RUBY - OUR PRECIOUS GEM

RUBY
Our Precious Gem

Most often when we hear RUBY we think of a precious gem. Today is no different. The precious gem we bring to you is a 13 year old girl.



Ruby heard of Matanya’s Hope last year after she heard a piece about it on the radio. She was looking for a public service project to do and as she says “fell in love”. Ruby told us “I love school very much. If I could not go to school, I would be miserable. I wanted to help children who wouldn’t have the opportunity to go to school.”

Ruby pledged to raise money to help Matanya’s Hope and after much deliberation, she focused her fundraising efforts on the brightest and best performing female student in Matanya’s Hope – Meru district, Fridah Kendi. Close to her own age, Fridah would be forced to end her schooling at the age of 15 without Ruby’s help. She would be destined to a lifetime of poverty – working in the fields picking tea leaves – cooking and cleaning and caring for children from sunup until midnight everyday. Her earnings would be less than a dollar a day – less than the cost of living in Meru, the small mountain town that she is from. Fridah would have no choice but to watch others go to school while her own dreams vanished, leaving her top academic scores to be buried forever in the soils she’d have to till.

Equal to the economic hardship that Fridah faces, she would also have to leave her dream of becoming a doctor. Fridah’s family can not support sending her to school, not even to high school. They live in a small wood framed home with a dirt floor. Items such as milk, soap and flour remain luxuries and are not readily available in the house where Fridah lives. Often Fridah must go to sleep without dinner and start the next day without breakfast. I think that here, in the USA, we have to re-read that…and probably still can not imagine the kind of hunger that Fridah and children just like her face every day in Kenya. This year, 30,000 children will die of hunger in sub-Saharan Africa; that means 2.9 million children a year.

Through the sponsorship of Fridah Kendi, Ruby – our 13 year old gem, has proven that she understands the value of life. It doesn’t sit on a clothing rack on the shelves of a jewelry store…but life’s most important gift rests between brother and sister – human being to human being. We don’t have to know each other to reach out and care…we just have to, as Nike states, “JUST DO IT.” Ruby’s unselfish gift granted peace and hope to a young girl half way around the world in a small mountain town of Kenya, East Africa. As we pray for continued help, we know that Fridah will be in school another year ~ and with God’s blessings will be able to continue her education. The only hope out of this bitter cycle of poverty is the academic achievements through education that can lead to employment.

We thank you Ruby and all of your generous donors who heard your plea. This world is a better place because of you…because of all of you. You are not only a gem, but you are an angel here on earth, Ruby. Just ask Fridah Kendi.