U.S. Bank’s Women Leaders In Action (WLA) Making Life Better for African Children

When you think about your typical day, you think about decisions like should I stop for gas now or later? What should I pack the kids for lunch? Do I stop and pick up dinner or make something out of the fridge? Paper or plastic? Get coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? That is, until you take a trip to Africa.
Last June, I was standing with six co-workers in the bowels of the Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kenya, surrounded by filth below my feet and around me as far as I could see. The smell of poverty you could never forget. It’s another world, another planet. How did I get here?!

How I got there was from an idea that started with Pam Joseph, vice chair of payments for U.S. Bank, and a handful of women in Atlanta less than two years ago. That idea is now called Women Leaders in Action (WLA). WLA was launched in 2011 as a women’s resource group to unite senior members of U.S. Bank’s Payment Services division. WLA’s mission is to connect high-performing women to professional networking, leadership development and to provide support to causes under the banner of WLA Kids. With a global, hands-on approach, WLA Kids has raised over $500,000 in the past 18 months for projects that fund children’s education in a place foreign to all of its members – Africa.

Oldonyonyokie Kids: WLA Kids is paying for girls to go to school (primary and secondary), in addition to furnishing their dorm. The school is three hours outside Nairobi.

For those of you who have not been to a Third World country, once you’ve been, you immediately appreciate those daily decisions we all make and realize how lucky and truly “rich” we are...especially when you see those with nothing.

“Nothing” in Africa means children who sleep on boxes or women infected with HIV raising 5 kids in an 8-by-10 self-constructed mud hut, often alone or on their death bed, doing whatever it takes to “not to be so desperate,” as a woman we met in Nairobi puts it. There are children raising themselves with a mother in jail for stealing food. One child barely ate from a free meal so that he could take the rest home for his family. We met another child with a mischievous smile named Felix, who lived in an orphanage for children with HIV (he passed away shortly after we met). Seeing all of this firsthand jolts you into a reality you never knew existed – not in my world. My world is rich in resources, abundant and full of opportunities.

But a trip to Africa to see those suffering yet surviving, living with no worldly goods is an awakening of sorts. You return home with your eyes wide open with the memories of the kids you see needing and wanting a better future, the spirit in the women you meet, the stories you hear firsthand. It doesn’t leave you, long after you are back in the comfort of your home. Africa pulls you in to help make a difference because once you’ve seen that kind of suffering, you HAVE to do something. And no matter how small you think your efforts are, you soon realize giving someone hope can be immeasurable.

Mathare Kids: Valley View students in Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya

Women in Africa do it all. They are the backbone of the family unit. They cook, haul water, clean, build their homes, raise their children (and many times other orphans), often without the support of anyone. Yet, they are often discriminated against and live under a constant threat of sexual violence. The statistics are staggering.

In Swaziland, 56 percent of women 25-29 are infected with HIV, and the life expectancy dropped from 61 to 32 in just 9 years (2000-2009).

HIV prevalence in Kenya is nearly two times higher among adult women compared to men.

Schools can lift children out of poverty and decrease their risk of infection. Education is not free in Africa – support is essential to ensure orphans attend school, which can provide them with some kind of hopeful future – something WLA Kids hopes to help address.

WLA Kids now has three active projects, all with a focus on education. Mathare Kids supports urban education in the Mathare Slums in Nairobi, Kenya. Oldonyonyokie Kids focuses on rural education for girls three hours outside of Nairobi in the Rift Valley. WLA Kids's newest project is Canaan Kids in Swaziland.

Cathi Stanton, a senior vice president with U.S. Bank and author of this article, on her trip to Africa

Eleven WLA members are getting ready for their next journey to Swaziland in May to visit Janine Maxwell. Speaking of a woman who does everything, Janine is the founder of Heart for Africa and Project Canaan. Last year, she and her husband Ian left Atlanta and moved to Swaziland to run their organization with a focus on hunger, orphans, poverty and education (HOPE). The launch of Project Canaan included building an orphanage , which now holds 24 (and counting) babies, who will soon become toddlers.

WLA Kids is helping to fund the building of a preschool for 40 future preschoolers. WLA members will be traveling to the preschool in May to unload a container being shipped next month full of educational tools, tables, carpets, chairs, desks, toys and outdoor play equipment. The preschool will be called Sisekelo, which means foundation. How fortunate these babies are to have been connected with Janine and to now have a chance at life with a foundation for education and a future that holds much promise?

On a personal note, I never thought my future included visiting some of the poorest places in Africa. It seems ironic that in these places of poverty you will meet some of the happiest people you will ever come across, simply grateful for the little things. I find myself thinking of them often, even when I’m packing lunches, getting gas, deciding on dinner, or getting coffee.