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Diane Davis - Kenya
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Diane Davis, Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya (2001-2003), taught HIV prevention in schools, women's groups and orphanages. She later volunteered with the California Habeas Project and has led six youth groups to Mexico to build homes.
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Diane Davis was in the Peace Corps in Kenya from 2001-2003, working in a rural village near Kakamega. She taught HIV prevention in schools, women's groups, and orphanages. She joined the Peace Corps to satisfy her adventurous spirit and love of learning other cultures.While in Kenya, she raised money for the education of four neighbor children, three of whom have graduated from high school (which is not free in Kenya). She is now raising money to send them to college in Nairobi where they will learn marketable skills.
After the Peace Corps, she volunteered with the California Habeas Project, interviewing women serving life sentences for crimes related to intimate partner violence. Diane’s reports were used to recruit defense attorneys for the women.
Diane also led youth groups to build homes for poor families in Mexico, enabling her to show American youth who have so much, to see how others live and how to share with them. Diane responded to Hurricane Katrina by volunteering with the Red Cross in Gulfport Mississippi. She recalls sitting on a porch, supporting a man in his grief who recently lost his wife due to the mold in their home. Diane believes that building relationships is essential to meeting needs.
One of Diane’s inspirations is her homestay mama in Kenya, a resourceful Kikuyu woman who has supported her family through growing and selling maize. When the prices dropped due to oversupply, she turned to Diane for advice. Diane mentioned women in other villages who were growing sunflowers and selling the oil. Her house mama took her advice planted several fields of sunflowers to harvest the seeds and make oil to support her family.
Her advice to social entrepreneurs: “Be adaptable and do not enter a new endeavor with a set paradigm because you need to be ready to have your paradigm shifted as you hear other peoples' stories.”
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