We asked Umra what inspired her to found the NGO.
Umra: It could have been because of the early years raised by my matriarch of a grandmother in a dusty village off the northern coast of Kenya. Perhaps it was due to inhaling the gentle air of very grounded parents to whom education is a non-negotiable. Or is it the United World College education that erases all human constructed boundaries in the name of social justice. Or simply just being a mother.
To this date, I am not quite sure of where the thirst for change in my world comes from but one thing that I do know with certainty is that “I am because we are”.
Safari Doctors started because while visiting home, after a decade of living overseas, I connected to human suffering juxtaposed to the endless possibilities of hope, and I saw myself as a piece of this puzzle. This initiative started because in every brightly clad mother, I saw the same dreams that I wanted for my two children Bwana and Azza – health and playful happiness. So if we could travel every month to remote corners of my motherland to advance immunisations, get family planning options available to women, build playgrounds for the human balls of energy, host football tournaments for disenfranchised youth, and whatever else that we could – then why not. My purpose finally found me.
On one usual hot morning I received a phone call from a frantic father whose twenty-month-old baby had undergone two botched surgeries and needed urgent evacuation. Not too long ago, a young man dove in the shallow end of the pool and had what might have been a spinal injury – another phone call but this time in the middle of the night. A four-day old infant did not make it on time for his next breath as we spoke with his mother on the other end of the line. Then there was the young guy that we evacuated on our beloved boat Mama Daktari, he will survive the hippo attack, and so will the mother with a late miscarriage. The two swimmers that got caught by the current while we were at our staff retreat – one of them the team was able to resuscitate, the other was not so lucky.
“I do not take it lightly that I have access to opportunities in life that can change the life of another”
Being able to pick up such phone calls or walk into such situations in pursuit of life is a blessing that I cannot describe. I do not take it lightly that I have access to opportunities in life that can change the life of another – and this is why I do what I do every day in a place that I love so dearly with people that I respect so much.
We are able to make a difference in life not because we have a lot but because we care a whole lot more. As our dear friends of The Village Experience say, “we move forward by giving back”.
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