Kenyan Ambassador visits Draper school

DRAPER — Tanner Townsend woke up Friday with butterflies in his stomach.

The sixth-grader was going to meet the Kenyan ambassador, four Kenyan girls and their teacher.

"I was nervous to meet them," said Tanner, 12. "I thought, 'Just be yourself.' "

Tanner and 12 of his peers on the student council at Willow Springs Elementary in Draper presented their visitors with information about the school and the United States.

The ambassador and the girls were invited to Utah by In Our Own Quiet Way, a Utah-based nonprofit organization aimed at helping people in underdeveloped regions of the world help themselves.

The student council started out by singing their school's pep song to the tune of "The Addam's Family," and a fifth-grade class sang "Fifty, Nifty United States." Dressed in traditional African clothes, the Kenyan girls — Alexia, 8, Sylvia, 9, Sharon, 12, and Agnes, 12 — sang and danced to some of their own songs.

Peter Ogego, the Kenyan ambassador to the U.S., spoke to the students for a few minutes and let them ask him questions.

"I came to Utah to say thank you to the people of Utah who support the effort," Ogego said. "We still would appreciate more support from you."

In Our Own Quiet Way chose to go to Willow Springs Elementary because of principal Sharyle Karren's connection to Kenya. Karren went to Africa for three weeks a couple of years ago to help a school get started there. She also took with her 700 dolls made by students and parents of Willow Springs Elementary to give to the Kenyan children.

"I hope the students here understand that we're all the same," Karren said. "Our cultures and food are different, but our hearts are the same."

Ron Hatfield, a Lindon resident and founder of In Our Own Quiet Way, said there has been a severe drought for the past two years in eastern Kenya, placing 2.4 million people at risk of starvation.

"The ambassador is here to put a face to the need and the seriousness of it," Hatfield said.

Hatfield met the ambassador by happenstance at a small airport in Africa in April, when he and others from In Our Own Quiet Way were on their way to Nairobi to meet the vice president of Kenya.