LEE -- In recent months, the latest Ebola virus outbreak has put an international lens on West Africa. But in East Africa, people are battling another public health pandemic -- HIV/AIDS.
Kenya has the fourth-largest HIV epidemic in the world. According to 2012 federal and U.N. reports, an estimated 1.6 million people were living with HIV. Roughly 57,000 people have died from AIDS-related illnesses, leaving an estimated 1.1 million orphans in wake of the epidemic.
Combined with a high rate of poverty, lack of sanitation and clean water, it amounts to a war that won’t be won easily or soon.
For the past decade, a family-driven missionary organization from the Berkshires has been doing its part to help ease the situation for Kenyan children and families.
Africa Connect was founded in 2004 by Bob and LuAnn Herring of Lee, who accompanied their then-17-year-old daughter, Jenelle, when she expressed an interest in traveling to Kenya. They were ushered there by Peter Siakama, a pastor who works with Gospel Light Ministries and Graceway Harvest Chapel in a slum known as Tuwani, near Kitale.
"We showed up there, where about 80,000 people live, and saw seemingly zillions of kids being shut out and suffering from the cycle of poverty," LuAnn Herring told The Eagle in a recent interview. "When we went home, we knew the kids had been put in our laps to take care of them."
So, the Herring family and their friends launched what Herring describes as a "very local, community and church-oriented effort to help.
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At 6 p.m. Friday, they’ll host "Raising Hope: A Dinner and Auction Benefit for Africa Connect" to help sustain and expand their outreach. This includes a new project to purchase bulk food and a food storage facility, which will feed into a Tuwani preschool known as the Neema Care Centre.
For the event, Chef Gerhard Schmid from The Haflinger Haus in Adams will prepare a Kenyan-style meal, while items like Boston Red Sox tickets, local gifts and gift certificates and a time share in Killington, Vt. will all be up for auction to support the cause.
Bretta McAlister, whose husband, Ian McAlister, is a South County native and friend of the Herrings, now helps Africa Connect with their bookkeeping and domestic outreach.
"People can come to the dinner and meet the people who are on the ground there," Bretta McAlister. "In the short time I’ve been working with them, I’ve learned there’s a team of people in Berkshire County who are changing lives over in Kenya."
Over the years, the Herrings have brought about 20 county residents, and several other friends and interested volunteers from the United States to Tuwani.
"We’ve reached a point to where we’re ready to try and take our outreach to the next level," Herring said.
The 90 children that attend Neema Care Centre each year receive a free education and services, including two daily meals, uniforms and shoes, medical care and health instruction, vitamins, and support from the teachers and volunteers who work there.
Africa Connect now requires parents -- many of them single mothers and women who have been subject to prostitution -- to enroll in an empowerment programs on subjects like parenting, literacy, ministry, agriculture, tailoring and business training.
Children who attend three years at Neema Care Centre become eligible to be sponsored to attend primary school, through the Ian Memorial Scholarship Fund, established in honor of a promising young student who died before he could make it there.
Over the years, Africa Connect has received significant support from students and staff at Lee Elementary School, and the Herring’s home church, Calvary Chapel of the Berkshires, in addition to other individuals.
Volunteer staff help in the United States and Kenya, including Berkshire resident Sue Choquette, who serves as the program’s director of health and medical initiatives.
In a May 2014 web post, Choquette wrote: "In the past 10 years, it is undeniable that it is God who is at work." She described how the program has grown from "a single- room mud hut schoolhouse and feeding peanut butter sandwiches to 60 children to an officially registered three-grade preschool with 90 children, 12 full time employees, a nutritious feeding program, medical care including HIV testing," and more.
The Herrings are in the process of changing Africa Connect’s status from a 501(a) to a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit, due to its increased work with other NGOs and Kenyan nationals. Bob and LuAnn will return to Tuwani in December and stay for about three months to work on the purchase and construction of a new concrete and steel food storage facility and to fill it with food; LuAnn said the building permits are already in place. In February, another short-term medical and outreach team with join them.
LuAnn said the couple and the volunteers pay their own way and that 92 percent of donations received goes directly to the Neema Care Centre and Africa Connect’s efforts in Tuwani. The rest covers administrative costs.
Their daughter, EvaJoy and her husband Caleb Senecal were married in Kenya and hope to move there with their children to help. Eventually the Herrings would like to transition from holding periodic medical clinics in the village to working with other agencies to establish a permanent health clinic there.
"It’s been a slow process, but we’re ready to grow," LuAnn said.
If you go ...
What: "Raising Hope: A Dinner and Auction Benefit for Africa Connect." Halflinger Haus Chef Gerhard Schmid will prepare a Kenyan-style meal. Live music will be performed by Jessica Roemischer. There will also be a silent auction with more than 50 items.
When: 6 p.m. Friday
Where: First Congregational Church of Lee.
Tickets: $20 in advance or $25 at the door.
Information: (413) 237-2748 or email bretta.africaconnect@gmail.com, or visit africaconnect.org for more information, to purchase event tickets or make a donation. Proceeds from the event will go toward the purchase of bulk food and secure storage for the Neema Care Centre preschool in Tuwani.