Evelyn, a Kenyan mother of six children, found herself in the middle of the post election violence early last year. Her home was targeted by rioters because she was from the “wrong” tribe in that community.

In the midst of the confusion as she fled with her children, she lost her husband.

She fled to Kitale, one of the few safe places during that time. Since January of 2008, she has franticly searched for her husband to no avail, leading her husband’s family and herself to believe that he was killed in the violence.

Besides being the single mother to six children, Evelyn faces another challenge; three of her

children are mentally challenged. In the Kenyan culture, people who are mentally/physically challenged are shunned from society; they are the outcast, considered a waist and in many areas, killed because they bring shame to the family.

Evelyn went against society and the ridicule or her family and friends and decided to love and accept her children, all of them.

Her first born child just got married and moved away from the family; the second child, Elisha is 19 and mentally challenged. The third born, Lydia, is 15 years old. She currently is in 9^th grade at a day school and got all As and Bs the last term. The 4^th child is Haman. He is 13 years old and in 7^th grade. The 5^th child is Bareet. She is 10 years old and since January of this year has been supported by ReAct to attend a school for mentally and physically challenged children in a town southwest of Kitale, called Webuye. The last child is 8 year old Derick, who is also supported by ReAct.

I was totally humbled as I walked into the family’s home, a 10 foot by 12 foot room made of mud. All five of the children and their mom sleep there at night. The mom and girls sleep in the one single bed while the boys sleep on sacks on the floor. When we arrived to visit the family, the children were sitting on the dirt floor eating some rice and beans. They where thrilled to have visitors in their home. Evelyn scrambled to the neighbors homes to borrow stools for us to sit on.

I asked Evelyn what her biggest challenge was. She told me in Swahili that she had a hard time finding a place to live because people don’t want her children around. She said once she moves

into a new place with them and the landlord sees the mentally challenged children, they give her a month to get out. In fact, she has been given two months notice to move out of her current home and has no idea where she will be going.

I asked her how she gets money to feed the family and she said that she normally weeds people’s gardens every day, making less than $1. From this, she is able to give her children something small to eat.

Although Evelyn’s case doesn’t fit under what TI normally does, we were really moved by her story. She said that if she was able to start selling clothes again, she would be able to care for her family.

In July, TI had a team form Canada who brought over 150 pairs of Crocs that were donated to them to bring to Kenya. Most of the shoes were adult sizes so we didn’t know what we were going to do with them. Then after visiting Evelyn, we decided that she would be the first Crocs dealer in Kitale.

She was overjoyed as we brought her 150 pairs of the shoes to start her business. From what

she makes from selling them, she is going to invest in clothes. She plans to set up on the sidewalk in Kitale town, selling the Crocs and clothes.

Another day, another life changed.

A special thanks to the ROCK youth team for bringing the bags of Crocs over and thank you to Crocs.

Transformed International will be hosting one Internship program in 2010 running from September 15^th to December 12^th. There are only 8 spots in the program. All applications are due by June 1, 2010. Go to the web page for more information.

The interns for the fall 2009 program arrive in 10 days. You can follow some of their adventures on their personal blog spots:

www.adventurewithyou.blogspot.com

www.stephaniereeves.blogspot.com