Dominique and Laurent, married since 1989, parents of two children. We have always loved traveling and discovering different communities through our journeys. From the Berber camps in the Sahara desert to the Lapps in the village of Santa Claus in Lapland, passing through the yurts and great steppes traversed in Mongolia to arrive in the African bush in Kenya and discover the Masai and Samburus peoples.

It was in 2020, after several trips to Madagascar and Kenya, that we made the decision to create the association Un espoir ensemble ici et là-bas in order to help communities in difficulty, mainly in Africa, where daily life is so different from ours.
We have of course thought of local charities to support our actions.
But after several attempts, we concluded that the best option for us was to have our own organization to have full control over the expenses and the execution of actions.

In reality, the adventure began two years earlier in 2018 when we took part in a 5-stage trail in the land of champions, in Kenya.
Land of champions as most of the best long distance runners come from the Rift Valley where the race was held.
The best known of them is Eliut Kipchopge, the first under 2 hours in the marathon.
It is also the region where the book "Out of Africa" ​​by Karen Blixen and the film with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford are located.
But the Rift Valley is where the first humans grew up 3 million years ago making us Kenyan children.
The 20 daily kilometers led us every morning through schools and in the middle of herds of giraffes and zebras.
In the afternoon we visited schools to deliver food, offices or supplies.
Kimbia Kenya was a great discovery of Kenyan life that we recommend to everyone.

However, we came back slightly frustrated as we were just “mzungu”, white tourists.
We then decided to return there during the summer of 2018 to participate in a two-week solidarity camp.
Our mission was to help the community build a new classroom at the primary school in Mbegi, one of the schools we visited.
It was a wonderful experience as we lived with our hosts sharing their way of life and playing with their children.
Not only did we work but we also organized during the weekend their first "Olympic Games" with a throw, a run and a jump.
A moment of pure pleasure with 200 children proudly wearing their medals during the following week.

In the end, unforgettable memories in immersion with surprising exchanges when they learned that France was not a former English colony, that there are poor people in France or that I didn't have to offer goats to my stepfather at my wedding.

Unfortunately, this was also the moment when we discovered each day during our lunch break that more than half of the children had nothing to eat and most of the time had not had breakfast and a light dinner the night before in the evening.
With no energy to learn, they were just listless in the classroom.
It becomes apparent that we had to do something...

We returned to Kenya in early 2020 just before the COVID outbreak.
On site we met with the leaders of the Mbegi community to put in place an action plan to ensure that the 200 children had a hot meal every day and thus focus on their lessons to define a better future.
The community took part in the project by building the kitchen with a few sheet metal plates to protect the hearths.
At the same time, we went to town by “boda boda” (motorcycle taxi) to buy 50kg of rice, 25kg of beans, 25kg of corn and 60 pieces of wood at the market representing the estimated needs for a week.
Finally we recruited a cook among the villagers whom we registered with the local authorities.
On January 19, 2020, we performed our first service.
There was a lot of uncertainty and stress with the last plates as we had never managed a service of this size.
It all ended well with 200 smiles and full stomachs.

This is where UN ESPOIR ENSEMBLE ICI ET LÀ-BAS begins.

With the proof of concept being successful, we were in weekly contact from France with the community to manage the execution of the program and to adjust the budgets accordingly.
From a practical point of view, we transferred 150€ per week, every Thursday, to the president of the primary school, the amount required to feed 200 children and pay the salary of the cook the following week.
Come to think of it, this is little more than a good dinner for two at a restaurant.

The team on site told us about a domino effect because if you go to Mbegi primary school, you have a free meal.
65,000 meals later, we had:
- More than 99% attendance including for the girls who were no longer cooking at home or worse.
- Grades had improved by 15% because children could focus on learning.
- 100 additional students because the children from the private sector who had to pay for their meals migrated to the Mbegi primary school.

In short, our volunteering actions in Kenya bearing fruit, we must continue and build a bridge to a better future.
For this, we need your support... We cannot help everyone, but we can, on our scale, help at least one person.
Every donation matters !


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