Portlander sparks hope in African village

By Stephen Frey
The Portland Upside
November 2009

Stephen Frey’s visit to a village in Kenya, Africa, helps residents discover their untapped potential.

Last year, 18-year-old Portland native Stephen Frey traveled around Africa doing community development work. He wound up living alone in a Masai village where he and a group of local teenagers started a community development organization from the ground up. Here, in his own words, is how it happened.

It was with utmost confusion that I traveled to Kenya in February 2009 for what seemed to be a misguided, spontaneous 10-week detour.

My exhilaration to be on the journey was overshadowed by an uneasy feeling in my gut: I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Sure, I wanted to do something useful to help. But what does that mean for an inexperienced 18-year-old kid?

Strangely enough, the feeling of uncertainty became my most powerful tool in connecting with the local people.

In the beginning I came to Africa to do a study/volunteer program in South Africa. It lasted five months, but I felt I was not meant to go home immediately afterward. For some unknown reason I felt I should go to Kenya instead.

One of the volunteer team members, Lantoo ‘Israel’ Sanchi from Kenya, invited me to live in his family’s Masai village for a while. Together we began tossing around ideas to help their community. Whether it came from intuition or plain insanity, the whole trip was a last-minute decision and we didn’t really know what would come out of it.

Once in Kenya, I immediately began questioning my reason to be there.

“What can I do to really help here?” I thought. “There are one billion people in Africa, 30 million in Kenya alone. What can one person do? I am an outsider. I don’t know the language, I don’t understand the culture… how do I even strike up a conversation?”

I felt powerless.

But coming from that outsider’s perspective helped me to see an untapped potential in the local people, a potential that is often overlooked.

While their fertile soil and immense quantities of land give them the opportunity to grow enough food to feed millions of people, the livelihood of many Kenyans has been squelched by continuous drought and economic decay.

Kenyans are smart. With enough economic training they could create business opportunities and lift their economy. Foreigners already come in to Kenya to harvest the natural resources. Why can’t the local people benefit from the land, too?

These thoughts sparked an idea. We needed something sustainable, which did not entail giving handouts as I had previously been trained to do. I realized I was not there to teach community members, but to create a platform for them to continue teaching themselves after I left.

So after arriving in the village, I befriended some of the other teenagers and began asking them zillions of questions. We brought the community together, looked at the available resources, and asked, “How can we make the most of what we have?” Through many discussions, they began to see their potential.

The final idea for the project came seemingly out of nowhere, about three weeks after my arrival in Kenya. The Masais crafted a vision for their community project and to express this vision, they called the group “Dupoto Naidimayu,” meaning “Prosperity Is Possible.”

And after many weeks of enthusiastic effort from the “Dupoto Naidimayu” team, the vision became a reality. We launched the Village Possibilities Centre to serve as a communal gathering point where people can find information they need to help themselves. Informational resources include home health care, sanitation and water purification, HIV/AIDS prevention, agriculture, irrigation, environmental preservation, economics, micro-enterprise, political awareness, modern technology, and college education options.

We found a way to get an Internet connection in the village and started collecting books for a library. We were also certified by the Kenyan government as a Community-Based Organization. The Centre now operates as a library, community forum, Internet café, computer school, and headquarters for the other community groups in the area. Soon they will start hosting workshops, classes and village gatherings on the topics above.

The project seemed to create a new posture and attitude in the community members. The whole atmosphere was pretty exciting. As people heard about our center, they said things like, “I’ve always wanted to do something like that,” and “this is what our community has been waiting for!”

We later found that large non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) were implementing the same model elsewhere in Kenya. That really blew us away because we were simply making things up as we went. Before our attempt, some community groups had started but faded out. Many of the local people already wanted to help their community but didn’t know where to start.

One of them, Nicholas Kisoso, expressed it well.

“Before this, we all used to sit around by ourselves, wanting to do something for our people, wondering if we were the only ones who wanted it.”

Nicholas now serves as the head of the local leadership team.

While the project snowballed and local involvement grew, I relocated back to the United States after only 10 weeks. Although I have handed over the reins to the local leadership team, I continue to stay involved long-distance. We plan for the project to continue growing for years to come.

As for my friend Israel Sanchi, his sights are set on becoming President of Kenya. He’s already started to run for election in 2012 as the local county commissioner, something never done by someone so young, in his culture.
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I remember looking out the window over the vast drought-stricken Kenyan landscape as the plane landed at Nairobi International Airport last February. I wondered then if I had a place there.
Looking back, I realize that my feeling of powerlessness helped me identify with the Masai tribe’s situation. As they learned to believe in their own ideas, they taught me to believe in mine. We unwittingly helped each other to go through the same process.

After all, the community project had been stirring in them for years. In my opinion, I didn’t do much. They were already capable. It just helped to have someone tell them they could do it.

The real project wasn’t books or computers. The Centre was only a manifestation of the real gift to the Masai: hope, a belief, a vision that seemed to have been lost in previous attempts at community improvement. The real work was accomplished in their minds. The building could burn down tomorrow and I wouldn’t be too upset. They’d rebuild, because the vision is in them now.

The Masai now possess the idea that they have power, they can do it, that they aren’t crazy to dream of a better life for themselves. Prosperity is possible­—even in Africa—when one makes the most of what one has.

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Learn more about the Kenya project at www.RiseUpVillage.org

Stephen Frey is now back with his family in Clackamas, Oregon. He is searching for like-minded people, ideas and opportunities. Please connect at stephenfrey5@gmail.com or FlashesOfTinfoil.com

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Mentorship program gives migrant students brighter future

By Meryl Lipman
The Portland Upside
July 2009

Director Teresa Alonso (left) explains new Nike mentorship opportunities with two students in the CAMP program at Portland Community College. (Photo by James Hill)

Teresa Alonso, director of the College Assistance for Migrants Program (CAMP) at Portland Community College, believes anything is possible.

She also believes in hard work and follow-through.

So when she met Cynthia Escamilla, chair of Nike’s Latino and Friends Network (LAFN) at El Poder de la Mujer (The Power of the Woman) conference in February 2008, Teresa wasted no time following up.

That spring, Teresa and her students, all from migrant worker backgrounds, took a tour of the Nike campus, courtesy of Nike recruiter and LAFN member Jenny Salgado. At the end of their meeting Teresa pitched the idea of a mentorship program. Jenny asked her to submit a formal proposal and again, Teresa followed up. She later received a call from Alma Garza in the company’s retail marketing department. Alma liked the idea of the mentoring program and she sat down with Teresa and Jenny to develop a pilot project for the summer of 2009.

Teresa, no stranger to recognizing opportunity, began her life on an earthen floor in a house with no plumbing. She spent her first four years in San Jeronimo, a tiny Michoacán village in Mexico, before moving with her family to the U.S. In Oregon she and her parents shared a mobile home with another family and worked in the berry fields. By the age of 10, Teresa was juggling school, sports, field work, and the care of her younger siblings. As her parents’ financial situation remained dependent on the capricious conditions of agriculture, Teresa says she “saw education as the antidote to poverty.”

“Mentorship was key for me,” says Teresa, who was offered a mentor through a program at Oregon State University. Indeed, her mentor helped her mother understand the benefit of Teresa finishing high school.

“My mother was always very supportive,” she says, but she admits that her father was somewhat bewildered by his daughter’s ambitions. After completing the University of Oregon’s High School Equivalency Program (HEP), “I basically told them I was going to college,” Teresa chuckles. She transferred to Lane Community College and then Western Oregon University.

Teresa began working for PCC in January 2007 and in the space of two years she and her team created one of the most innovative and successful of the 35 CAMP programs in the nation. CAMP—a federal grant program located at the Rock Creek Campus in West Portland—sets up mentorship, academic support and community for the children of migrant workers during their first year in college. The program has enjoyed full attendance and Teresa beams when she mentions that most of her original group is still in college. They are beginning to transfer to four year universities, mentor new participants and nurture increased parental involvement.

“Many of our students are the first in their families to finish high school, let alone go to college” Teresa explains. “Parent say is so strong in the Latin community. If we can get parents on board with regard to education and help them understand the [long term] economic investment, it will be so much easier for young people,” she says.

Seven students were chosen to be mentored in the Nike summer program—Roy Gomez (Hermiston), Isidro Interian (Aloha), Sandra Soto (Cornelius), Maria Araceli Rebolledo Salgado (Cornelius), Jose Lopez (Forest Grove), Juan Ramirez Alonso (Hillsboro), and Izequiel Lopez Jr. (Cornelius).

Alma and Teresa paired them with Nike mentors based on their goals, and their mentors’ professional backgrounds, which included finance, retail, marketing and childcare.
CAMP student Isidro Interian comes from Yucatan, Mexico and arrived in Oregon at age four. His parents were originally agricultural workers, though his mother now works in production and his father works as a janitor. Isidro made both Dean’s List and Honor Roll. He wants to major in education and teach kindergarten someday.

“I’m interested in physical activity as part of education, particularly for young children,” he says. “And Nike’s creativity can help me later on in working with kids.”

As a next step, he would like to volunteer for Nike’s soccer camp. “This is networking for the future,” he says. Through the Nike program, Isidro hopes to learn time management, communication and leadership skills.

The mentors met their students at a kick-off ceremony on June 18 at the Nike campus in Beaverton. The pairs will attend monthly group meetings all summer to complete three professional development projects. The program finale will be a Latino Heritage Celebration with LAFN in September.

Teresa, recently selected as one of Portland Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 business leaders, is thrilled that the relationship between CAMP and Nike has come to fruition.

“I am beside myself with gratitude,” she says.

Teresa hopes the program will expand next year and eventually involve student internships at Nike. Networking with companies like Nike plays a critical role in her investment strategy for her students and proves that with a little hard work and some mentoring, indeed, anything is possible for migrant students in Oregon.

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Meryl Lipman has a masters in writing from PSU and has worked for Portland Community College since 2003. In her spare time she loves to travel and jump out of airplanes.

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Food, learning and cultural exchange bind families

Helping immigrant family learn English leads to lasting friendship

By Nicole Morales
The Portland Upside
May 2009

Left to Right: Phallon Oun, Rob Bednark, Sara Bednark, Thyda Oun, Seiha Oun, and Bophar Sie reminisce in the Oun family’s Cornelius home. (Photo by Nicole Morales)

Chicken feet!” Sara Bednark laughs as she recalls sharing a meal with the Oun family at a restaurant in Chinatown, Portland. “Of course I tried them, we hadn’t known each other very long and I didn’t want to be rude.”

Bophar Sie gestures with a down-faced palm scurrying through the air. Sara winces. We all laugh sitting around a small coffee table in the Oun’s living room. It’s been two years since the Ouns and Bednarks last saw each other, though their smiles make it feel like it was just yesterday.

I met with the Oun and Bednark families on a drippy Sunday afternoon in Cornelius to talk about how they met 12 years ago. At that time Rob and Sara Bednark, founders of The Portland Upside, were looking for a way to get involved in their new local community after moving from Minnesota to Portland. Nearby, Phallon Oun was in search of an English conversation partner. He and his wife, Bophar Sie, had just emigrated from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with their two children, Thyda, 9, and Seiha, 7.

“Everything was new,” Phallon says. Although he was financially able to support his family in Cambodia’s capital, the civil unrest and societal instability were too much to bear—it was safer in the United States. Phallon left behind a reputable job, a familiar lifestyle, loved ones, and a language when he and his wife made the decision to immigrate to the United States.

“I spoke no English,” recalls Phallon. That was up until he met Rob through the Oregon Literacy Council, a program that then matched up volunteer native English speakers with individuals in need of English as a Second Language (ESL) services. Phallon wanted ESL lessons for himself and his family.

“He asked me right away if I could help his family, too,” Rob says. “That’s when I asked Sara to help.” What was supposed to be a once a week volunteer opportunity for Rob quickly evolved into a full-fledged family affair.

Soon enough Rob and Sara offered to pick up Phallon, Bophar, Thyda, and Seiha for the ESL sessions. When the lessons were finished, Rob and Sara would take the Ouns back home. “We didn’t have a car,” Phallon says.

Yet it wasn’t all work and no play. Thyda chimes in, “We went to the zoo! And the Rose Parade.”
Sara adds, “We also took a day trip to Vancouver, B.C.”

Bophar gives a thankful smile when Sara talks about the time they all went to a supermarket to learn the English names of different foods.

The Ouns relied on Rob and Sara a lot. In addition to ESL sessions and day trips, Rob and Sara were also available when one of the Ouns had an English question or needed help to fill out school, health, or employer related forms.

It wasn’t all one-sided. “They fed us,” Sara says, emphasizing, “All the time.”

Rob and Sara had full stomachs and, undoubtedly, a complete sense of awe toward the Ouns. The odds were against this family of four from the very beginning. And yet, Phallon, Bophar, Thyda, and Seiha slowly began to thrive in their community.

“It’s amazing,” Sara says. “All they’ve done and accomplished. I could never have done what they did.”

Seiha, now 19, is a first year architectural student at Portland State University (PSU). He wants to design green commercial buildings. Thyda, 21, is on the dental hygiene program track at Portland Community College (PCC). She also works two part-time jobs. Bophar recently completed a pharmacy technician program.

Yet, she proudly notes that her children and their education are her number one priority, “I take Seiha to PSU everyday so he can get to his classes on time.”

As for Phallon Oun, the past 12 years have been a rewarding challenge. From his initial encounter with Rob and the family’s language sessions to his subsequent start as a machine operator during the day and a PCC student at night, Phallon persisted.

“I didn’t see my father much,” Seiha recalls. “He’d already be gone when I got up for school and come home after I’d gone to bed.”

Despite the time away from home, Phallon continued to work and study. From 1998 to 1999 he managed to contribute 500 labor hours to Habitat for Humanity to help purchase his family’s first Oregon home in 2000. Four years later, he earned a degree from PCC’s machine manufacturing program.

Today Phallon is a machinist who assists in the design and manufacture of orthopedic implants at Acumed. It was a struggle to balance family, work, and classes, but Bophar says she never doubted her husband’s devotion to their family.

I asked Thyda if she remembers what it was like adjusting to life in the United States during those first few years. “I know it was a struggle for my parents,” she says teary-eyed, “My parents have done so much for us.”

In fact, all of them have done so much to contribute to their family’s well being. This inspires people such as the Bednarks, who are pursuing their dream to bring uplifting stories to our community in hopes of inspiring others to appreciate the good in life.

I asked the Ouns to think of a few positive words that define their relationship with Sara and Rob. “Family” was the word of choice for Phallon, Bophar, Thyda, and Seiha. The countless family portraits on their walls and framed pictures of caps and gowns sitting along the tops of shelves and on end tables show the significance of the word for the Ouns. “Family” is what carried the Ouns through the past 12 years.

Rob agrees and adds that their relationship with the Ouns is a gift. Having sat with the two families to talk about how they met 12 years ago, I certainly agree. It is a gift, with or without the chicken feet.

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Nicole Morales strives to connect people via multicultural education and writing. She teaches ESL at a private university outside of Portland and welcomes your inquiries at nmorales.writes@gmail.com

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