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Donation of Owen and Mzee books to slum school

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 11 2008 | By: admin

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Yesterday I signed copies of Owen and Mzee donated to Mukuru where I met children who were honored to meet a real “author”. When I told them that Isabella was 6 when we did this project their eyes grew big with the realization that children can be authors.

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Mukuru is a school for over 4,000 children from a slum in Nairobi. 2000 of these kids benefit from one hot meal - probably the only meal they get each day. The school is supported by the world food program and my friend Rita Field-Marsham who donated 1,000 childrens books to their library, invited me along when she realised that I was an author of Owen and Mzee. What a privilege. These kids were amazingly disciplined, adorable, they were playing with a home made paper football. My dream is that Miza has just as much impact, if not more, than Owen and Mzee which is now in 17 languages. I’m hoping Scholastic will do a Kiswahili translation and donations to local schools in Congo, Rwanda and Uganda to inspire the youth to care about gorillas.

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11 Responses to “Donation of Owen and Mzee books to slum school”

Christine C., on 11 Jun 2008

OMG Paula…I had no idea this story was about Mutazimiza!!! She is just one of my very favorites…I have her adorable face plaster all over one of my cabinets at work!

sheryl, washington dc, on 11 Jun 2008

BTW, we don’t have any updates on Miza, do we? My memory might be faulty but wasn’t she suffering from a skin infection the last time the rangers saw her? I guess now I’m confused about how this story has a happy ending, unless y’all have some information about her that we don’t have. Do ya?

s.

Paula, on 11 Jun 2008

Miza recovered almost fully before Diddy and Innocent were prevented from further monitoring last September. Diddy Skypes me almost every day and told me that although the Kabirizi family is in an area controlled by rebels, he has ‘news’ that she is fine, and that there are more infants in the group. :)
Of course seeing is believing, I keep asking him to try and get photos.

sheryl, washington dc, on 11 Jun 2008

Ooh, that’s great news! Babies!

Now, I read on BBC News that the UN is going to pull most of their troops out of Congo. That cannot be good news. Does the DRC government have a plan to rid itself of the rebels?

s.

Jim from Mass USA, on 11 Jun 2008

The picture of the book cover disappeared ?????

kim - buffalo ny, on 11 Jun 2008

great news paula - glad you were part of getting the wonderful story of owen & Mzee to the children - i was an avid follower of the blog - hi jim from Mass - unfortunately i have emailed lafarge a few times trying to refind the blog as it just tells me it is under construction - but blog is what brought me to this blog and kept us abreast of your wonderful ongoings - keep up the great work -

Christine C., on 11 Jun 2008

Wonderful news about Miza if true! nad more babie…wonderful!
Why the hell is the UN pulling out of DRC? Things don’t seem that stable now!!

Christine C., on 11 Jun 2008

p.s. Hi Jim from Mass!! Boy, I miss the Own and Mzee blogs…:(

Jim from Mass USA, on 11 Jun 2008

TO: Christine C. … the blog is alive … go to http://www.lafargeecosystems.com . I post news at jimbos-weblog.blogspot.com and groups.yahoo.com/group/Owen-and-Mzee_Group .

Christine C., on 12 Jun 2008

Ach…Jim, I cannot access any of your websites! I do know the O&M blog is still up, there just has not been any news about them recently.

Jim from Mass USA, on 14 Jun 2008

TO: kim - buffalo ny … just go to http://www.lafargeecosystems.com and click on the blog button. Sabine is very ill and that may be why there is no update. There is an address on my blog to send Sabine cards … jimbos-weblog.blogspot.com . If I put the h*t*t*p*/*/ in front of the web address, this blog won’t let me post … :-(

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