance moves. Our cultures are vastly different, but despite this, I felt like I was dancing with guys from Yale: they were funny, flirty and overconfident. It was a nice cultural exchange, and for me, one of the most remarkable moments."
Towne hopes that the "Climb for a Cause" can become an annual YHHAP event, much like the yearly Habitat for Humanity Bike Tour across America, which raises money to build homes for low-income Americans. Towne has already received some logistical advice from individuals affiliated with that fundraiser.
"My dream would be to have a group return year after year," says Towne. "I think it is a real life-changing experience for everyone who participates, and certainly a great cause."
-- By Susan Gonzalez
T H I S
Climbers reach new heights of
understanding about poverty
of WWL.
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