Born and raised in a small Texas town, Rebekah Norwood has dedicated her life to helping children in need in Kenya. Her father and grandfather's community service in India inspired Norwood to do something along the same lines.

Rebekah Norwood's, center, work in Kenya has inspired other Aggies to do the same. The children are positively impacted and recognize Aggies as hard workers who are there to help. The oppotunities that the students present to the homeless children are priceless and open the doors for them to lead normal lives.

Nairobi's three suburbs have nothing in common with the suburbs of Westernized cities.They are the three biggest slums in the world.

The Battalion | Hunger and Hope

Made for the world

By: Kenny Ryan

Posted: 1/31/08

Jourdanton, Texas, population 3,732, may seem like too small of a town to be the home of a world-traveling charity worker; but Rebekah Norwood would beg to differ. Norwood, a class of 2006 journalism major at Texas A&M, travels across the world visiting Australia, Southeast Asia and India. However, the place Norwood has spent most of her time is Nairobi, Kenya.

"Outside Nairobi, instead of suburbs they have slums," Norwood said. "The three slums around Nairobi are among the biggest in the world. The [kids who live on the street] have nothing to support them except begging and stealing."

The street children are the people Norwood works hardest to help. Through her church group at the A&M Church of Christ, Aggies for Christ, Norwood works for the "Made in the Streets" program to give Kenyan street children an opportunity for a better life.

"It's so common to hear them say 'Well, one morning I woke up and my mom was dead, so I went to live on the streets,' just nonchalantly because it's so common over there.

"People are choosing everyday…to take care of medical bills, pay for housing or pay for food that day. And sometimes they are even trying to save money for an education for their children. In those situations…people are going to get corrupt and need money. Sometimes, if you have too many kids, then letting one run away isn't such a bad idea."

Before Norwood's first trip to Kenya, she recalled reading a National Geographic article about the country.

"[I learned] at that time, Kenya was ranked the sixth most corrupt government in the world, but I also found out that the politician in charge of anti-corruption makes $30,000 a month. They have the money, it's just not going to the right place. But I'm not saying everyone's like that. There were mothers there who starve themselves to feed their children," Norwood said. "You really see the core of humanity there, people who care only for themselves and people who will do anything for others. We even saw some people taking other children in, supplying for their own and others."

Brett Newnam, a senior international studies major, went on four trips across the Atlantic. He was with Norwood on her last trip to Kenya, working with the "Made in the Streets" program.

"There was one part where we stayed in the slums - we were riding in a bus and you see the people you see in National Geographic and that's when it hit me at first [how far from home I was]," Newnam said.

Volunteers at "Made in the Streets" spend their time helping the street children learn skills that can get them off the streets and into an easier life.

"We train them in crafts: tailor school, hair work school, restaurant management, agricultural farm management, etc." Norwood said. "The shops are also open for the community to come in. We've had kids go to college from there. There's around 60 percent unemployment [in Kenya.]"

Every summer month spent in Kenya yields results. Many children take the opportunity provided to them by "Made in the Streets" to escape the slums of Nairobi and experience unheard-of success.

"One of our girls went to college, and she was winning all the beauty contests. The college kids couldn't believe she was once a street child when they found out," Norwood said.

Her name is Caro and the church is working to bring her to College Station to tell her story. Norwood said she worked in the biggest salon in Kenya where all the diplomats and foreigners go. She saved up enough money to buy land in Kenya, and that was considered strange.

"With her age, 19, and being a single woman, it's unheard of [for someone like her] to own land. We are trying to get her to come here to tell her story," Norwood said.

Norwood spent most of her time convincing street children to come to the camps and the farm where the children can be helped.

"One of the big things we do is put on kids camps where we recruit kids to come into the program," she said. "You would think that they would all want to come in because living on the street isn't as good as having a home, but lots of the kids sniff glue.

"It's like a drug to get high, to deal with hunger pain and help them sleep. They had to trade in their glue bottles to get in. When we would get the kids running, it would smell like glue from their huffing and puffing and heavy breathing running around."

The slums of Kenya are made up of many nationalities. Living among the Kenyans are Somalian refugees. Norwood said that though the two groups often fight, the street children look beyond nationality in taking care of each other.

"I was really surprised by the hatred [Kenyans and Somalians] have for each other. They don't converse with each other, they don't work together and they don't live together," Norwood said.

"Unemployment is so high in Kenya, when the Somalian refugees came in, the Kenyans saw it as competition - taking their jobs away. Somalians are pretty good businessmen and they live 20 to a house, but take care of themselves. You very rarely see a Somalian street kid. It's a jealousy and a hatred [for the Kenyans] because it's like, 'We have hardly anything, and you are taking it away.'

"However, the street kids don't care who you are, they all don't have jobs and they take care of each other."

Norwood first went with Aggies for Christ on a trip to Southeast Asia. Part of the itinerary was to climb one of the biggest mountains in Southeast Asia. Eager for a challenge, Norwood set out with them. But it was not the mountain that wound up being the highlight of her trip; it was her work with the impoverished. Norwood later signed up for a trip to Africa, and after someone else dropped out at the final minute, she was given an invitation to make the voyage.

"I went to Africa without really knowing anything about what we were doing," she said. "After seeing Africa, quite honestly, I just broke down."

This kind of work is not foreign to the Norwood family. Norwood's grandfather spent the previous three decades making trips to India to work with the poor, and her father made the trip six times. This year Norwood will be joining them as the latest generation of Norwoods to visit India.

"My dad and my grandpa have been working there for about 33 years. My grandpa has been a missionary there back and forth and…his oldest friends there…invited me to come."

Norwood's father, Michael, remembered watching his father visit foreign countries on humanitarian missions when he was his daughter's age.

"I was in junior high when he started working years ago, I've made six trips with him. She just grew up with that in her life, and she told me that she felt it affected her," Michael said.

During Michael's first trip to India, he landed in the country just as riots had broken out across the country in 1991. He knows the dangers inherent in this kind of work abroad, but said that he has faith that his daughter will always be safe.

"You worry about them because it's such a long way away from home. But I think I just trust the Lord and think that he's with her and she's got a pretty good head on her shoulders and has proved herself many times to think her way through problems."

In India, the work Norwood does will be done for the entire community, and won't be as associated with Christianity.

"Part of the reason they decided to just do benevolent work is because India is always trying to shut down Christian missionary work," Norwood said. "The money gets taxed if it only goes to Christians, so they spend it to benefit the entire community."

The experience she gained from working in Kenya changed Norwood's approach to her future. No longer dreaming of simply telling the stories of the people, she said she wants to become a full time charity worker instead.

Newnam explained he had a similar newfound appreciation for his life after seeing how people lived around the world.

"It broadens my perspective for one," Newnam said. "[It] showed me how to appreciate the things I have a lot more. It's kind of stereotypical to say, but it's true. Some of them have nothing, and yet they are some of the happiest people."

Newnam said that wherever he has done charity work, across the state or across the world, people who have worked with Aggies before are always glad to see more arrive.

"Almost everywhere we have been, they are always happy when the Aggies come to their church or to their children's home. They know that Aggies are the hard working type, and that's what a lot of people have told us when we have gone places with them."