Miss NC International selected as an International Ambassador for the Nyanya Project!

Hello everyone!!

I hope you are all having a fabulous Easter Week! I am so excited to announce that I have been selected as an International Ambassador and Volunteer Coordinator for the Nyanya Project. During my senior year at Wake Forest University, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend 6 weeks in Kenya working with the HIV/AIDS crisis. While I was there, a wonderful and talented woman, Mary Martin Niepold was on the same trip. During out trip we had the wonderful opportunity to visit a shop called Amani Ya Juu. This shop was self-sustained by women, grandmothers, who gained knowledge, education and a living and were able to provide for their grandchildren who are HIV positive orphans. Well through this experience, Mary Martin Niepold was inspired to found the Nyanya Project. The Nyanya Project organizes grandmothers into cooperatives that ensure their long-term economic sustainability by generating, managing and reinvesting income; distributing funds for the women’s immediate needs; and setting an example of leadership for younger women in their villages and neighborhoods. Well, as the Board Co-Chair for Positive Wellness Alliance and as Miss North Carolina International, I was invited to a Nyanya luncheon (pictures below along with a portrait of one of the Grandmothers helped through Nyanya), and Mary Martin Niepold and I were able to re-connect after four years! She immediately invited me to a Volunteers Breakfast the next week, and I was invited to become a part of the Nyanya Project! I am so blessed and honored to be a part of this amazing organization and... I will have the opportunity to re-visit Kenya next June/July!!! I am thrilled beyond belief. HIV/AIDS is such a passion of mine, and ultimately I want to serve as an international ambassador for the HIV/AIDS crisis. Thank you to the Nyanya Project for inviting me into your amazing group! Please visit http://nyanyaproject.org/ to learn more about this wonderful organization and how you can help.

Thank you all for reading my blog!

All of my love and blessings,

Kristie Tobias
Miss North Carolina International

"Be the light that changes a life"