A group of Hopewell students and teachers pose with Jean Njeri Kamau, ambassador from Kenya, at the Kenyan Diaspora Symposium in December 2013. Pictured are Carrie Bellscheidt, HoVal teacher David Angwenyi, Blair Brence, Ambassador Kamau, Kenny Smart, Michael Geherty, Mia Mummert, Deborah Keen, and HoVal graduate Mandy Lee, who now attends Georgetown University.
Jean Njeri Kamau, Kenya’s ambassador to the United States, will visit Hopewell Valley Central High School as part of the ongoing relationship between the high school and the East African nation.
Ambassador Kamau, who is based in Washington and is Kenya’s highest ranking diplomat in the United States, will visit Hopewell Valley March 21–23.
During her visit, she will speak at a symposium for students at the high school on diplomacy, education, health and the economy of her nation. She will also visit Bear Tavern Elementary School’s International Day, which will highlight Kenya as one of five nations of study, and she will attend a reception on Friday afternoon at Capital Health Medical Center–Hopewell, where she will meet with school and community leaders.
The reception is open to the Hopewell Valley community, but space is limited. Those interested in attending can send their name, address and phone number to hvma@hopewelltwp.org to reserve a place at the event.
On Saturday, Kamau will tour Princeton University and learn about the Princeton-affiliated by Mpala Research Centre, a wildlife study institution, in Kenya. She will return to Central High School to meet with and address students there who are part of the Model World Health Organization and the Global Connections-Kenya over lunch. On Saturday night, she will attend a conference with the Kenyan community in Jersey City.
Kamau’s visit is the culmination of a long-standing relationship between HoVal and the Kenyan area of Keroka. In 2007, Hopewell Valley Central High School’s biology and global studies teacher David Angwenyi, who grew up in the Keroka area, and Lillian Rankel, a Pennington resident, led the first Model WHO student trip to Kenya.
The school has since visited the area on service trips three more times, and a group of students and staff will travel there again this summer. Angwenyi met Ambassador Kamau last fall when he and several Hopewell students attended the 2013 Kenya Diaspora Symposium in Washington. After learning about the relationship between Hopewell and Keroka, the ambassador expressed an interest in visiting New Jersey.
In 2008, participants of the first Keroka trip started a non-profit group called the Hopewell-Keroka Alliance, which has raised more than $100,000 for projects in the impoverished area. Those projects, often accomplished with the aid of Hopewell students, have included converting a dirt road into an all-weather, packed stone road; funding material and labor to build a tea-buying center to assist villagers in selling their main crop; completing the construction of a health care center and the planning for a second one; installing roof-top rainwater collection tanks as a source of clean water; and giving the community 5000 bed nets to reduce mosquito-spread malaria.
The group is currently expanding its reach beyond the Keroka region to other parts of Kenya.
“As a school community, we are excited and honored to have Ambassador Jean Kamau visit our area to learn about the unique and special relationship we have forged with the Keroka region of Kenya,” Angwenyi said. “This is a real learning opportunity for students in their role of making the world a nicer place.”
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