Kenya, Entrepreneurship, and the Water Crisis
Teresia Hinga accompanied Kevin O’Brien, S.J. to Kenya on a trip centered around certain organizations, like Eggpreneur, that are helping to teach small business skills to the impoverished. Hinga and O’Brien, S.J. walked around Rural Kenya helping to sell merchandise from Livelihoods.
In summer, 2019: Hinga went to Kenya as she has done the last several years to continue with fieldwork on the topic of food security. In this context , she took a number of people from her village to undergo training in a one day workshop, “How grow a garden in a bag” and “How to produce organic vegetables in a bag.” This introduced students to vertical gardening, which is important given the shortage of land. The photo shows the group during the event.
In Kenya, Hinga also worked to support Miller Center Global Fellows, Lauren and Avery who were working with a local social enterprise (Eggpreneurs). The Team also worked with local congregations of nuns who intend to blend their social apostolates with social entrepreneurship with the help of the Miller Center. The photo is of the SCU team and Assumption Sisters of Eldoret Kenya.
During the recently concluded TURN events, Hinga conducted a screening of the documentary Blue Gold to raise awareness about the looming global water crisis and its root causes. She facilitated discussion on the global water crisis and what is to be done about it. The event was attended by SCU students and faculty. She was pleasantly surprised by two teenagers from the Kenyan community who had prepared a presentation to share with the audience. The photos show the teenagers presenting as well as several moments in the well attended and enjoyable event. Watching a movie under the evening skies was quite a treat, particularly for the children.
At the AAR this last week, Hinga presented in a book panel featuring a new book: Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice For an Entangled World. (Penn State University Press November 2019 - edited by Krista Hughes, Dawn B Martin, and Elaine Padilla). Her essay in the book is entitled The Hummingbird Spirit and Care of Our Common Home: An Afro Theo-ethical Response to Laudato si. The respondent, John Cobb, appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of the book and hoped that this kind of interdisciplinarity would find its way into University Curricula, particularly in, though not limited to, issues of sustainability and climate change.