Kyle donates small cars to preschool children in Kibera, Kenya

My son, Kyle (now 7 years old) and I have watched Oprah since he was born. I used a lot of her shows to teach my son empathy, gratitude and all sorts of positive emotions. The one episode that comes to mind with my son was an update show in 2006 "Rebuilding After the Tsunami". There was mention about people needing bicycles to get around the islands. This struck a cord for my young son. He could not believe people did not have bicycles. From that point forward his empathy grew...

When he lost his first tooth, at 4 years old in 2008, the tooth fairy brought him $2 and a race car. He told me he wanted to donate the money so that other kids could have bicycles. Moments later, he said he wanted to give his other cars to kids, also. He ended up piling up 150 of cars out of his 200 he had. We contacted his preschool mates and they donated over 50 cars and a large group of books. I took this as an opportunity to contact a friend of mine, Anand, in Kenya. Anand is involved with AVP International, a non profit org which teaches non-violence ways to life. He had a contact, Heidi, that taught in preschools doing the same training. I did some research and found shipping to Kenya with their taxes would not be a good option. So, I contacted Emily at Free The Children to find out the best way to get the cars overseas. She stated all stuff is transported in their luggage.

Well, it took about 6 months to find a person to transport it via luggage. This person was John, Anand's boss. So, in November 2008, these items were shipped to Boston and then boarded a plane in John's luggage and landed in Nairobi, Kenya. Once the packages were in Africa, they traveled to a school in Kibera. One car was given to each child at this preschool by Heidi. The books were shared at the school. This video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSTjojlb6s shows the children singing and even saying the alphabet in English. It is so wonderful to see them playing with the cars. Look at the smiles and concentration on their faces...it was worth all the extra efforts to make this happen....thank you Anand, Heidi and John...if it was not for you, this may not have ever been....

Category:

Education

Tags:

• kibera
• kenya
• donate
• preschool
• africa
• children
• Kyle
• cars