A Great Meeting!

This morning, I had the pleasure of meeting with William Welch who works with The Volunteer Center, South Bay-Harbor-Long Beach.  He was amazingly informative, resourceful, supportive, and encouraging about Lotus Pre-School!  

While the benefits of our short time together are too numerous to count, one of the aspects that I valued was learning about some of the specific organizations and resources that are available.  I have a lot to learn!

My decision to become involved in starting a school in Deep Sea was very serendipitous and organic.  William provided a larger context from which to view this project, sharing his experiences with starting programs in other developing countries.  He provided examples as to why starting a program in Kenya will likely meet with great success, and has the potential to more easily have a significant positive impact on the community in a short time period. 

I was aware that many volunteer programs have been designed specifically for women and children.  It had been my assumption that the reasoning behind this related to the different status that males and females hold in many cultures.  William shared the notion that many of the issues developing countries face can be addressed through population control.  From this perspective, it is the women who need to be empowered and educated. 

I left our visit feeling very inspired, with a very expanded view of this project and the impact it can have, and grateful for meeting such a fantastic fellow human!