By: Laurie Lamp Kallinen

Standing in the streets of Kibera Slum in Nairobi, Kenya, you sense a very different world. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa and the third largest in the world, with about 500,000 people living within roughly two square miles. It boggles the mind. It is nothing like our beautiful rural community in Finland, MN, where we have all the space and clean water we could want. After visiting Kibera in March, I felt a strong pull to support one organization in particular: Whispers Champions Youth Initiative. They do much to help Kibera’s young people, including youth activities, an urban garden, reforestation, and more, but they had very limited access to water. There is a saying in Kibera: “Water is Life.” It was a life-changing experience.

When I returned to my work with the Finland Food Chain, I could not stop talking about what I had seen: wonderfully warm people who smiled despite the deep poverty they lived in; people whose entire “home” would fit inside just one of my three bathrooms. They had nowhere to cook, no running water, and no toilets. It was deeply humbling. After I shared the experience with Executive Director Arlene Conzelman, she could not get it out of her mind.

Arlene asked whether we could connect with the organization and suggested that the Youth Night kids in Finland interact with the children of Whispers Champions. We brought the idea to the kids and decided to create a banner saying “hello from Finland, MN” which I would deliver during my return visit to Kenya in July. Working with GodTown, a global mission based in St. Paul with local ties—one of its organizers is from Silver Bay—I brought the banner and greetings to Kibera. There, we helped connect the community with drinking water, showers, laundry, and toilets that will serve hundreds of people. They were delighted to receive both the help and the greetings. Just as important, the experience showed our youth here how blessed we are to live beside the largest freshwater lake in the world. The chance to interact with and make a difference for kids halfway around the world brings the globe home to little Finland, MN.