In 2011, Nancy Lehmann-Carssow of the Northwest Austin Rotary Club led a group of travelers to see the Rehema School and Orphanage in Korogocho, one of the largest slums outside Nairobi, Kenya. Conditions were so difficult that most of the group never left the van. Nancy did. Before leaving, she asked the school's director a simple question: if he could have one thing, what would it be? His answer — "a library" — set a Rotary project in motion that is still changing lives fifteen years later. *A Library Where 3,000 Chickens Once Lived
n 2012, Nancy returned with a group of Rotarians and friends, including La Grange Rotarians Ann Rogers and Margo Johnson, to transform a 13-by-16-foot room that had housed 3,000 chickens. They scrubbed, painted, and built shelves, and the club sent $500 for the teachers to buy the books their students needed most. The Rehema Community Library was born.
Demand was immediate and overwhelming. Chairs were set out for readers but soon removed to fit more people. Students stood shoulder to shoulder, resting their books on the back of the person in front of them. That one small room came to serve 13 schools, 17 orphanages, and the surrounding community — used by as many as 330 people a day.
The Results
The impact was measurable almost at once. Where five students had shared a single textbook, now only two did. Class grades rose 15 percent, and scores on Kenya's national exams jumped 50 percent. For children in Korogocho, where education is often the only path out of the slum, those numbers represent futures rewritten.
A New Rehema Prior to the school's reconstruction, fifteen girls were forced to sleep crowded together in just three beds, situated in a small room directly beneath the poultry. In 2020, Rehema was rebuilt from the ground up. The corrugated-metal structure gave way to a multi-story building with real classrooms, hand-washing stations with automatic water, a proper kitchen and stoves, flush toilets and showers, a girls' dormitory with enough beds for 22 (where 15 once slept crowded together), and the school's own generator replacing candles and solar lanterns. At its heart is a new library — with windows, lights, worktables, and a TV — now 1 regarded as one of the best in Korogocho.
Celebrating and Investing in Students
Each year club members visit, the school holds an anniversary celebration, complete with a parade through the neighborhood and an essay contest for the 8th graders, who write about how the library has impacted their lives. Each winner receives $2,000 in scholarships covering all four years of high school — an investment that turns a love of reading into a diploma.
The Constant: The Kids
Buildings have changed; the children haven't. Year after year they remain eager to learn and thankful for every resource. Director Erastus Omukhango and his wife Ruth extend their thanks and blessings to everyone who has helped make Rehema a better place. As one club presentation put it plainly: without donations, these students would be sentenced to the slum for life. Every contribution changes a life.