COME UNITY MISSION: We partner with developing societies by creating opportunities for self-sufficient life.

 

Vision Statement: COME UNITY will create a world where people are not causes and ‘aid’ is a history term. Every person will have clean water to drink, a respectable life and a way to make ends meet. Girls will have equal opportunity at being educated and women will be a valued part of their community. We will compel generation after generation to be knowledgeable, involved and give generously to those who are less fortunate. We will not be a forever solution to the communities we partner with. COME UNITY’s vision is to bring healing, wholeness, relationship and solution so our organization will not have a reason to exist.

 ..from COME UNITY's founder, Kristin Scott...

 It began in the spring of 2007.  I started dreaming about spending my summer break from dancing with American Repertory Ballet, with AIDS orphans in Kenya.  I approached my fellow dancers with an idea.  The cost of the volunteer program, the travel and my desire to bring extra funds to give to the people I met in Kenya exceeded my small dancer budget.  So, we started planning.  The other dancers were more than willing to help.   It went off as a company choreography project.   The dancers were excited to choreograph.  They also danced, baked cookies, hung lights, contacted the media, set up chairs and got everyone else around excited about what we were doing.  In the end we raised nearly $6,000.  The program cost nothing to produce so all the profit could go towards the cause.  COME UNITY was born.

I took the money with me to Kenya and found myself amid a culture so far from my own.  The needs are endless and everyday I heard heartbreaking stories of people who needed my help.  Soon I grew a strange mixture of numbness and overwhelming.  I wanted to help everyone I could, but where does one start?  I went to visit Brian Irungu's home.  Brian was our student  and one of the happiest boys I know.  He smiled constantly and was one of the few constantly dangling from my arms, desperate for love and attention.  His mother welcomed us inside their humble home proud to have some 'muzungus' (white people) come to visit.  Inside, there was nothing but a mound of laundry.  This is where we sleep, she spoke in Swahili and pointing to the mound of dirty clothes.

The money we raised from the first COME UNITY paid for mattresses for Brian Irungu's family.  We paid  teachers' salaries, bought firewood for cooking, purchased school supplies, paid medical bills and repaid debts.  Susan is employed at the HIV test clinic near the orphanage where I worked.  Upon paying her salary for a few months, she wrote me this:  
               

“The most important achievement in life is not the wealth or status we attain but the number of people whose lives we touch- whose self esteem we have enhanced.  THANK YOU for doing that to me.  God bless your friends and you mightily.”

  The COME UNITY dance event in 2008 raised even more funds than before.  Those contributions went towards a water well for the community of Ilbissil.  In the US, we are a people who can have almost naything we want.  We are a nation of great abundance and I relaly believe that what we were given was meant to be shared.  And what better way is there to help than through using the gifts and abilities we've been given?  My first visit to Kenya changed my life, and I gained an understanding about how hard nations of people have it there.  Poverty is a way of life.  AIDS is everywhere, corruption breaks down good on every level of life.  I feel like I left the kids behind in such dire situations, and I want to continue to do all I can do help them.  They aren’t just unknowns to feel sorry for anymore, they are friends and real children with names.  Mary Wangari, Brian Irungu, Christopher Mutua…   Things won’t begin to change in Africa until a great number of people get involved.
 

Here’s a few more facts about Africa:

       -         More than 300 million people in Africa (nearly half it’s population) live on less than $1 USD a day. 

-         6,300 people die everyday in Africa of AIDS and there are 12 million children who have lost a parent to AIDS.

-         Africa is home of 34 of the world’s 49 poorest countries.

-     For every 100 boys in primary school there are just 83 girls.

-     Dirty water kills more people each year than all forms of violence, including war.

 

Two Communities Changed

One thing I love about COME UNITY is that two communities are revolutionized.  Communities in Africa recieve basic stapples for survival, but communities in the US are changed as well.  As Westerners, we can easily become self-focused, driven and motivated people interestred in climbing the corporate ladder and building the white picket fence.  We often overlook the needs of those less fortunate...  and then we don't take action to doing something about it!  When I see COME UNITY lovers at our fundraisers doing what they can to help those in need, there is a spark in their eyes, a feel good feeling in their faces!  It's about giving a hand up, not a hand out.  We look forward to having you on our bandwagon.  Its a fun ride!

 


A quote from Jena Lee’s “Hope in the Darkness” says it all. 

“’We know that Americans pity Africans,’ he told me.  But sometimes I think Africas pity Americans.' "How so?" I asked him.‘Americans seem to expect that everything will be provided for them.  For us,’ he said, ‘this ear of corn is a gift from God.  This evening rain is a shower of mercy upon us.  This healthy breath is life giving.  And maybe tomorrow we will not have such things, but our hearts are so full from God’s provision.”

 
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