Who Is WAF?
See also: Africa Staff
WAF Founders
Kelli Day
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Kelli has invested more than 20 years in corporate and non-profit America - in public relations, television, marketing/advertising, missions and church program development. Thrown into the great career Mix-Master are a BS degree from Texas A&M and more than five years of non-profit consulting, grant writing and NGO development.
In May 2006, the concept for World Advocacy Foundation was born in Africa. Helping passionate nationals develop into leaders in their third-world communities, and building programs that address the critical issues of great need in broken places, has become a life mission that brings together years of education and experience, with a heart for the creator of the universe, who places us here to make a difference.
With a weathered passport, much of a childhood spent in the Middle East, and a killer ability to live out of carryon luggage for three weeks, Kelli divides her time between her home in Washington state, and wherever the red dirt roads take her.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us…We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Nelson Mandela
Personal Thanks
I have struggled with honestly acknowledging the source of the gratitude I am filled with as I bring a big dream and years of restlessness and ideas to fruition. For as much as anyone in my life has supported my vision and given unconditional love, there have been those who have equally shaped my life in their conditional love, flawed friendship, and largely ineffective efforts at transformational development. I must thank them all, for together they have brought me to the place I stand today, and for that I am most grateful.
Thanks to Bono of U2 and the prophet Isaiah for echoing my heart. They say,
“God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.”
“If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places.” (Isaiah 58: 9-11)
Thanks to the little girl Curly, who was my grandmother, for giving me a sense of righteous anger against perpetrators and abusers of women and children. Your pain helped create my advocate’s heart. Thank you to Grandpa Braun for your great legacy of giving, your quiet and life-long, faithful support of the poor, the afflicted, and the lost. Thank you to my Dad, who gave me the genes that allow me to stand up and call BS when necessary, to pick my battles, and fight with everything in me. Thank you to my Mother, who showed me a vibrant, life-altering faith, and a very big and real God.
Thank you to the beautiful African women who showed me remarkable strength and courage. They are my inspiration. Thanks to the many friends along the way who argued, debated, tested ideas into the wee hours, trying to get it right. My lifelong quest was honed by your great minds and hearts. Thanks also to MVPC and AIS, the places where I worked for years; you both gave me big fields to run in, and so much of what WAF is doing today is because you gave me the freedom to pursue vision, excellence, and getting it right.
With abundant gratitude,
Kelli
James Montaney
Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board
Jim has been a commercial/industrial site work and demolition contractor in the Pacific Northwest for the past 25 years - building or demolishing everything from restaurants and service stations to bridges, highways, and tunnels. This work has for many years allowed Jim to financially partner with child advocates and champions of the disenfranchised including World Vision, Children International, and World Concern as well as establish and direct a small scholarship foundation for African girls.
After many trips to Africa, and discussions with progressive African friends, something began to come together. Demolition and building became an analogy, a transformational idea with seeds that would take root. Demolish brokenness, injustice and poverty! Build transformational models that would empower lives! Much prayer, planning and pilot programming ensued and WAF had a staff and volunteers in three countries before it even had a name, and Jim knew he was part of something truly transformational.
With seven high-mileage, broken suitcases to his name, and a strong refusal to spend money on a higher-priced set, Jim spends the best of his resources, time and money, on the issues closest to his heart, brokenness and human tragedy. Jim resides in Issaquah but counts the homes and families of his many African friends his second home and family. Blessed with a burden to make a difference, Jim carries this to places where the grass grows tall under the African sun.
“We are a wealthy people in a desperately poor and broken world. A thousand times and more the prophets, priests, wise men, apostles, and the Christ plead with us and exhort us to care for the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the prisoners, the widows and the orphans. How easily we still spend our best on the trivial while neglecting those desperately needing our compassion.” -Jim Montaney
Personal Thanks
There are many voices that shape and define us. None of us really develop or create our own ideas, our own values, or our own goals. Our destinies are shaped and set in motion by thousands of people and experiences, most of which are as subtle and unintentional as a dream. Sometimes there are people that will passively or even unwittingly nurture and encourage and drive us to pieces of our destiny. It may be very rare that we understand completely the life that those around us breathe into our reality, yet I wish to acknowledge here a few people that I know have intentionally shaped my perspectives and values and encouraged me in significant ways.
Thanks first to my Dad. For as long as I can remember you have mostly willingly and tirelessly empowered my ventures and blessed my efforts often even setting aside parts of your own dreams and goals to do so. Your energy and hard work have blessed my life and much of my success has been purchased by your genius, work ethic, and dependability. I appreciate you. Thanks also to you Mom for at least a hundred thousand cups of coffee and twice as many cookies and for your annoying habit of fueling endless volleys of debate over incompatible dogmas, perspectives, and clashing values. I appreciate you. (And the coffee.)
Thanks also to my siblings - your rescuer hearts bless me. I am proud of you both and I love that we all share that unique zeal to bring transformation to the broken and powerless of our world. Thanks also to my brother-in-law for helping me find the financial courage to make a real difference in African communities by partnering with me when I most needed the encouragement.
Thanks to Ms. Turnbull for being the first person to partner with me in my earliest efforts at transformational advocacy work for African girls. And thanks again to her for not abandoning this partnership when my life was largely a train-wreck. Thanks to Ms. Utigard for the world simulation adventure that forever altered my perception of my place and role in the world. Thanks to Michael Yaconelli for the story of the little boy that wanted to be a firefighter.
Thanks to Aaron and Andrea for having bigger hearts and a better understanding of grace than anyone I know. Thanks to Kelli for her bold and daring vision and for her 10,000 rewrites and adjustments to put transformational excellence in every advocacy project and program while also weeding out the drivel and nonsense.
Blessings,
Jim
WAF Advisory Board
World Advocacy Foundation has partnered with the following women leaders in Zambia and Ghana. We share common goals and strategies in development work in Africa. We have embarked upon all of our projects, conferences, pilot programs and educational scholarships under their direction and advisement. They have been selected for their relevancy to our work, their vision, and their integrity. Upon final interview and acceptances, we hope to formally empower them as our Advisory Board in 2008.
Betty Chella Nalungwe (formerly of U.S. Embassy in Lusaka)
Unicef, Lusaka, Zambia
Specialty areas: Communications and Program Development
Ernestina Agyepong
Unicef, Accra, Ghana
Specialty areas: Health and Nutrition
Eugenia Akuete
Business Owner and Entrepreneur, Accra, Ghana
Specialty areas: Development, Women’s Empowerment through Business
Mercy Darko
World Vision, Dodowa, Ghana
Specialty areas: Sustainable development, Rural programs
Annie Chanda
National Legal Aid Clinic for Women, Lusaka, Zambia
Specialty areas: Legal, Gender Equality
Grace Banda
Professional counselor and nurse (retired), Lusaka, Zambia
Specialty areas: Mental Health, Medical Health
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