By Mateen Khalid (BA/BEd ’11)

It was the mud that brought us back, really. In each of my two previous visits to Ngong, Kenya, I managed to have at least one shoe swallowed by the red, miry earth.

Known for the Ngong Hills, which provide a breathtaking view of the Great Rift Valley, Ngong is a bustling, industrious little town of just under 60,000 people about 45 minutes southwest of Nairobi. Matatus (14-seat private transport vehicles) zoom past horns-a-honkin’; Masaai men and women walk past with ears outstretched, draped in colourful clothing; shop owners wave offering the best deals on fruit, clothing, maize and sugarcane; and the smell of burning diesel constantly marinates the air: it can be an overwhelming experience.

My previous visits, organized through Global Youth Network, a Canadian NGO focused on social justice through education, left me dizzy and disoriented.

This time, though, my friends and I were on our own. Equipped with rain boots to battle the mud and a handful of donations from a variety of donors including the York Alumni Office, we had decided to come back with the goal of cementing the floor of a local daycare.

The Living Positive Daycare has been built bit-by-bit by volunteers from around the world to allow the mothers who live in the slums the chance to work and earn money for their families. However, it sits adjacent to a few latrines and garbage piles and in the rainy season, the contaminated water washes into the play area. And of course, it gets really muddy.

Thanks to a rough blueprint and an expense list offered to us by friends who had visited Ngong a couple of months beforehand, we hired a local handyman and—with some bartering and frustration—had the floor cemented in about a week.

Of course, we did not do this all on our own. We had some help from “Mum”. Mary Wanderi, or Mum as she is known, is the founder and director of Living Positive Kenya, a community-based organization that provides health care, education, rehabilitation and income-generating programs for people affected by HIV-AIDS. The Living Positive Daycare is one of many projects run by Living Positive Kenya.

Mum helped us with a whole lot of things. For starters she found us a place to stay, helped us navigate the marketplace, bartered for the cheapest supplies and ensured we weren’t being taken advantage of financially.

After completing the daycare floor, I spent the rest of my time in Ngong discussing ideas for future projects with Mum. My discussions with Mum that week, whether in the Living Positive office or at her home watching English-dubbed Spanish soap operas, led me to write a proposal for an ambitious yet attainable boarding school.

The need for a boarding school is simple: the slum is a very dangerous place for a child and the only way out for most of these children is through boarding school, which most of them cannot afford.

Since my last visit and through ongoing discussions with Mum, my friends and I are in the process of registering Living Positive Canada: a Canadian, fundraising sister branch of Living Positive Kenya. It’s an idea borne of mud, made possible by donors like the York Alumni Office.

The funding Mateen Khalid received from the York Alumni Office was made possible by the Alumni Perks program. Your Alumni Perks program gives you access to group discounts on entertainment, travel and insurance products and services, to name a few. When you choose to enjoy these deals a portion of the revenue generated supports York student programs. Find out more.

In your own words is an occasional column written by alumni with interesting stories to share. Do you have a tale to tell? Email alumni@yorku.ca with your idea for a column.