Rye Barcott, founder and president of Carolina for Kibera and a member of Carolina’s Class of 2001, will give a free public lecture this Friday (Feb. 8) at 5 p.m. in the Fed Ex Global Education Center Auditorium. Named ABC World News’ Person of the Year for 2006, Barcott is the guest of the Carolina Annual Fund, University Career Services and the Carolina Class of 2008, which are co-sponsoring his talk and a reception to follow from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the center’s atrium.
Established in 2001, CFK is an international, nongovernmental organization based in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. In the United States, CFK is a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation and program of the University, based at the Center for Global Initiatives. CFK was forced to suspend operations in January as rioting and unrest broke out in Kenya.
Named a TIME Magazine and Gates Foundation “Hero of Global Health,” CFK fights abject poverty and helps prevent violence through community-based development in the Nairobi, Kenya, slum of Kibera and beyond. Run by Kenyans and advised by American and Kenyan volunteers, CFK’s primary mission is to promote youth leadership and ethnic and gender cooperation in Kibera through sports, young women’s empowerment and community development. Additionally, CFK works to improve basic health care, sanitation and education in Kibera.
Barcott served on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps for five years and is currently a joint MPA and MBA candidate at Harvard University. He plans to speak about CFK’s growth since its founding, and its challenges given the current volatility in Kenya.
Carolina for Kibera Web site: http://cfk.unc.edu/
Annual Fund contact: Rebecca Bramlett, (919) 843-3317, rebecca_bramlett@unc.edu
News Services contacts: Susan Houston, (919) 962-8415 or susan_houston@unc.edu,
LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589