Charity builds bridges to health, education
Imagine your child is sick or needs to go to school and the only way to travel is by foot. Now, imagine the only path has a raging river blocking your way. This river also has some unseen threats, including crocodiles and hippos.
This is the reality many people live with every day in Africa.
A Niagara charity called Take It Global Initiative 360 has partnered with another charity, Bridging the Gap Africa, to provide communities with bridges in rural parts of Africa. The two charities’ most recent initiative is titled Be a Bridge: A Walking World Fundraiser aimed at raising enough money to rebuild a bridge in Kenya.
A need for the rebuild arose when a flood at the beginning of 2016 washed away the community’s bridge. This bridge played an integral part in the lives of girls living in the community. It provided access to the all-girls school Kakenya Centre for Excellence in Enoosaen, Kenya, about five hours west of Nairobi.
The school’s mission is to inspire and motivate young girls in order to break the cycle of forced child marriage and genital mutilation.
Tim Windsor, board trustee for Take It Global Initiative 360, said the school has played an important role because girls don’t normally have the opportunity to attend school in many parts of Africa. He said this is why having a fundraiser to rebuild the bridge is so important.
For Windsor it doesn’t matter if you’re a parent in Canada or Africa, parents want their children to be safe and taken care of. By providing these bridges the two charities are making sure parents have the option to take care of their children.
“When kids go to school in a couple weeks parents here (in Canada) aren’t going to have to wonder are my kids going to be ok getting to school? Are they going to be eaten by a hippo? These are not things we have to think about,” Windsor said.
Windsor said Matt Bowser, engineer with Bridging the Gap Africa, came up with the idea to recreate what it must be like for people who have to cross a river in Africa. Bowser wanted to share in the experience of what not having a bridge is like for these communities and share those experiences online.
The river crossings started taking place in Canada and Friday and will run until Oct 14. The Niagara crossing is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 16, but will depend on weather. Windsor said a river hasn’t been selected yet, but it will most likely take place in Niagara Falls.
The walk isn’t open to the public due to safety issues. Windsor said it would be difficult to keep track of dozens of people, so he is walking alone. Primary Care Niagara has partnered with Take It Global Initiative 360. Dr. Artaj Singh, owner of the clinic, is the president and chairman of Take It Global Initiative 360. Primary Care Niagara and the charity will match dollar for dollar up to $20,000 in donations.
Windsor said they hope to raise $40,000 since the bridge will cost about that much to build.
The goal is to begin the rebuild by the end of 2016.
Windsor said since visiting African countries, including Zimbabwe and Mozambique, to do charitable work he has been struck by what the locals have to go through every day.
“I have two children, I have a daughter who is 27 and I have a son who is 23. The weird thing in that is in Canada when I wanted to have two children, we had two children,” he said. “In Africa, if I wanted to have two adult children, I would probably have to have six children because four of them would die. These are things we never think about.”
For more information and to make a donation to the Walking World Fundraiser visit http://initiative360.org/our-causes/beabridge. The time and location for the Niagara walk will be posted on the website in coming weeks.