Suzanne Wilson: Making A Difference

By Abby Freedman

Suzanne Wilson came to Africa in 1997 on a whim. Wanting to beef up her resume for medical school, the 22-year old University of Washington student packed, bought a ticket and flew to Kenya with knowing a soul there but with the intent of volunteering in the first hospital she’d encounter.

She did. Later on, she watched a Kenyan AIDS patient die—isolated from her family, rarely taken outside by nurses, emaciated and in pain. That changed everything for her.

“It was a really moving experience,” Wilson recalls. “It made me think, ‘What are the reasons, what are all the contributing factors for people being infected with AIDS?’ And I realized that there were many factors that play a role together, but mainly poverty and education, not only academic but also health.”

Today, Wilson is a graduate of UW in a self-created major, International Health. Though she lives in the U-District, her life continues to revolve around Kenya—in a small village called Takaungu. Through the Seattle Junior Chamber of Commerce, she has created a non-profit organization, the East African Center (EAC), to help eradicate poverty, encourage literary and give Takaungu villagers the power of health care knowledge. It’s the answer to the question she asked herself five years ago, the first time she volunteered in Kenya.

“What I found most was that, in the rural communities, they had no contact with (health care) organizations,” Wilson says. “In the US, you hear about so many organizations working in developing countries. But you get there and people are completely isolated.”

“There are so few organizations working on a grass-roots level. All the policies, all the conferences, they are all so broad. Very few organizations are actually doing grass roots work and are in it for the long haul. Maybe they want to do a three-month condom campaign. But they’re not long-term. They’re not ‘Let’s get to the root of what’s causing this.’ They’re not ‘Let’s work together to solve this.’”

To the EAC, it starts with teaching women financial and social independence.

African women, according to Wilson, have no financial or social independence from their husband, leaving them no choice but to submit. This could either mean unprotected sex with their infected husband or simply having too many children to feed. The most popular form of birth control is Depo-Provera, a drug that would allow women to sneak off during the day, get the injection and the men will never know.

“There are micro lending programs in the area,” Wilson says. “But the women aren’t familiar with them, so it’s a matter of being a liaison between the lending programs and the women to help get the women economically stable. We will also be helping the women acquire a skill. We will be bringing in professionals to give four-month-long classes on special skills. It will include how to market that skill and basic business sense.”

Basic business sense is important, Wilson says. Without it, skills learned will be rendered useless. “Right now, it’s very popular to make soap. But now the market’s flooded. So we bring someone in to show how to make different scents or colors.”

Besides bringing in someone to teach basic business sense, the EAC will also employ a public health technician who will hold monthly health care seminars. Seminar topics, which will be designed in close coordination with local health professionals, will be of the village women’s choosing—from breast cancer to nutrition and diabetes.

Allowing the village to choose the topic, Wilson hopes, will make the community responsive to the information and dictate its own education. That is important, and so is staffing the new village library with Kenyans. (The EAC has raised enough funds to buy a library and stock it with books. Currently, five volunteers are busy painting the building that house the library, arranging the tomes and devising a card catalog system.)

“There is a concentration on the programs that the actual employees of the center be Kenyans,” Wilson says. “If (Americans) want to volunteer, that’s great, but we believe that Kenyans in Kenya are much more capable (of helping the center). I want to work with a Kenyan team to document what’s happening, and then send that back to people in the States who will use it for grant writing.”

Grant writing is important since money is always an issue for non-profits. But Wilson is confident about recruiting funds. Her project has received the attention of the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce and, in two weeks, she will find out whether it will be the national priority of the organization. If this happens, she will get the group’s continuous donations.

“We have a board of about 12 people,” Wilson says of the EAC. “They’re very helpful with lobbying. I’m hoping by May to be able to hire a part- or full-time development director who can really head fundraising.”

Perhaps the most industrious project though will be up and running on September 20. The EAC has teamed up with a safari company. People who purchase this trip will receive a 19-day tour of animal parks (no hunting will occur on these safaris) and will stay in hotels. Participants will have the chance to make a day trip to Takaungu to see the village their money is benefiting, the village that will always be in the mind of Wilson.

The East African Center’s website is www.eastafricancenter.org.

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