Local woman opens a window of aid to Africa

Published on 12/3/2006 in THE POST-STAR

What started as a Saratoga County couple's vacation splurge -- a bike race in South Africa, and a visit to Victoria Falls -- became a humanitarian surge that is powering the transformation of an entire African village.

World's Window, a new nonprofit organization based in Ballston Lake, is working to replace poverty with self-sustainability and empowerment, starting with the small, rural village of Chikandakubi in western Zimbabwe.

Seven professionals from the Capital District just returned from a three-week voluntary mission to Chikandakubi through World's Window. They brought 26 suitcases full of supplies, helped the villagers construct a workshop, and offered their expertise in the areas of medicine, animal breeding, engineering and education.

"We're a small number of people who feel strongly about making a difference. You have to leave your ego and agenda at the door, and say, 'What can I do to help?' " said Denise Stasik, a health care worker from Ballston Spa who worked in the medical clinic and women's empowerment projects.

When the group arrived, at least 50 women and children met them beside the road, extending their hands and chanting in welcome.

"It was the warmest, most emotional greeting I have ever had in my entire life," said Cindy Schmehl, the founder and president of World's Window. "They are so appreciative of the help we are trying to give them to help them earn a living for themselves."

Her husband, Tim, was among the volunteers. He used his skills as an engineer to install solar electricity panels and improve wells.

"It was really a lot of work, but the rewards were so much better than going and taking a cruise or something," he said. "It was very useful to a large number of people. It helped change their lives."

'I can't just leave them'

Cindy and Tim Schmehl didn't expect to change anyone's life when they first traveled to Africa together in 2003. Friends had invited Tim to join a bike race in South Africa, and Cindy was thrilled at the rare chance to travel internationally.

On a side trip to the neighboring country of Zimbabwe to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Victoria Falls, the couple started chatting with a local man after repeatedly running into him. His name was Godfrey Dube.

Cindy asked Dube if he knew how they could visit one of the surrounding villages. "He responded in the style we've heard a lot since then: 'Sure, that can be done,' " Tim remembered. After a bumpy ride in Dube's battered car, the Schmehls got their first glimpse of Chikandakubi, home to about 1,500 members of the minority Ndbelle tribe.

The Schmehls were struck by both the extreme poverty they saw, and the friendly openness of the villagers. "I realized how much I have as an American -- how lucky I am," Cindy said.

Donkey carts, or bare feet, were the only forms of transportation; malaria was rampant, and food was scarce. Gardens were often trampled by elephants. The village school had broken windows, no desks and a chalkboard too chipped to write on. Teachers and students sat together on a pockmarked cement floor, lacking simple tools like pencils, paper or books.

Cindy's eyes filled with tears as they got on the plane to go home. "She said, 'I can't just leave them,' " Tim remembered.

He had no idea how much she meant that.

She started out collecting pens and pencils to send to the school, but decided that wasn't enough. By 2004, she had returned to Chikandakubi, bringing supplies and volunteers from the Rotary Club. The need was much larger than one short-term project could meet, however.

Thinking big

In June 2005, Cindy registered World's Window Inc. as a nonprofit dedicated to "providing humanitarian aid in the form of education, services, supplies and materials to areas of the world in desperate need."

Dube, the man who introduced the Schmehls to Chikandakubi, is now the project manager for World's Window -- and the group has a lot of projects there. So far, World's Window has built a medical clinic, library, orphanage and men's woodworking shop in Chikandakubi. They have also launched an array of other projects that include planting drought-resistant trees with edible leaves; preventing and researching malaria; empowering women; training teachers; providing transportation; breeding farm animals; and distributing basic essentials like toiletries and clothing.

If that seems like a lot to juggle for a fledgling organization that's still based in the Schmehls' home, consider Cindy's background. She ran her own event-planning business for five years, and managed the Latham Circle Mall before that. She's always enjoyed taking on projects that would daunt other people, her husband said.

"She's always done things big," he said. "The holidays are always pretty big productions in our home."

True to form, Cindy brought her own version of a big holiday production to Chikandakubi on the November trip. She brought along costumes -- the village school headmaster dressed as Santa Claus while she played Mrs. Claus -- and hundreds of "goody bags" for the children, each one containing a toy and some basic necessities.

"We were prepared for 350 children, and when we arrived, there were 500, so we had to scramble to come up with extra bags, but we did it," Cindy said.

So much need

Cindy explained that the village population -- particularly in terms of school-age children -- is growing rapidly in recent months for a troubling reason. Unemployment is over 80 percent in Zimbabwe, and the few jobs that exist are mostly in cities, which is why several thousand families have moved away from Chikandakubi in the past decade or so.

But as in many African countries, the HIV infection rate is also extraordinarily high, affecting about 20 percent of Zimbabwe's population.

"Many of those people who left to seek employment elsewhere have now developed AIDS and are returning to their villages to find family. Our medical clinic is going to be hit hard," Cindy predicted. "The other thing is, many of them are bringing back children who will be left on their own. Right now, it's not unusual for a 9- or 10-year-old to be head of household."

Chikandakubi's small primary school already has 89 orphans, she said. Drought and political upheaval have crippled the country once known as "the breadbasket of Africa" so much that when World's Window volunteers interviewed 160 orphans from the Chikandakubi schools about what they needed to stay in school, most said, "Food."

After seeing such great need, going to an American grocery store is "an emotional experience," Cindy said.

Denise Stasik said she was especially struck by the response of one 16-year-old girl, whose diet consisted of one cup of porridge every other day.

"She said, 'I only need food. With food, I can think. And if I can think, I can do anything.' "

Working together

By speaking and showing pictures of Chikandakubi in churches, schools and civic groups whenever she can, Cindy has already attracted a broad base of support for World's Window. The eight-member board of directors includes professionals from the health care community, educators and business owners. Several school districts in the Capital District region have signed up to participate in a cross-cultural exchange with the Chikandakubi schools, and a program is in the works that could add Coxsackie Correctional Facility inmates to World's Window's base of volunteers. The New York State Department of Health, through the Wadsworth Center at SUNY Albany, is helping with the malaria research project.

"The projects just keep multiplying, because the need is so great," said Cindy.

World's Window will always be committed to Chikandakubi, she said, but eventually she hopes the organization will be large enough to make a difference in other communities throughout the world.

"Our vision is to make the entire village self-sustaining as a whole," she said. "And as we grow, I hope to reach out to other places. It could be in another African country, or it could even be in an impoverished part of the U.S."

Although her husband said he's "a little bit in awe of what she's been able to accomplish," Cindy shrugs off the praise. "I'm just an ordinary woman. I love children, and I love people," she said. "I'm not an expert in anything, but I work very, very hard and surround myself with people who do have the expertise to help all the projects along."

Besides, she said, none of this has happened by coincidence.

"I just believe that I'm being led down a certain path," she said. "And I don't think God would ever give me something I couldn't handle."

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WHAT YOU CAN DO Volunteers are invited to join a World's Window trip to Chikandakubi at their own cost. The next trip, scheduled for February 2007, is currently full, but space is available on the November 2007 trip. The organization also needs volunteers to help with general office tasks and grant applications, and is seeking members for a medical advisory committee, women's empowerment committee, and golf tournament committee. Donations of money and office supplies are also needed. To learn more, visit http://www.worlds-window.org/, e-mail cindy@worlds-window.org or call 877-0382.

Coming north, with help

Published in The Post-Star (B1)
9/17/06

When Kevin O’Brien of Lake Luzerne saw the folk group "Peter, Paul and Mary," on television in 1986, describing the devastating effects of civil war in Central America, he was moved — literally.

He was moved to such an extent that he and his wife, Diana, ended up a few years later on a plane to El Salvador, where they adopted an almost 4-year-old boy named Terrence Julio from an orphanage in the city of Zacatecoluca.

In the nearby capital city of San Ramon, Marta Cuellar and Maribel Torres — two girls about Terrence’s age — had loving families, but little else. The civil war had ended, but severe poverty and lack of infrastructure crippled the country. Access to good education was limited and expensive. The future didn’t seem to hold many options for kids like them.

"In El Salvador you have to pay for school, and it gets more expensive as you go up," explained Maribel, who has six siblings. "My sister helped me, and I got a scholarship from a local business for 10th and 11th grade. But some kids just don’t go."

The girls were about 10 years old when they met an American woman named Mary Beth Gallagher, a lay volunteer with the Maryknoll Catholic missionaries. She taught them soccer and English, encouraged them in school and told them they were full of potential.

"I think everything was started by her," Marta said recently, reflecting on how her life has changed in the past decade.

Marta and Maribel, along with Marta’s brother Samuel Reyes, are the first proteges of a new local charity, Nueva Esperanza del Norte, offering "new hope from the North" to Central American students.

Like many other young people in their region, they have long dreamed of studying in the United States, but thought it was out of reach.

Their journey began three years ago, when Mary Beth asked Maribel and Marta if they wanted to spend a year of high school in the United States through a program called Youth for Understanding. The girls said yes — but the program fees were beyond their means.

"Usually, only wealthy families can do something like that," Maribel said.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in upstate New York, Kevin had woken up one morning with an inexplicably strong thought running through his mind.

"It’s time for us to go back to El Salvador," he told his wife.

Later that day, he started chatting with a stranger at the grocery store — "a guy with a smile bigger than the front end of a Buick." The man’s smile broadened when Kevin mentioned his interest in El Salvador.

The man turned out to be John Gallagher, Mary Beth’s father.

"I truly believe that this was destined," Kevin said as he retold the story.

Kevin got in touch with Mary Beth, and the O’Briens visited her on their next trip to El Salvador. She told them about Marta and Maribel, and they offered to help.

It was an offer with no expiration date, apparently. The O’Briens hosted Marta for her junior year at Saratoga Springs High School, and helped find a host family for Maribel, who spent her senior year in Cambridge.

In 2005, Kevin returned to El Salvador to attend Marta’s graduation, and began to brainstorm about how the girls could come to the U.S. for college. The result, still in its fledgling stage, was Nueva Esperanza del Norte.

When Marta’s brother Samuel heard about the new program, he asked if it could help him, too. He had a day job at a thread factory, and attended night school for engineering, but felt he could get a much better education in America. Kevin agreed.

A year later, Marta is again living with the O’Briens, whose son Terrence is now a 19-year-old freshman at St. Lawrence University. Maribel and Samuel are staying with Tony and Peg Mangano in Saratoga Springs.

Tony and Kevin are longtime friends who both have a background in social services. Tony is the former assistant director of mental health for Saratoga County, and Kevin the former director of Catholic Charities for Warren/Washington County, now running a counseling practice in Warrensburg.

"We’ve always talked about working on some sort of project together, and when I came up with this idea, I just called him up and said, ‘Tony, this is it,’ " Kevin said.

Double H Hole in the Woods Ranch agreed to provide the students with summer jobs — Marta and Maribel worked in housekeeping, and Samuel was a kitchen assistant — so they could adjust to the culture and earn some spending money before school started this fall.

The girls are now settling into their first semester at Adirondack Community College, where they hope to do well enough to earn scholarships to four-year colleges. Marta wants to study social services and start a nonprofit organization in El Salvador; Maribel wants to study health and become a pediatrician. Samuel, currently completing an intensive language program at The English Connection in Saratoga Springs, will soon apply to engineering school. He plans to use his degree to work on improving El Salvador’s infrastructure.

They all agree that education is the key to escaping poverty, and it’s a key they hope to hand to many others.

"I want to be a social worker, helping kids in rural areas who can’t afford an education," Marta said. "Like what Marybeth did ... like what Kevin is doing for us right now."
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MORE INFO
Nueva Esperanza del Norte, which means "New Hope from the North," is a new nonprofit organization that seeks to equip young people from Central America with U.S. college educations so they can return home and join the fight against poverty in their countries.

The first participants recently arrived from El Salvador and started classes at Adirondack Community College.The program has no paid staff, and welcomes volunteers to help in areas such as transportation, tutoring, Web site development, and fundraising.

For more information, call founder Kevin O'Brien at 623-2144.