My name is Mark. I've spent most of my life in Albuquerque, NM, but now I'm in Africa for 4 months (November 2007-March 2008). This is the profile I have created to keep friends, family, colleagues, and others informed on my whereabouts.

Why am I going to Kenya? Allow me to explain. In the late 90's and early 2000's a woman named Ann Githinji, along with her colleague Chao Sio, created an NGO called Women Can International. Since Sio's deportation from the US in 2006, Githinji has expanded her goals and has created a new organization based in the original ideals of WCI. Called Youth and Women International Development Centre, the mission is to promote gender equality and to educate Africans about AIDS, nonviolent alternatives, community awareness and cultural understanding.

YWIDC is a registered NGO in Kenya and is currently working towards non-profit status in the United States. As a close friend of Githinji's, I am going out to Africa to expand the organization's research on public/private schools and how AIDS awareness and gender equality are being currently taught. The eventual goal is to build a private school (with tuition on a sliding scale depending on the parents' income) where all of the missions can be taught to African students.

While also in Africa, I intend to visit Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and possibly other countries. I have plans to go on safari and visit Mt. Kenya. I'm also working on trying to get a week long volunteer position in a Kenyan refugee camp called Kakuma.

I will try to regularly post blogs to http://www.myspace.com/mark_in_kenya .