Thank you Hand Up 4 East Africa team

Hand Up 4 East Africa team,

YOU reading this now, YOU who followed us on Facebook, YOU who tracked us on Twitter, YOU who met us along the route, YOU who shared our journey with friends, YOU who encouraged us, YOU were part of our team. We wanted to thank YOU, the entire Hand Up 4 East Africa team, for helping raise awareness and funds for the starving women and children who walk countless miles in search of food and aid.  Without your support Hand Up 4 East Africa would not have reached its fundraising goal.  Without your words of encouragement Hand Up 4 East Africa would never have been able to walk through excruciating pain, torrential rain, oppressive heat and scorching sun.  By your words of encouragement and guided by a mission larger than all of us, Hand Up 4 East Africa traversed 168 miles from Holland, through Grand Rapids, Lansing, Howell, Brighton, Novi and Farmington to end in Hart Plaza in Detroit.

Jessica, Brian and I can not express in words how thankful we are to the whole Hand Up 4 East Africa team...YOU.

Your help has spread awareness of drought, famine, and the victims of these. With your help we have reached ~$11,000 in life saving funds.  Although we all met these initial goals the needs persist, women and children still walk and you can still help.  Please continue to share information about the victims of the drought in East Africa, the hope that exists and how people can help.  Share Hand Up 4 East Africa with your friends, family and acquaintances giving them a glimpse of the hardship starving women and children are experiencing.  Challenge them to raise awareness and if they are moved to also invest their resources to help save lives.

Thank you so much,

Your Fellow Hand Up 4 East Africa Team (Jessica, Brian and Matt)

Why 'Hand Up 4 East Africa'?

Why 'Hand Up 4 East Africa'?
Having lived and worked in Kenya, and traveled throughout Ethiopia last year I have been especially moved by the devastating famine in East Africa.  Moved to find a way to raise awareness and the much needed funds for the victims, the starving women and children forced to walk countless miles in search of food and aid.  


How can we Help?
My emotional reaction to the images being reported on a few news outlets generated thoughts about how we can help.  I contacted my sister, and then Brian, and we threw ideas at each other.  We had a clear mission to raise awareness about the victims of the famine, and decided to make it more real to us and those around us by embarking on something that ONLY represented the struggle the East Africans were enduring.  After several ideas and discussions, we decided that since starving women and children are trekking countless miles in search of food and aid, walking would be the best representation of the current crisis.  And since their trek is arduous we needed to do something arduous.  We decide on crossing Michigan from Holland (on the west side of the state, nestled along the shores of Lake Michigan) to Detroit (the city that moved the world, on the eastern edge of the mitten shaped state).  

The Route

The needs are now, so we needed to act with urgency. To begin our project, we needed to come up with a theme and campaign that friends, family and new friends could support and learn from. Since I was working in St. Louis, Jessica in Detroit, MI and Brian in Ann Arbor, MI, we used a new collaboration tool Google + hangout along with Google Docs to have a three way video conference and document/update ideas in real time.  The question was: Are we committed? The quick answer was.....YES!  The next thing to consider was, what should our campaign be called.   As Michiganders we always carry the map of our home state wherever we go...our hand.  The state of Michigan (at least the lower peninsula...no offense, Yoopers) looks like a mitten so we always refer to our hand to show where we are from in Michigan.  It thus came naturally, since we were walking across the state, that we would call the fundraising campaign "Hand Up 4 East Africa". That way we'd always have a map to inform friends of our route.

So we will walk....traversing Michigan...roughly 168 miles starting September 8, 2011 in the hope that we can raise awareness of the famine's victims and to raise funds to provide the urgent and critical aid.  Please follow our journey and please share information about the famine with your friends and family. This way, united we can support those in East Africa affected by the worst drought in 60 years.  

We walk as one people

Hand Up 4 East Africa Team

Walking for Action

Actions speak louder than words.  A phrase I've heard since I was little, but maybe could never put into context, now bears weight it hadn't before.  We're not unaware of crisis: Katrina, the earthquakes in Argentina and Haiti, floods in Pakistan, and I'm sure most of us remember the recently devastating tsunami that ravaged the Japanese coast.  I donated to all, knowing my resourses were needed more by others.  I wanted to leave and go volunteer.  I applied for habitat for humanity relief in Haiti and only recently I received an e-mail indicating that they were accepting volunteers, but with limitations.  I spent 2.5yrs living in Japan, the first place I have ever lived abroad, and after the tsunami, with images and videos burned in my memory, I thought about how I could help.


I've been fortunate to travel to the Horn of Africa; Ethiopia in particular.  It's one of the most untouched places on the planet, making it one of the most beautiful countries that I have ever traveled.  Over a span of 1.5wks Matt and I trekked though Addis, Bahir Dar, Gondar, and through the Simien Mountains.  There were days that I went without showering.  Nights spent wrapped like a mummy in my blanket to keep the mosquitoes away. All my daily routines became a struggle but still nothing compared to what the people of the Horn of Africa deal with everyday and what they are facing now.  Due to the worse drought in 60yrs, the displaced Somalian refugees that have flooded Kenya and Ethiopia will threaten to strain current conditions that were at a critical state beforehand.  I know that our trek across Michigan will not even come close to what some of the Somalian refugees experienced. Days without basic necessities, terrible heat; I even read one story of a women who walked 22 days and gave birth after arriving to a refugee camp (http://www.voanews.com/somali/news/news-makers-in-english/Somali-Woman-Gives-Birth-after-Walking-22-Days-Reports-on-Horrific-Conditions-125169869.html).


Matt and I were once told an old Ethiopian proverb during our trek through the Simien Mountainns. "The foot that is restless, will tread on a turd", said our tour guide.  Walking with a purpose seems an appropriate loose translation.  This may sound funny to a country where the majority of us are dependent on cars and have access to adequate transit, but walking is a way of life in Africa, often the only means of transportation.  This time, however, our walk has a purpose  - to support their walk, one they didn't choose...


Brian -
Hand Up 4 East Africa!!!

We Decided to Walk

I got a call. I picked up, and the first thing to spill into my ear was, “I have an idea.” The next thing I knew a small group of us felt the energy escalating. We met by video chat, talking fast and building on a budding project.

Our hearts were stirred as we read updates from folks on the ground reporting on a dry and dismal land filled with sick and hurting people. With each update, the situation grew ever more grim. Personal stories were getting lost in the numbers as the pains of drought became the common experience of one East African after another.

As I swallowed a gulp of cool, clean water, I thought about the many struggling for hydration only to find sources that are turbid and sparse. I felt the disconnect—of my experience from theirs—and desired deeply and genuinely to identify with their situation, though knowing I never truly could.  

Leaving their wives and families, men depart with their livestock (their livelihood) in a desperate measure to save their dwindling herd. The family suffers separation. Women trek unimaginable distances with children in tow. The Children, their vulnerable little bodies, are malnourished and sick from dirty water. Conditions remain dry and hurt persists. We asked: What could we do to help?

In response, we decided to walk. Though recognizing ours could not compare, we decided to make a journey, to walk in solidarity with those who have no other choice than to leave land that is providing little more than hunger pains.  We walk for relief, but we also walk for lasting change in a region that needs more than respite. Help us help East African communities emerge from the current crisis with the tools and resources necessary to triumphantly confront rainless seasons to come.