Jeremiah Kuria // Executive Director, Ubuntu Life Foundation
Hello Ubuntu Family,
In the midst of all the COVID-19 turmoil, we are thankful. Thankful for the gift of life, friends, and family. In such times, we can pause and really appreciate the immense value of those close to us. What a joy to call our Tribe members and partners our friends who have continued to stand with us even in these uncertain times. We really appreciate you.
Through our partners, friends, and Tribe members, we embarked on a very noble project last year, the Ubuntu Life Foundation Children Wellness Center, to take care of the marginalized children in Kenya with special needs and neurological issues. This is a long-time dream come true for the Ubuntu family. The building progress has been amazing, and we are very thankful. The goal was to finish the building by the end of the year and start using it in early 2021.
Our building contractor and his amazing team have been working tirelessly to ensure we get the best building on our land yet. The team has been ahead of schedule thus far, with almost a month left to share. This means we could have seen the completion of the CWC by the end of October and moved our school and medical teams in by the end of this year.
Unfortunately, due to the current global crisis, we are putting the project on pause. For our workers' safety, our children, and our community, the construction crew put down their tools last Friday.
The good news is that we could begin purchasing some materials for future construction before prices are gauged locally. Prices have already started spiking (5-10%) as local suppliers report a shortage of supplies from China. We hope that this will prevent the cost of finishing this critical infrastructure for our community from increasing further in the future.
I would love to sincerely thank the Seton Healthcare family (and our HEAL team members who seeded the support) for their support to get this project started. We have a beautiful vision for this building, which we crafted with the Radian Inc team in Denver and our healthcare team on the ground in Kenya - it will have an unimaginable impact for generations to come.
We’re also sending out big love and appreciation to Huston Street and the Street 16 Foundation for their love and generosity towards the CWC. And similarly to the Martell Family who has been with us from the beginning of this project - we say asante sana - thank you so much. Your generosity and commitment to see the completion of this project is highly appreciated.
I will continue to keep everyone updated on the progress as we continue to watch what is happening here in Kenya.
Blessings, and thank you very much,
Jeremiah
