National Director, World Vision Rwanda
Thunderbird School of Global Management (’05)

“Careers don’t take straight lines.
Be patient with the twists and turns in your career.”
— Sean Kerrigan

For Sean Kerrigan (‘05), the path to becoming the National Director for World Vision Rwanda has been one of twists, turns, humility, patience, and persistent optimism. He grew up on the edge of the Amazon jungle in Shell, Ecuador where his father was the only surgeon in the Eastern half of the country and his mother was a nurse. He describes a “wonderful childhood”, running around the jungle with his 4 brothers and keeping monkeys and parrots as pets. From Ecuador, his family moved to Kenya where he completed his secondary school education and then eventually came to the United States for his degree in Chemical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (‘00).

Ask any mother what she wants more than anything in the world, and she’ll likely say, “for my children to be safe, healthy, and happy.” For mothers living in extreme poverty, this gift is hard to come by … especially now with the threat of COVID-19. But people like Gertrude Jima (pictured right) are at the forefront of giving moms what they want most – access to knowledge and resources that empower them to care for their children.

“Water has given me hope. I’m a strong woman. Thanks to World Vision and clean water, there are a lot of strong women here.”

Esperance, a Rwandan mother, hasn’t always been able to say this. As one of the 785 million people around the world without clean water access, she struggled to improve every aspect of her life.

THE COST OF HOLDING WOMEN BACK

Although women make up almost half of the agricultural workforce across Africa — and perform 80% of the labor on smallholder farms — millions of them don’t have access to financial services, training, and other opportunities that could help them escape poverty.

These inequalities don’t just hurt women — they cripple entire nations, holding back about half the population from participating in a society’s economic growth. It’s estimated that if women in these communities could afford productive resources like business training, seeds, and fertilizer, up to 150 million fewer people would go hungry every day.

On February 12, 2020, Dave and Dana Dornsife announced a $40 million investment in World Vision’s water, sanitation and hygiene program in 24 African countries. This brings their total investment in World Vision to $115 million, following an investment of $35 million in 2011 and $40 million in 2016. Their contributions have all been focused on World Vision’s water programs, making them the leading family in the world investing in providing clean water access.

Vivian's Story

Vivian’s story is rooted in poverty. She says, “My dad married four wives… I had so many problems.” She and her siblings had to do odd jobs like selling firewood just to find money for food, and, even though she loved school, she had to drop out in class four. The weight of poverty and cultural pressures forced Vivian — and many of her peers — to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM). Though she tried to run away to her sister’s, Vivian had no choice when her sister sent her back. About a month after being cut, a stranger came and took her to his house to be his wife. Vivian was 12 years old.

The topography of the former, unsafe water source

The Rukore region has seven villages, with three of the villages drawing water from one shared point. Before World Vision, the three villages did not have safe drinking water. Many of the school children either missed class regularly to fetch water several miles from their homes or because they were sick from drinking dirty water. Parents could not practice proper hygiene due to low water accessibility.

The majority of the people in this area live in the hills. With the water in the low plain, this created a lot of hardship for children, who do the water fetching as a home chore. 

Elezeti & Lufelo now live happily

It is windy and the air of Ntambo community’s bare horizon is fully engulfed in dusty particles, flickering through the twilight. It is difficult to see as we drive on the small dirt road leading to Elezeti Mwale’s home in eastern Zambia.

Not that many years ago, Elezeti was preparing to work in the field. Her youngest son, Lufelo, then 8, left to harvest a sack of cotton to help pay his school fees when something terrible happened to him. “A big snake bit me above my right ankle,” Lufelo says, “I screamed for help before I fell down, feeling a sharp pain.”

Virgina’s bounty of fruits & vegetables are ready for market

“I need to rush to the market place because there is a big truck from the city coming to pick some sacks of food that I sell to them on a weekly basis. They always get here at around this time, so I have to get there before they do,” says Virginia.

Virginia, 37, is a jovial woman and full of stamina while she goes about her work. Her face is lit with joy as she fervently shares the story of her transformation. She is a farmer. Virginia owns gardens where she grows bananas, corn, yams, pineapples, and sweet potatoes among other crops. She also owns a piggery and other livestock.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.”

—Luke 2:8 (NIV)

For many people, just one verse from the Christmas story brings back memories of candlelight church services or family gathered by the tree. Across the globe, though the settings look different, the story is the same. But for Christians everywhere, we’re united in our common faith when we read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth.