Mary Martin Niepold, a grandmother herself, started the Nyanya Project after visiting Africa as a volunteer in 2007. Niepold was compelled to do something –- anything -– to help the people she met, visited and worked with. Read more on ONE.org.

Mary Martin Niepold was recently featured on the Mom Bloggers for Social Good web site in Sitting Down With Mary Martin Niepold, the Founder of the Nyanya Project.

One of her key messages was a quote from Albert Einstein:
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a
miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle.

The grandmothers live high in the Jabana Hills about 10 miles from the
Rwandan capital of Kigali. With the goats, they will be able to have
milk for their families and breed goats for additional income.

Jennifer and The Nyanya Project Founder met last fall at a TNP fundraiser at Camino Bakery in downtown Winston-Salem. Jennifer had been to Kenya last summer, introduced herself and asked how she could
help. The rest is history. Jennifer is now a vital link for us on Facebook and other social media.

She is also a powerhouse connector with an enormous heart. As
founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good she works with national and international non-profits to connect them with hundreds of mom bloggers who work to spread the word about the work they do to help others through social media and blogging.

“NC Women Build Bridges with Comfort Dolls.” an article in the 2010 summer publication of the NC Diocesan ECW, was the inspiration for a project that has involved many women in Grace Church and the community. These women have knitted over 80 “duduza” dolls to be sent to the children of the Nyanya Project preschool in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Nyanya Project (TNP) is an organization that teaches skills to grandmothers raising their AIDS orphaned grandchildren in Africa. TNP opened a preschool for 40 children near the Kibera slum in the summer of 2009. There are now 80 children in the school where the grandmothers work as cooks and teachers’ aids. Grace Church’s Christian Social Concerns Commission has supported the school by providing money for swings for the playground and mattresses for rest period.

The duduza doll project originated in the Diocese of Vermont and was adopted by Juli Hauser of Burlington’s ECW; now, two years later, hundreds of the small, hand-knit dolls have been made by multiple parishes and sent to orphanages and children’s centers in Guatemala, Haiti, Sudan and Botswana. The dolls are about 6 or 7 inches high and made from scraps of leftover yarn. Although everyone follows a pattern, the finished products exhibit a variety of colors, styles and creativity. The vision is to have the dolls sent to the children in the preschool in Nairobi from the children in the preschool at Grace – a “child to child” personal contact.

Knitted Dolls for Africa

Thanks to the following women of our church and the community who have contributed to this ministry: Kathy Alexander, Bett Hargrave, Gay Hutchins, Kim Leonard, Kristie Miller, Marte Perrell, Mary Williams and Patty Younts.

The Nyanya Project is expanding its preschool model into Rwanda and if folks are interested we can continue to make the dolls. Also, we might investigate a local place that might need them. If any parishioners who knit would like to be involved, please let us know by calling the church office.

www.gracechurchlexington.org

Located in the heart of Nairobi, Kibera is where we trained our first grandmothers three years ago, and it is where those same grandmothers requested that we help them open a preschool – they said a preschool would help their own families as well as the families of many other grandmothers and mothers in Kibera.

“Other women here see how our lives are better,” the grandmothers told me. “They want what we have. All of us need a good place to put our little ones. We need them to be educated so they can have a different future. With a preschool, all of the grandmothers and mothers can work longer and make more money.”

We agreed, and in 2009 our first preschool opened in the Kibera slums. Our grandmothers earn extra income from TNP to work at the preschools one week per month. They assist the teachers and prepare hot porridge in the mornings and hot lunches mid-day.

And the interaction between the young students and the grandmothers is beyond anything we could have imagined two years ago.

During our visit to Kibera last summer, we saw what hope can do in the midst of struggle.

The Nyanya Project’s first preschool – the Nyanya Toto Preschool Center– now has close to 50 students, and over the last two years, all of its small graduates, approximately 30 students, have matriculated straight into public, primary schools.  Thanks to Teacher Elizabeth, these children speak almost fluent English, read and know arithmetic – and – they are teaching the grandmothers who work there how to read and speak English!

“Not only do they teach us how to speak English,” said Eunice Ombima, one of our grandmothers, “they correct us!  They come home at night and tell us ‘That is not how you say that word.’”

On most days, after the grandmothers finish cleaning the lunchtime dishes, you can see them seated in one of the small chairs in the center’s main classroom. Youngsters in their brown checked shirts and dresses gather around them to show the grandmothers what a certain word means.  They point out the simple words printed in English, and the grandmothers beam.

In countries where intense poverty rules decisions, girl children are the first to be pulled from school to help back at the home or on the farm.  This means that in Kenya today, two-thirds of the millions of illiterate Kenyans are women and girls. All but one of TNP grandmothers in Kenya is illiterate.

For these women, that reality is now changing.  Even at older ages, TNP grandmothers are reversing the trend and younger generations are seeing a future of possibilities unknown to the women who care for them.

Father Joseph, with grandmothers, students and TNP founder, blesses our preschool in Kibera.

After our meeting, Minister Nyikal arranged for two different departments of his Ministry to visit our preschool in Kibera.  They were impressed.

Delegates from Kenya’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development visit the Nyanya Toto Preschool Center and new Sewing Center.  Lissel Mogaka, left, is the Ministry’s Assitant Director of Gender and Social Development. With him, associates, Lucie Njoki and Doreen Nkirote.

The preschool was larger than they expected, and the fact that there are a playground, three toilets and one kitchen sets us apart:  Students have facilities that are very rare in the slum areas of Nairobi. Best of all: Our preschool students have grandmothers to help guide them.

“What you have here is unique,” said Naomi Oroko.  the Ministry’s Kibera representative.

“Your preschool takes us back to the very origins of African culture when grandmothers were the heart of their families and their communities.  They held the knowledge, did the hard work and provided the love and guidance.

“We have an ancient African saying, ‘Who doesn’t listen to the elderly breaks a leg.’

“So your preschool is taking us all the way back.  The tradition is that we listen to grandmothers to teach us. You are doing the same thing here.

“Bringing grandmothers and grandchildren together is like reigniting the light of the way it used to be.”

Thank you, Ms. Oroko. We hope to open more preschools where grandmothers help show the way.

He believes that entrepreneurs will change the future of African countries and that reconciliation can come through a shared vision of work – through businesses that encourage both Hutus and Tutsis to work side-by-side, share the profits, and give back to their communities.

In a meeting with Nygahene in Kigali last August, he said, “The best way is for Rwandans to forget about differences is to have one common goal.  What can we share?  With one common goal, there is nothing to lose.”

TNP grandmothers in the Jabana Hills outside of Rwanda

He also reflected on the importance of his own grandmother in his life and what a vital role grandmothers play – for their families, their communities and beyond.

“Grandmothers were the strong ones, tough.  They always showed us the way.  I remember my own grandmother this way. If grandmothers had been remembered, the genocide would not have happened.”

This piece was presented at the annual “Vagina Monologues” event at Wake Forest University, was performed by theatre major, Aleshia Price and filmed by the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Visit The Nyanya Project’s Facebook Page to view the video.

Opening credit:  Fish for Sex
Closing credit:
Actor:  Aleshia Price
Video:  Greg Hudgins and Bill McCord, UNCSA