Nairobi, Vegas, Beekeeping, and Art
AmericaShare and Huru International, Nairobi, Kenya
As a dual-national Kenyan-American, I’ve been fortunate to forge a long-term relationship with two nonprofit foundations operating out of a community center in Nairobi’s Mukuru slum, where I’ve been volunteering since I was a young teenager.
The project-based work changes depending on the needs of AmericaShare, a nonprofit that send orphaned children to school, and Huru International, which makes reusable sanitary napkins for at-risk girls and provides health education.
Every day there are ten thousand ways to help, large and small: I’ve created fundraising videos, taught computer skills to teens, helped the mamas better stage their beaded jewelry to increase sales to tourists, balanced budgets, and cooked the porridge. As a teen, I helped in the special needs classroom, cooked meals, reshelved library books, read to children, and held AIDS babies.
As a junior in high school, I undertook a renovation of two dilapidated kindergarten classrooms with my brother, raising $10,250 for the project. We consulted with the teachers to determine their needs, enlisted the help of Kenyan Waldorf kindergarten teachers, and worked alongside handymen to repair walls, windows and install exhaust fans. I then painted the room in soft Waldorf colors, created large murals, and crafted simple play materials for the children.
Every year I’d return to New York for school in the fall, but in the summer, like old friends, Mukuru and I have picked up exactly where we’ve left off.
Events Ringmaster-in-Training, Las Vegas
I’ve been surrounded by events my whole life, helping to plan and execute major extravaganzas for audiences of 500 at the Bellagio Hotel during the annual Virtuoso Travel Week conference every August since I was young. Working alongside the staff of Micato Safaris, my parents’ safari company, it was a family affair on a large scale, plotting and planning spectacular events to wow the audience of travel advisors in attendance.
I helped coordinate flash mobs, performances and hotel arrangements for the African Boys Choir and AmericaShare children from Nairobi, “impromptu” danceathons, a “surprise” appearance of Jack Hanna and his wild animals, and created over-the-top African-themed dinner table decor (which we shopped for all summer in Kenya and/or South Africa), and much more.
Beekeeping Apprenticeship
Struck by the beekeeping bug as a youngster, I apprenticed with NYC celebrity beekeeper Andrew Cote throughout high school and assist him to this day. I’ve tended the rooftops hives at such celebrated New York institutions as Google, MoMA, Waldorf Astoria, Brooks Brothers, and more.
Additionally, for a MoMA sculpture exhibition that included our bees, I designed and built two special hive houses in the style of traditional NYC brownstone and tenement buildings to house the supplemental bees, which were featured on the MoMA blog, “Inside/Out.”
I also manned the Andrew Honey farmer's market stand at NYC's Union Square throughout high school, hawking honey and chatting with shoppers about beekeeping.
My beekeeping credentials with Andrew’s Honey also include television work:
“Down to Earth” - I handled bees for the New York City segment of this Netflix documentary starring Zac Efron.
“The Blacklist” - I worked on the set as an "animal handler" beekeeper.
“New York 1” - The local news filmed a segment on my brother and me as we helped install hives at the New York Hilton Hotel.
Art
Creativity is a form of critical thinking and making art opens up the possibilities to think beyond what we already know and interpret the world around us differently.
As a child, I was fortunate to attend a Waldorf school that emphasized the importance of art in education, and throughout my years at Brown, I continued to study and create art via various forms of artistic media.
