World Con­cern Pres­i­dent Dave Eller spends time read­ing to Maa­sai boys in Kenya. World Con­cern works with the Maa­sai to pro­vide many aspects of sus­tain­able human­i­tar­ian aid.

Here’s a handy tip for keep­ing ele­phants from eat­ing your gar­den: You should install sev­eral low-voltage elec­tric lines close together along your fence. If they are spaced wide, the ele­phant will rip one out, reach between, and eat your vegetables.

That gar­den­ing trip is from World Con­cern Pres­i­dent Dave Eller, who has returned to Kenya to get an update on our projects. Dave and his fam­ily lived in Kenya for sev­eral years, as Dave served as the coun­try direc­tor. It was refresh­ing for Dave to arrive and see many suc­cesses in a vari­ety of areas of Human­i­tar­ian Aid. As an exec­u­tive, he often deals with prob­lems and doesn’t get to rel­ish the victories.

Here is some of what he’s seen:

• Maa­sai herders are learn­ing how to farm.  This year they built a one acre farm behind a solar elec­tric fence and the first crop has been har­vested. With dwin­dling avail­abil­ity for open range­land, it is impor­tant for the Maa­sai to think beyond what they’ve done in the past (herd­ing) and look to new oppor­tu­ni­ties (agri­cul­ture, small busi­ness). It was at this pilot project farm that Dave saw the low-voltage elec­tric fence to keep out elephants.
• Stigma against AIDS orphans is way down. The chil­dren are being accepted by the com­mu­nity after World Concern’s edu­ca­tional and sup­port ser­vices began five years ago. World Con­cern has reached 5,000 chil­dren and is prepar­ing to turn over this par­tic­u­lar orphans project to churches to run indef­i­nitely on their own.  Many of the vol­un­teers pro­vid­ing the Human­i­tar­ian Aid are from Chris­t­ian churches, and the out­look from the orphans has grown much more hopeful.
• We now have seven Finan­cial Ser­vice Asso­ci­a­tions, also known as vil­lage banks. The first five are mak­ing a profit and adding ser­vices.  Three are doing phone money trans­fers, all are cash­ing third party checks and offer­ing over night safe stor­age. One of them is a post office and they are set­ting up direct deposit with gov­ern­ment agen­cies.  These are in addi­tion to the basic ser­vices of sav­ings and loans.
• World Con­cern Kenya’s newest Human­i­tar­ian Aid project focuses on water and san­i­ta­tion, includ­ing in a com­mu­nity called Lamu, which is on the Soma­lia bor­der. After water sur­veys, five hand-dug wells have begun. Three of them have struck water and are com­plete.  The other two should be done soon.  Water com­mit­tees are in train­ing and san­i­ta­tion train­ing has started.  This is a large scale project meant to pro­vide clean and con­sis­tent water to 98,000 peo­ple over the next three years.

Dave will soon be joined by Matt Case, a radio host on Spirit 105.3 in Seat­tle. We want peo­ple to know of this fan­tas­tic Human­i­tar­ian Aid, so we can grow our resources and help more peo­ple reach their full God-given potential.

A Maa­sai herds­man pro­vides water for his goats at a World Con­cern water pan, a pond dug to retain water even in the dry season.

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