Slideshow and fund-raiser for two struggling Kenyan villages

Candice Towell, a Reno Gazette-Journal photographer, will give a slideshow presentation at the Sundance Bookstore at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 3. Lifewater International, the Maasai American Organization, and International Development Missions recruited Towell to document the remote villages in southwest Kenya. She spent over a month living with the villagers of Rabondo and Megwarra.

Towell will also be selling her photographs and traditional African crafts; one-hundred percent of the proceeds will directly improve the quality of education, healthcare and water in Rabondo and Megwarra. The crafts are elaborate hand-woven bead work, including bracelets, necklaces, and purses.

Three weeks after returning to Reno, Towell presented a slideshow at the Annual African Fundraiser Dinner. She realized the potential of sharing her photographs and stories and began hosting fund-raisers and publicly speaking to help the impoverished people that embraced her. She has partnered with another NGO, the Minnesota-based Rabondo Community Project, USA, and has helped raised thousands of dollars for Rabondo.

Rabondo is a progressive subsistence farming community battling disease, drought and poverty inhabited by 5,700 Luo people, 100 miles west of Nairobi. The Luo tribe is organized, motivated, friendly and extremely eager to learn and improve the quality of their education. Consequently, Rabondo is a community of change, progress and hope.

Megwarra is located in the Narok Distrtict just outside of the Maasai Mara Game Reserve and is inhabited by 3,500 Maasai people. The semi-nomadic pastoralist tribe remains remarkably traditional and their cattle remain of paramount importance to their culture. Yet the Kenyan and Tanzanian government’s policies, which are restricting the tribe’s range and privatizing their land, are threatening their entire culture. The Maasai are also battling disease, extreme drought and poverty.

Her photographs have been published by numerous publications including World News and U.S. News, and Stern Magazine. She has earned regional and national awards. See Towell’s photographs and learn more about Rabondo in the premiere issue of NEED magazine this October: www.needmagazine.com

For more information about Candice Towell visit: www.ctowellphotos.com

Or read her award-winning photo essay, Inside Rabondo, on the web: www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/05/15/70860.php

For more information about the NGOs, Rabondo and Megwarra visit: www.rabondocommunity.org, www.maasaiamerican.org, www.lifewater.org or www.intdevmissions.org