Mother and daughter plan African trip to help themselves, others

Would you take your eight-year-old child to Kenya for ten days to help build a school? One woman in Jasper is planning on doing just that next year.

Jasperites Erin Ammon and her daughter Nyah are in the process of organizing a trip to Kenya for March of 2011. 

“I wanna go so bad,” said eight-year-old Nyah, beaming a large smile at the same time. “It’s fun and a good time, and we get to help people.”

If all goes to plan, mother and daughter will fly to Nairobi, drive somewhere into the serengeti of the Masai Mara National Reserve (they’re still not exactly sure where) to find a village and over the course of ten days, help build a school. Along the way, there will be safari trips, hikes with local naturalists, new friends and the feeling that they are doing something worthwhile and good. The trip is being organized through the NGO Free the Children and their young leadership program titled “Me to We.” 

“We are idealistic, we are dedicated and we are dynamic. We are the change we want to see in our world,” reads the Barack Obama inspired Me to We website. “Help build a school for children who may have never set foot inside a classroom,” it advertises.

The NGO will help to organize the flights, accommodations and security in Kenya when Ammon and Nyah land. They provide the tents that Nyah and Ammon will be living in for ten days and will organize the materials for the school. Ammon just needs to pony up the money (it’s a substantial amount at $10,000) and then the mother and daughter need to commit their time, energy and willpower.

Ammon thinks these costs are definitely worth it and explains many different reasons for wanting to take her daughter to Kenya.

“I just find that society is so obsessed with material things. I don’t want to raise my daughter that way,” she said. She believes that if Nyah can see the way that people in Africa live, than she’ll learn something valuable about the world.

Ammon, who works as a rental agent at National Car Rentals in Jasper, said she wants to help her daughter see what’s important and appreciate what she has here in Jasper.

“Jasper can be a bit of a bubble sometimes, and it’s a good bubble, but it’s important to see beyond it,” said Ammon. 

As well, she is hoping that the leadership skills that Nyah will pick up working on a collaborative project like building a school will help her develop into a better person.

“If I didn’t think the trip was good for her, we wouldn’t go,” said Ammon.

The main force that inspired the idea and has really pushed it forward is Nyah, Ammon said. The eight-year-old has some friends who have done the trip and once she heard about the stuff they got to do overseas, she had to go too. A Facebook page (to find it, search for Erin and Nyah Rock Kenya 2011 on the site) about the trip reads that Nyah had a dream about going to Kenya to help people and that’s when she began asking her mom about it

“She’s an old soul,” said Ammon about Nyah. “I’ve just never seen a child who is so caring about other people.”

Ammon said that it took some time to convince Nyah’s father that she should go on the trip.

“I just reminded him what kind of person Nyah is and how important this is to her,” said Ammon. After he saw that the trip would be well organized and that Nyah was looking forward to it so much, he gave his consent, said Ammon.

Nyah herself is looking forward to the trip immensely. She bounces around while giggling about seeing hippopotomuses and lions, a huge smile plastered onto her face. She smiles again when thinking about all the new friends she’s going to make in Africa. She’s not sure what she’s going to eat there. It probably won’t be pizza, she surmises. 

Is she willing to eat bugs if that’s what they feed her over there (live termites are a delicacy in some parts of Kenya)? She scrunches her face into her neck and with a big smile, shakes her head.