Meditation: God gives us the responsibility of doing something ourselves about those faithless fears and worldly anxieties that are holding us back. We don’t have to do this alone. We have God’s promise of holding our hand and of helping us.

– Brother David Allen

With his 8th grade education, Te Keo* is one of the most educated men among the Rshi communities. He had to stop his studies due to family responsibilities, and later he was told by the district officials that he was already too old to be approved to continue his studies to become a teacher.

World Renew saw the potential of Te Keo when he was working in his village as the non-formal education teacher, and in other volunteer roles in his community. Te Keo was hired by World Renew to help in the Rshi villages.

We are excited to see how Te Keo has started to develop his own vision for strengthening his community. Despite minimal formal education and training, he has proved to be an outstanding development worker. He knows the resources in his community well. He knows what his people value, and has the skills to communicate effectively and motivate them to accomplish their goals. We hope to see and mentor more and more people from our project areas taking this kind of active and leading role in developing their own communities!

Read more about Te Keo in this summer blog post by Ari Vitakainen