My name is Selinah Amagove Sambuli

I was born on the 9^{th .}November 1991 in Nairobi, Kenya.

However, my parents come from a place called Jeptoroli  Village, Gisambai sub location, Hamisi District in Western Kenya.

We are of mixed tribe, my grandfather is of the Kalenjin tribe but my grandmother a Luhya.  We cannot speak the two languages of our parents because we were born and raised in Nairobi. My 4 siblings and I communicate in Kiswahili and English.

I went to Maasai Girls High school for my first year, we call that here form one.  In Nairobi we do not usually live at home when we attend high school.  Here I was often sick because of contaminated borehole water so my parents decided to transfer me to Lockwood Girls High School in Nakuru. I studied at Lockwood for 3 years and did my first exam in the year 2009.  I sat for my final set of exams last year and attained the following grades;

English B, Kiswahili B-, Christian Religious Education C+, Geography C, Physics D+, Chemistry D+, Biology C, Maths D and this brought a mean grade of C.

Because of my success with grades and my contribution to school life I was accepted at Uganda Christian University http://www.ucu.ac.ug/ in the batchelor of mass communications program.  I want to be a journalist.  There are many reasons why  I have chosen this course and this university.

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I understand religion or at least organized religion as a means to help us ‘explain’ things. It gives us strength when things are tough, hope when we seem powerless and calm when we are most afraid. Religion has a place in most people’s lives. Yet in the end if we do not believe that we can make a difference, if our vote counts, if our words have meaning, then we are in very real danger for doing nothing.  We would forget the power of one in addition to the power of many.

As with the case of religion, I do not necessarily need the structure and formality of educational institutions which, it might be argued, sometimes encourage us to question less as opposed to the converse.  Rather I believe in teaching the next generation to think.  To really think is to examine multiple worldviews, why they are created and what meaning they give to ourselves, our society and our planet. Putting it all together represents real thought.

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“If only I could live my life again and do the right thing this time.  To my shame, I heeded the advice of my companions to do nothing.  They said that no hospital or refuge would accept the child, who obviously had been abandoned by his mother to join the army of street children in the city.  I stepped around him and continued on my way.”

 (James Bartleman remarking on a 1968 encounter on the streets of Bogata, Colombia in Out of Muskoka, 2002)

A couple of nights ago I was visiting a friend and, unable to sleep, read Mr. Bartleman’s moving memoir. Because I had recently had conversations around motivation in charity work and taking care of others, one paragraph stuck.  In the morning I pulled the book back off the shelf, rifled through and copied down the words quoted above.   I considered more deeply the concepts of, among others, right/wrong, good/bad, goals, vision and sacrifice.

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A new website for Cheryl's Children's Home and Learning Centre is slowly coming along.  Comments/suggestions would be appreciated in order to supply information that people will most be interested in.  Many thanks.  lisa 

Silent for while, I know.  But silence is ok when there is not a lot to say.

 I am working on a website for Cheryls as their’s has been lost…ideas abound in Kenya but technology and credible webhosting companies do not.  It is just easier to do in Canada...most things are easier. Hopefully I will have a ‘new and improved’ website up and running for them in the very near future.

With the help of kindred spirits there is a connection in the works…letter writing between students of an area school in Brockville, Ontario and those at Cheryl’s learning centre.  This is in keeping with the ethos ( I say not mission) of this website.  It is to open new doors for women, kindred men and children, to open up spaces for  them to think in different ways and to be able to write these thoughts and share them with others who might ‘seem’ to be so different…