‘Whatever I ask, she’s always right’

Jenny Wilson, 30, secondary school teacher, and Samuel Cole, 29, primary school teacher, will marry today Every Saturday, Jenny and Sam volunteer to work with street kids in Nairobi slums. Sam plays games with them and Jenny teaches to read and write.

They have lived together since January when Jenny arrived in Kenya. In October she gave up her job at a London primary school. She and Sam had dated since the previous May. “It has been a whirlwind romance,” Jenny says.

It began with a six-hour phone call. Jenny and Sam met through the Landmark Forum, a three-day course with follow-up sessions that encourages participants to take life-changing decisions.

“It makes you see that you always have a choice,” says Jenny. “Landmark education actively encourages you to take chances on people and to go with your gut feeling,” explains Sam.

“Jenny’s very intelligent. I was looking for someone who was able to listen to my ideas. She lets me be who I am. I tried really hard to meet somebody, through dating websites but I couldn’t find anyone interested in development work or in going overseas.” Jenny, he adds, is “always right. Whatever I ask her she always know the answers.”

Within two hours of Jenny’s arrival in Nairobi Sam had driven her to a rubbish dump. “It really was like a warzone. There was smoke coming off the rubbish and we saw children eating food off the dump,” says Jenny.

The next day, Sam proposed. They went to the top of the Kenyatta conference tower and then to a restaurant where the staff brought out a pink cake, with ice swirls that spelt in Swahili the words “I love you very much.”

They marry at All Saints’ Dogsmerfield, Hampshire, with the reception in Casa dei Cesari, an Italian restaurant whose owner lived in Nairobi.

In the interview, Tahir relates that he was inspired to start planting trees when he returned to Ethiopia after a long time away and discovered that the dense forests near his home town had been almost completely destroyed, along with the wildlife that lived there. He also witnessed many young people on the streets without jobs or hope.

Tahir wanted to both begin a reforestation project and help the youth of his area at the same time. In addition to its environmental benefits, the organization has provided jobs for almost 500 people, training unskilled workers, and brought Christians and Muslims together.

He relates that the hardest challenge involved in reforestation was getting permission to plant on the land from the community and local government. By starting with a couple of acres and producing results, he gained trust and approval to plant on more land.

Tahir sees the work of the Greenland Development Foundation spreading throughout Africa, through cooperation with governments and the emergence of new leaders to take it to new places (which the GDF is training).

See stories on Landmark Education News for more details about Gahir and the work of the GDF.

Haining and the organization are partnering with another non-profit, Two Kings Foundation, to which the government of Ghana, Africa, has given land for cultivation. Both groups need machinery such as tractors to get started working on the land, which is located in the Volta region of Ghana. Those who would like to assist in this endeavor should contact Tribute to African Children through this link.

According to their website, The Pelican Post was the brainchild of Nick Johnson, who was initially inspired to do something to help literacy in Africa following his personal experiences of working in a school in Uganda with Raleigh International.  Several years later Nick subsequently put his idea into action whilst undertaking a self expression and leadership course run by Landmark Education in London.

The project has begun its pilot phase, which aims at supporting 12 schools in five African countries.

The three-month pilot phase runs from July 9 to October 9, 2009. The goal  is to send 20 copies of several specially selected early learning books and children’s novels to 12 different schools across the five countries chosen for the pilot. After the pilot phase is complete, Pelican Post will expand the number of schools, books and countries covered.

The initial goal is to have enough contributions to send a minimum of 3000 books to Africa by October, impacting thousands of children.

To get involved or find out more, visit the Pelican Post website (http://pelican-post.org).