The generosity of a man in Kenya inspired a ripple of kindness that made its way across continents to Newmarket.
George Small was a successful businessman with a big heart who did a lot of charity work in Kenya, where he owned a ranch.
When he passed away in 2002, his cousin, Newmarket resident Rex Taylor, ensured his legacy lived on by establishing The Small Project, a charity that supports the health and education of the Kenyan people.
According to Taylor, Small was an unassuming guy who was very generous. When his older brother died, Small inherited his 50,000-acre Mpala Ranch. With this, Small made it his mission to help the people there in any way he could, including sending children to school and starting up mobile health clinics.
“He was just an incredible guy,” said Taylor. “He was loved over there.”
After Small died, Taylor and his wife, Mary-Ellen, made a trip to Kenya for the first time. They were inspired by Small’s contributions to the African community and decided they wanted to help, too. The Taylors began to make donations to the Kenyan community and put children through school, just as Small had.
Their generosity was contagious and soon family and friends wanted to get involved, too, so they decided to get charitable status for The Small Project in 2010.
“We were very small for the first few years, trying to find our way along,” said Taylor. “But now we’re getting there, we have some kids in university.”
“In terms of education, what we believe is that education is the sole way of breaking the cycle of poverty into which a lot of these kids in Kenya have been born,” explained Taylor.
“If you are born into a poor household, you don’t have good educational outcomes and are predestined to be poor,” he said.
By providing some children with an opportunity to learn, The Small Project gives them a chance at living a decent life. Most schools in Kenya are boarding schools, so there are living costs associated with attending, such as toilet paper and bedding, which most Kenyan families simply can’t afford.
While the government helps subsidize some of the costs of school, it is still $800 a year to put a child through school for one year. This includes tuition, uniform, living expenses and three meals a day.
“Generally speaking, the donors commit themselves to getting a child through primary school and secondary school, and then most of them are more than willing to continue that support while the child is in post-secondary, which is really where they break the cycle of poverty,” he said.
To qualify for sponsorship, the children must demonstrate academic ability, their parents must be committed to the schooling and the family must be poor enough that they are unable to provide the basic school fees for things such as textbooks and toiletries. The Small Project employs the help of a Kenyan assistant, Pauline, to help find qualified children to sponsor.
“She’s completely reliable and we give her a small honorarium per year,” said Taylor.
Taylor speaks about one standout student that The Small Project has been able to help. Catherine, a poor young girl with an alcoholic father had a slim chance of ever breaking the cycle of poverty. At home, she would be provided maybe one meal a day, if she was lucky.
Since receiving sponsorship in 2011, Catherine has thrived in the Kenyan school system, eating three meals a day, having access to health care and showers. She has been able to obtain an education and a chance of a good life.
In addition to the scholarship program, The Small Project also takes part in sponsoring mobile clinics where funds are provided to the Community Health Africa Trust (CHAT) program, which organizes a team of Kenyan health care practitioners to travel across the country and set up camps in rural areas where people can receive medical attention.
The clinics offer basic curative care for things such as wounds and burns. They will also treat diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. Testing for HIV and AIDS is provided, as well as immunization for infants. But the main focus of the clinics is to provide family planning and reproductive care.
“The big part is around family planning and reproductive health care, essentially it is trying to give the women in the community an opportunity to space out their babies, have fewer babies, to have them at an appropriate time,” said Taylor.
Condoms are given out in the thousands and women are supplied with contraceptive injections.
“The idea is to reduce the number of children to promote better maternal health, better outcomes for the family … fewer children and mouths to feed,” said Taylor.
Recently, The Small Project was able to participate in two specialized mobile clinics — camel clinics.
The idea of the camel clinic is to provide care to those living in remote areas that have impassable or non-existent roads. About 10 to 15 camels carry the staff and medical supplies from town to town. They travel for about a month and provide service to as many people as they can by using “mobilizers”, who are hired locals who help spread the word about the clinics in the community.
The cost of a camel clinic for one month is $11,000, which includes all the medical staff salaries, medicine, supplies and food for the camels.
Earlier this year, local store Vince’s Market donated $5,000 toward The Small Project’s camel clinic.
“That was a big deal and we’re very appreciative and I always shop there. I was thrilled by that,” said Taylor of the donation.
The Small Project believes you don’t have to be a large organization to make a big difference. Every little bit helps.
As its website states, “We believe it only takes one person to make a difference” and with that spirit, they have been able to help improve the health and welfare of the Kenyan people.
The Taylors are planning their next trip to Kenya at the end of June. He said they try to visit all the students two to three times a year to review their progress and check in.
“In general, our visits tend to help keep them (the students) well motivated. I use these visits to put together brief reports for the donors of each student so they have a sense of attachment,” he said.
As for the health care part of the charity, CHAT is currently trying to raise funds for its new “backpack strategy”, which is a plan to train and equip people who live in slum areas of Kenya to be health care workers.
“Because they are from the place, they are instantly accepted by the residents. They understand the residents’ needs and travel around their community largely on foot with a backpack of supplies dispensing health care and, of course, providing family planning and contraceptives and other reproductive health care,” he said.
The cost of training and service for a backpacker for one year is $10,000. The Taylors plan to help develop more of this initiative with CHAT in the summer and fall.
To learn more about The Small Project and how you can make a difference, visit the website or send an email to [email protected].