By Jennifer Buske Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 19, 2009
After sharing her hairstyling skills with the Prince William area for more than seven years, Rappahannock County resident Cyndi Welch took her talent to a new audience last month: residents of Kenya.
Welch, along with two other local hairstylists and an aesthetician, spent 12 days just outside Nairobi, teaching young men and women a trade, Welch said, that can help them feed their families and survive.
“The Lord has blessed us with this amazing gift of hairstyling and hairdressing, so when we [found out] we could go teach these young men and women, we were so excited,” said Welch, 32. “What a wonderful experience to share your gift with someone else.”
The stylists, who work at the Harmony Salon and Spa and Tranquility Day Spa and Salon, both in Manassas, taught about 20 Kenyans how to cut, color and style hair. The crew also brought about $3,000 worth of hairstyling tools donated by Beauty Scope in Loudoun County, Tranquility officials said.
“I’ve never had people so willing to learn and so gracious,” said Welch, who works at Tranquility. “It was amazing teaching them, and they had no fear. This is what will get them out of poverty, so they wanted to do and learn whatever they could.”
The trip to Africa was arranged through the Tin Roof Society, a new nonprofit organization that works to connect those in need with people who have time and talents to share. Ohio resident Shawn Koonce, who started the society and once was a missionary in Africa, was a guest speaker at Tranquility last year and arranged the trip.
“Any specialized school or training is so out of reach for” some in Kenya, Koonce said. “So if you bring that opportunity to their doorstep, it really sets off a spark.” He added that this was the first trip arranged under his organization.
Stylists spent a good part of early 2009 doing raffles, charity events and yard sales to cover the $3,200 per person cost for the trip.
“I’ve always wanted to visit Africa but never thought of doing it as a mission trip,” said Stacy Bowling, 37, a Harmony hair designer and Manassas resident. “But once I heard what we could achieve there, I saw it as a great opportunity for me to give back.”
Toting almost 20 suitcases of blow-dryers, scissors, bleach, aprons and other donations, the team from Virginia set up shop in Kawangware, one of the largest slums in East Africa. The stylists taught students five to eight hours a day for almost a dozen days at Coco T’s Hair Affair salon, a tiny shop where Koonce got his hair cut when he lived in Africa.
The goal, stylists said, was to equip the students with a trade that could help them become self-sufficient and financially stable. The area around Coco T’s is severely impoverished, and people live without running, clean water and in homes with dirt floors that are no bigger than an American car. Some struggle each day, Welch said, just to stay alive.
Although a slum, Welch said, the area has a wealth of hair salons where the students can pick up work. Beauty is “the universal language,” she said, so no matter how poor or wealthy, women want to look nice.
Koonce said that a few of the students are making plans to open a salon and that the owner of Coco T’s is looking to expand his business now that there is more trained help.
The Virginia stylists said the trip also gave them a new perspective on life. They said they have learned not to take even the littlest things, such as running water, light switches and toilet paper, for granted.
“I’d never experienced poverty like this,” Welch said. “It was really difficult to experience and something we don’t face every day.”
Fauquier resident Angela Edmonds, a hairstylist and teacher at Tranquility’s academy, said it was not only the conditions in Kenya but also the people there who gave her a new appreciation of life.
“These people were the most humbling I’ve ever met and have so much hope even when they have so little. . . . All you want to do is hug them,” said Edmonds, 36. “If I’m having a bad day, all I do is think of my trip to Africa and I realize how fortunate I am.”
Edmonds, along with the other stylists, said they are thinking about returning to Africa next year to help another round of students. As for the Tin Roof Society, Koonce said he plans to organize several more trips that allow people to share their talents with those in need around the world.
“Everyone should do this at least once,” Edmonds said. “It was a very humbling experience, and I just hope that we really did help and make a difference.”
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