WE SINCERELY THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY.
Erik Vantomme, Saskatchewan, Canada (Pearson College)
KULE FOUNDATION CANADA/INTERNATIONAL is a non-profit organization which started as Kumbuka Universal Learning Experiences (KULE).
Originally, KULE was a Summer Program, a partnership that provides senior high school students and university undergraduates with an opportunity to participate in international development projects addressing key global issues such as health, education and poverty eradication. Since then, it has evolved into a broader, KULE Foundation Canada/International, which primarily aims to provide continuous long-term sustainable local projects while integrating its Summer Program into these projects.
“The smile of a child knows no boundaries and it is with this project that I have learned this. Kenya is the place where people truly do wear their hearts on their sleeves…and this is learned through sharing with each other while working to achieve something special, which words cannot describe.”
Éanna O Siadhail, Ireland, a participant in 2007 and 2008
KULE’s learning activities go far beyond the classroom. They extend the immediate and familiar world of the Summer Program participants into that which they have hardly ever experienced in their lives. The existing projects are situated in Kenya, the heart of East Africa.
A central principle behind KULE’s activities is providing universal education through venturing in a world normally outside one’s own. Often this involves traveling to this world. In the eternal words of Mark Twain:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
“The more time passes, the more I feel I belong to this place – Mukangu, in Murang’a. The things that surprised me last year and made the project a fantastic adventure have this year been elements with which I have been trying hard to live and which I have finally started to internalize as mine. Relationships were positively affected by this new mind/heart set. What had before gained my heart has now stolen it completely; and it does not seem like it’s going to be easy for me to take it back soon.”
Stefania Marchese (from Italy), a participant in 2007 and 2008.
“As a second time participant, all I can say is that this project is truly an opportunity of lifetime that changes you for ever. It is one where you will continue to grow and be shaped by this experience in the years to come and one where I find that each time I go to the various communities I find it harder to leave…This project makes you appreciate more what you have and teaches you not to take things for granted.”
Becky Harris, (Duncan, BC, Canada), participant in 2007 and 2010
KULE Foundation – legal status and honorary personnel
(a) KULE Foundation is registered member no S-56519 under the British Columbia Societies Act. Its board of directors are: Geoffrey Tindyebwa, Gaert Linnae, Frank Mitchell, Charles Priester, and Barrett Fullerton.
(b) KULE is registered in Nairobi as KULE Foundation International, a non-profit volunteer organization, C. 161146. Its board of directors comprise Geoffrey Tindyebwa, David Njoroge, Mrs. V. W. Maina, and Lilian Tindyebwa.
(c) Representatives authorized to act on KULE’s behalf: Jecton Were, KULE’s Deputy Director (now teaching at Jumeira Baccalaureate School, Dubai), Dr. Denis Tindyebwa (for Tanzania and Uganda), Simon Mugayo (in Uganda), Astrid Beacock (Newfoundland, Canada) and Ken Affolder (Vancouver, Canada).