PETERS HOPE
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Mission Statement
MISSION To provide immediate and sustained funding to ensure that St. Peter’s Mountain Children’s Center and Bamburi Women’s Empowerment Center, a primary school and women’s learning center in Bamburi, Kenya, are able to meet their short-term and longer-term financial commitments and continue educating the children and women of their community.
About This Cause
Peter’s Hope had its beginnings in the fall of 2019 when a 72-year-old woman from St. Paul, MN, Carolyn Tonneson, spent a month volunteering in the impoverished community of Bamburi, Kenya. She worked in both the Bamburi Women’s Empowerment Center, and St. Peter’s Mountain Children’s Centre, a primary school. The founder and director of both programs is Peter Ochieng. She became very well acquainted with Peter—his beliefs, values, dreams, etc. and experienced him as a man of integrity, working/living in a community where everyone is poor, (including Peter and his family) and trying his best to educate children and women who have no other options for such an education. Peter's vision for his primary school is "To provide education to the vulnerable and orphan children in the community." He believes in serving "children from poor background who have no hope to access education." Such children "should be given opportunity to realize their talents." When Carolyn was volunteering in September, 2019, the dilapidated school building had been Peter's location for many years. It had no electricity or running water. The only light came from a few windows and a large opening in the hall ceiling. Peter fed all 90 children a noon meal of rice and beans, which was the only food many of the children had on any given day. There were cockroaches and rats in the building, which was 'lovingly' called "the rat hole". When Carolyn left, she told Peter that she would try to raise funds to get him into a better building. That happened in February, 2020. The Women's Empowerment Center opened in April of 2019 with a beauty school and a sewing school where women can learn marketable skills. Peter's vision/mission for the Women's Center is clear: To make women self reliable and independent. To equip women with knowledge and skills to be able to fight abject poverty. Carolyn brought value to the women by teaching such skills as self esteem, self affirmations, healthy relationships, parenting, nutrition. She also offered one-on-one counseling for the women. Peter's Hope is still very young, and most of the 1st year was spent with the pandemic limitations in place. Yet, people were generous, and we were able to send Peter a monthly contribution so he could continue to pay salaries at a reduced amount (teachers had no other means of income), and keep up with rent and utilities on both the school and women's center buildings. Peter, Carolyn and the board of Peter's Hope are all dedicated to sustaining the school and women's center for years to come. Education is the only way out of the intergenerational poverty that plagues this community. Our long range goal is to build an educational center where the programs for both the children and the women will be located along with a small farm to provide food for the programs and the community.