Today we’d like to introduce you to Jody Mattena.
Hi Jody, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started this humanitarian journey probably as a child growing up in the 1980’s. All over the news all I remember seeing was images of the catastrophic famine occurring in the Ethiopian region. It was disturbing for a little girl around the age of ten to see, but at the same time it filled me with hope as I watched teams from the Peace Corps go in and help where they could. That little girl wanted to be just like them. Life happened and I forgot that dream as trauma and survival of my own took place while growing up in an abusive household. Fast forward to 2005, my father suddenly and unexpectedly passed away just a few years after he and I began the hard work to talk, listen, and reconcile. His sudden death hit me hard as I was only 29 years old and I did not yet have the tools to deal with the extreme loss of my first “giant”.
Then the dream I had as a young girl reentered the room and the incredible urge to reach out and help someone else took hold of my being. I did an online search, as much as one could google in 2005, and found a humanitarian group that was headed to Kenya in February 2006. I immediately applied and was accepted. I got my passport and traveled outside of North America for the first time in my life with 17 strangers (mostly women) and spent nearly six weeks in Kenya serving the poorest of the poor there. It was life-changing and I was hooked.
I thought that helping people would do more for the people I was helping but I was so very wrong. It was very much reciprocal. While I handed out food, medical supplies, helped in the clinic and classrooms my heart and soul was being healed and the hole that was left by my fathers departure was soon filled in with love and gratitude.
I continued going back to Kenya for several years until I began to feel a bit unsafe with this organization and they were going on a path I didn’t feel comfortable following. Upon the flight home on my last trip with this organization, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, three dear friends and I dreamt of Tabibu Africa, Inc. and came up with a plan to make it happen.
In 2012 Tabibu Africa, Inc. came to fruition and we’ve been evolving, growing, and reaching out ever since. The first and foremost “rule” we continue to standby is that Tabibu Africa, Inc will never have paid Board Members, staff, or employees so that every cent possible will go towards projects in East Africa and not to payroll. Along with that we want our aid to be sustainable, meaning that after we leave the country, the projects will continue on and evolve without our engagement when and where possible. Lastly, and probably most important, we want our cultural impact to be felt least of all. We never want to go into a community with the slightest thought to change their culture, religion, or spirituality.
We now have several “arms” of outreach and projects in Kenya, including Medical, Empowerment, Hygiene & Sanitation, and Agriculture.
Our Medical Arm focuses on providing well-child checks and tracking the benefits for the students and orphans at the schools and orphanages within our network, as well as providing acute and ongoing care for the students, orphans, and then opening up to the community.
The Empowerment Arm provides workshops for the students at the schools within our network, focusing on self-care, healing, and empowering their voices all while having respect and honor for their culture(s), wellbeing, and spirituality.
The Hygiene & Sanitation Arm provides workshops on the benefit of hand-washing, educating on germs and how pathogens are spread, water filtration, and proper waste management.
Our Agriculture Arm is the most recent and is taking off more than the others as it is so needed. If you can’t provide nutrition for yourself and your family everything else down the line will suffer. We are hopeful to be able to provide future solar powered pumps to power water irrigation, well pumps for the schools and orphanages, and provide power to the necessary buildings.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
This journey definitely has not been a smooth one, there’s been plenty of pain, emotional tears, and evolution. On at least three occasions we have nearly started over, which at the time it was so painful and we wondered if what we were doing was worth it. At the end of the day, it was. Whether it was changing in-country directors, connections, turning away communities due to corruption, or deleting programs we thought were necessary. We learn and evolve from every step, every trip, every project, every volunteer, our successes and failures. We learned what worked and what didn’t. We focused on what worked to expand and make it even better and analyzed what didn’t work so we could learn from it and use that information to focus on our end goal which is to one day not be needed anymore.
One thing I would love to talk about is a huge achievement we had this year. We have been wanting to build a library to have on the school grounds at Peak Schools for the students as well as the community and we finally had the funding and ability to do so. Upon this trip the library was built, shelves installed, and the first readers, text books, and novels were purchases. Several of our volunteers chose to step up and they purchased scientific calculators, a world globe, pens, notebooks and more. (photo provided).
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Tabibu Africa, Inc. is my “heart job” as the CEO and Founder but I don’t do that alone. I have an amazing team comprised of the current Board of Directors and talented international volunteers. Tabibu Africa, Inc could not do what it does without all of them. We have Kurtis Short as our Treasurer who keeps every cent and grant in compliance. George Mattena is a co-founder, Vice-President, Secretary and lead of the Agriculture Arm. Rachel Fleecs is our much needed and very busy Medical Director and lead of the Medical Arm. Fred and Alice Afwai are an amazing power-couple who function as our In-Country Director and area of focus as they are the Directors of Peak Schools and Hands for Hope Children’s Home in Kitale, Kenya. Kyalo Mwetu plans all of our lodging, transportation, meals, as well as provides a team to guide and keep our team safe.
In addition to feeding Tabibu Africa, Inc. my passion is for Indigenous Food Sovereignty. As an enrolled member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation, and Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, and Ottawa descendant, Tribal and Food Sovereignty have been huge in my life. I feel like this is why respecting, preserving, and honoring cultures outside of my own is of the upmost importance. My grandmother, Keshnekwe (Afternoon Sun Woman) died along the forced removal in 1838 on the Potawatomi Trail of Death shortly after the death of her granddaughter, Charlotte. My grandfather was a survivor of forced removal from his household to be taken to an “Indian residential school” in Topeka Kansas in the late 1920’s. Therefore, preserving and respecting our culture and history is dear to my heart, I would want the same respect for all peoples.
I wrote and published an Indigenous Cookbook in 2022 called Gbaton Neshnabe – Cook Something Nishnabe; How to Decolonize Your Pantry and Diet and I currently give talks and host workshops all over the country and am known on social media as BossLady Anish.
Myself and my husband also run our own plumbing company, Mattena Plumbing, based in Sumner County. This is the part of our lives that keeps us financially fed. I function behind the scenes as an Office Administrator but the heart of this partnership is my husband, George. He is a 4th generation plumber and takes this knowledge seriously, working with integrity, talent, and a lot of muscle (body and brain).
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success can really be defined by each person and circumstance differently I suppose. Personally, I believe success is the achievement of any goal, whether planned or by accident. I think we can all admit that not every aspect of our lives are planned, some fall into our laps and we choose whether or not to play it out. I also strongly believe that there’s success in failures, if handled in a healthy way with good intentions. There’s lessons in everything, especially perceived failures. To me that in itself can be, and should be, a success as well. As long as there’s accountability and learning with good intentions.
Pricing:
- Donations for any amount are accepted on our website www.TabibuAfrica.org
- Handmade items are also available on our website and every penny goes towards current projects and grants.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.TabibuAfrica.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tabibuafricainc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TabibuAfrica
- Other: GuideStar: https://www.guidestar.org/profile/46-0666911
