Kelly Davis is an aspiring model, actress – and head of an international charity.
That’s a lot for someone who just turned 22.
Davis, a native Wichitan, moved to Los Angeles four years ago to pursue a career in modeling and acting. In March, she participated in a Los Angeles-based pageant called Queen of the Universe, representing Kenya. Pageant participants had to be at least half native of the country they represented.
That’s was a natural for Davis because her mother, Cecilia Wambugu-Davis, is a native of Kenya who married an American and lives in Wichita.
The pageant also required her to promote a charitable cause.
She adopted as her cause the elimination of female genital mutilation, a common practice on girls in Africa, including in Kenya.
“I found that charity platform, more than acting, more than modeling, showed me about my purpose in life,” she said.
The summer after the pageant, she traveled with family and friends to Kenya to visit extended family. While there, she spoke at several girls schools about female genital mutilation, that they still had a choice.
While there, she discovered a much more achievable short-term goal for her charitable impulse: The Kiwanja Ndege girls primary school has 200 girls and one primitive outhouse.
It’s a health hazard and a daily humiliation for those young girls, she said.
Gilbert Omido, a longtime Wichita dentist, Kenyan native and friend of the Davis family, traveled to Kenya this summer with the family.
“This was her doing,” Omido said. “She saw that it would give those girls more dignity.”
Davis formed Kelly W. Davis Running International with the goal of raising the money to build new toilets: eight to 10 toilets with septic tanks.
The goal is $12,000 for the project.
The fundraising event will be 5 p.m. Jan. 10 at the La Quinta Inn, 7335 E. Kellogg. It will feature dinner, music and speeches. Tickets are $100 per person.
To get tickets, contact Wambugu-Davis at 316-992-8578 or jecewa@hotmail.com or Margaret Omido at 316-648-0667 or margaretomido@yahoo.com.
