See Beautiful Grant Applicant: Canopy Life International

The feature below is brought to you by Canopy Life International, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about Canopy Life International, please visit their website page: here.

Beauty, belonging, and innovation

Canopy Life Academy is a boarding school in Kenya for elementary age students from rural communities. With the help of many amazing people, we are empowering these vulnerable children to become Godly innovators who can end the cycle of poverty for themselves and their communities. Our organization’s values are beauty, belonging and innovation.

I (Christi Gordy | founder) had been working in Kenya for almost 10 years before I began to more fully understand the incredible barriers that are keeping rural children caught in the cycle of poverty. It was overwhelming to me to realize that the odds are stacked against them on every side.

For students in rural Kenya, there’s only a 50% chance that they will make it to high school and even less of a chance they will go to college. No matter how far they go, students will graduate to a 42% unemployment rate. This means, there are no jobs waiting for them, and the current education system is not giving them the critical thinking or problem-solving skills they need to create a job for themselves.  In addition, 100% of our students from rural villages have experienced multiple ACE’s (adverse childhood experience) or even childhood trauma before they come to us in grade four.

Left in this reality, students phase out of the school system at the end of 8th grade when free public education ends with no skills to create a job for themselves, to provide for their families or even to dream of a future. 

While the relationships and community in rural areas are immensely meaningful, the severity of these statistics means that dignity, belonging, choice, agency and purpose are being erased in these children before they can even take root.

At Canopy Life Academy, we are all working together to flip the odds for students like these, giving them the heart, home, mindset and skills that they need to dream with their Creator and become who they were meant to be.

Canopy Life students live with two house parents (a husband and wife team) in a residential program that functions like a family, all the way down to chores, birthday celebrations, morning devotions and evening family worship.

They are taught every day by teachers who are engaging their minds in discussion, comparison, and hands on activities that cultivate their critical thinking skills and ensure that they are learning to ask the right questions, not just memorize the right answer.

Our students spend time every week in Innovation class where they are learning the hard skills needed to start their own business and bring solutions to their communities: everything from technical drawing and assembling prototypes, to money management, leadership styles, design thinking, and computer skills. And, every summer, teams come to expand their worldview and their idea banks with field trips and cultural experiences.

Most importantly, day in and day out, Canopy Life students are living with spiritual guides and mentors who are encouraging them how to follow Jesus and practice His way of life.

Whether or not they attend college, Canopy Life students will have the skills to cultivate an idea to market, grow a healthy business and lead others with integrity. Our vision is that they will return to their rural community as Godly innovators who will provide jobs, solutions and leadership to their whole community.

In its very essence, this work is restoring beauty to those from whom poverty has done nothing but take.

As a core value, beauty is seen in everything we do from programs that restore dignity, identity, and purpose to students and parents to the way we strive (within tight budget confines) to keep our environments beautiful, peaceful, inspiring and creative. 

This is not easy. Often in nonprofit work, beauty (and even quality) is quickly abandoned for the sake of maximizing funding or the intense demands of environmental challenges. Beauty is not considered essential when weighed against the immensity of the need. But at Canopy Life, we believe that beauty is essential for true restoration in any poverty alleviation efforts, and we strive to value this truth in all that we do.

We are honored to be considered for the See Beautiful grant, and we are excited for more people to join this story. Learn about ways you can get involved at www.canopylife.org.

Submitted by Christ Gordy

Founder and Executive Director, Canopy Life International