Kenya, June-July 2007 What a trip! We started off a bit badly not having had our luggage follow us after leaving London. We did however finally get it - 4 days later when we were in Maasai Mara. A great thank you to the Free the Children team who not only helped organize the first part of our visit but who diligently tracked down and brought our luggage from Nairobi all the way to the Mara!! I must mention that ''we'' means myself and my youngest daughter Vida. It was Vida's first trip to Africa. She was a wonderful traveling companion, a photographer and videographer without fear. You can read her comments and perspectives below. After a first day in Nairobi, we left by small propeller plane to the Schule ya Bogani - Kenya School of the Savannah - Free the Children's Centre in the Maasai Mara. We stayed at the Centre for 6 days spending time exploring the countryside, meeting community members both Maasai and Kipsigi as well as visiting schools. Motony, Enelerai, Emorijoi. Three schools each providing classes at the primary level from standard 1 to 8. The schools are built in a large square setting on land donated by the community. Each class is housed in a separate building. There is one building for the library and headmaster/teacher office. Some 400+ students attend each school. The classes are clean with cement floors, windows, a large chalkboard painted on the wall. The roof contains two large translucent sections in the sheet metal which provides more light into the class. The children sit 2-3 per school bench. The school motto and mission are posted on the walls. Surrounding each class building are short flowering hedges. Plaques adorn many buildings in tribute to the generous donors who funded them. Both a Kenyan and Canadian flag have their place in the school yard centre. The library contains a good selection of books and other supplies for the classes. Most textbooks are in English. Children are given instruction in Kiswahili and English, math, science and social sciences. There is a rainwater capture system which receives enough volume to provide for all the needs of the school. Water used for washing hands is saved to be used for cleaning the classrooms or watering the plants. Children are assigned cleaning and maintenance duties and can earn points to be rewarded with a t-shirt or other small item as a thank you for their extra help. The school often also acts as a community centre or gathering place as we saw as health clinics were held during our visit. At the end of each day, the principal holds a final assembly to speak to the children and have the kids bring home messages to their parents. Big soccer fields are almost a necessity at each school - it is the passion of children everywhere we turned. The older children attend classes from about 8:30 am to 5pm. One meal a day is provided by the government or a humanitarian aid group or Free the Children if both of these fail. It is a simple but solid meal of porridge. The younger and older kids eat at different times and have a number of recess periods to play and run outside. The kids seem very happy to be at school. The parents without exception know the importance of having their children educated. Poverty is a major obstacle, however, to children continuing their education to high school. Tuition is expensive if there is a local school to attend. It is almost prohibitive when the parents must consider boarding school. In that case, fees are approx. $1,200 per year (3 semesters). While primary school fees have been abolished in the last few years, high school fees will be moderately reduced by the government at the start of the new school year in January 2008. Other than poverty, the main obstacle for girls going to high school remains marriage and pregnancy. At 12 years old, most girls must be circumcised and at that point are considered women who must marry. A married woman no longer attends school nor can she attend later. She must be with her husband and family. Parents must pay for a dowry for the bride. This also exerts pressure on the poor families who don't see the gain in sending their daughters to school since they will leave the home anyways. Female circumcision and early marriage are slowly fading with schooling having been in place for some time now in most of these communities. Female role models make a huge difference in how the community and individual families view girls' value and their role in society. They realize what a girl's potential can be. Before a school is built, Free the Children work closely with the community to ensure their strong commitment and participation in the project. Land is donated by the community which also provides much of the labour to build the school. On-going maintenance and upkeep of the school is part of the community's responsibility as well. Teachers are paid by the government. However, the well designed and clean buildings, adequate school supplies and equipment as well as the strong community involvement help ensure that teachers will stay because of the good working conditions. We saw communities taking their development seriously, working side by side, starting up support groups and using their talents and determination to provide a better future for their children. We know our $100,000 investment this year in partnership with Free the Children will have equally positive results in yet another community in 2008. And then back to Nairobi… Our trip didn't end, however, in the Maasai Mara. We saw a number of other projects and organizations while in Nairobi. Our first stop was a visit to MYSA - Mathare Youth Sport Association. (see website www.mysakenya.org) We were stunned by the depth and breadth of the support being given by MYSA to the youth living in Mathare - a huge expanse of slums in Nairobi. Walking through the area with two MYSA staff, we couldn't believe the conditions that these families had to live in. Even today, reflecting back, it is still hard to understand how people can survive in such abject poverty and misery. Lack of clean drinking water, lack of latrines and proper hygiene, no electricity, crowded, small inadequate shelter - we felt it must be a miracle if any person manages to move beyond this place. And yet MYSA, for the last 20 years, has been helping children take the steps they need to move forward, believe in themselves and their future, support their community and grow into strong and participative citizens. From a humble start as a volunteer soccer league, MYSA now has more than 18,000 girls and boys not only playing soccer every year and competing internationally in many cases, but even more importantly, these children and teens are forces to be reckoned with in helping improve their community. This organization is an inspiration for similar urban areas across Africa. MYSA is run entirely by its members who have come up through the ranks from playing soccer to coordinating and supervising activities of all sorts: community clean-ups, HIV/AIDS awareness, peer to peer counseling, health and addiction issues and more. It is a lifeline in helping these amazing kids reach their potential. We next visited UNICEF Kenya to meet with the education specialist for the country. UNICEF's strong and ever important role in working alongside government and other community groups and NGOs was once again at the forefront. Statistics, research and information as well as knowledgeable and experienced staff form the basis for strategic planning to ensure that limited resources are placed in those areas where the most attention is needed. Kenya's aid requirements vary greatly from region to region as we saw from our visits to Maasai Mara and then to Nairobi. North Eastern Kenya has suffered severe droughts in the last years making life almost impossible for its nomadic tribes. Along the coast, poverty has made sexual tourism a thriving industry preying mostly on girls as young as 12 years old. UNICEF has also been working successfully with the Kenyan government for the announced decrease in high school tuition fees. Another well known organization in Kenya is AMREF - the African Medical and Research Foundation. Originally known as the Flying Doctors, AMREF has been in the field in Africa, based in Africa for over 50 years. Through AMREF Canada, we had the chance to meet with staff in Nairobi and learn more about how this organization works not only in the health field but in education as well. Of particular interest to us was a project underway now in Uganda which is helping bring young girls taken away as bush wives in the latest conflicts back to school. The trip, personally paid for, enables 60 million girls not only to see the projects we are supporting but to learn how we can be most effective in getting children and particularly girls to school. By understanding the various obstacles and challenges facing children, we can better gauge those projects and potential partners that can have the greatest impact in the communities they are supporting. More knowledge means better investments. Better and more effective investments mean our money can work that much harder at making a sustainable change for those most vulnerable and marginalized children around the world. Your donations are truly making a difference. Wanda Bedard
My first trip to Africa: Kenya!
An opportunity of a lifetime! Going to Kenya (with my Mom, Wanda) made me discover a whole new world. I learned about different cultures and a completely different look on life. Yet the people we met weren't all that different deep down. Kids were doing things all kids do: playing, laughing and being silly. Kenya is beautiful. I was stunned by the sights that surrounded us. I always pictured Africa as being a dry and desert kind of place, but it was lush with green vegetation. Everyone was so friendly. In the Masai Mara, everyone waved and smiled at you, no matter how busy they were. That's something I miss, because back here in North America, and even in Europe, when you look at a stranger and smile at them, they don't always smile back in a friendly way. Being in the Masai Mara and with Free the Children, I learned first hand how important education is to any society. We were lucky to see a community that had a school for a few years now, and we were able to see how empowered that community became. The women were starting clubs and support groups. Parents were attending medical clinics where they learned the basics of health so they could take better care of their families. The children were obviously being enlightened at school and bringing back buckets full of knowledge to their homes. The community was coming together and growing stronger. Most importantly, they did not lose their culture. Free the Children built the schools, but it was only with the help of the communities that they were able to make the schools effective. I realized that education really is the only answer to all their problems. It is through education that they learn how to stay healthy and prevent sickness and disease. It is with education that they can break the circle of poverty and become successful in life. It is through education that they learn that maybe some of their traditions are harmful to their children (ex.: female circumcision). Going on this trip and being exposed to such harsh realities made me realize how many tools and opportunities we have here in North America. We were not the ones who chose to be born in a rich country. Nor did anyone in a poor country choose to be born there. We have the wealth and knowledge to make a difference in their societies. Going back to Nairobi was another adventure on its own. Nairobi is a city with no middle class and you can tell. On one side of the road you have huge buildings and fancy hotels, and on the other side, hidden by a fence, is a huge slum where hundreds of thousands of people live. We got the chance to walk through the Mathare slums guided by a member of MYSA. I couldn't make someone understand how it felt to walk in those streets. Not with words, not with pictures, not even with video can anyone feel what it's like. I got the smallest taste of it, with only walking through. With that I was disgusted. The smell, the lack of space and privacy were overwhelming. There were cows, goats and pigs living amongst people. I would hardly consider the conditions suitable for the animals let alone families! No drinking water, no toilets, no way of maintaining hygiene; these are privileges for those with money. With an unemployment rate of about 60%, no wonder a quarter of the population live in the most extreme poverty. The very day after visiting the slums, we went to a meeting with UNICEF. We talked about projects they were working on- very positive things are happening. Also, we visited AMREF and heard about the amazing things they do. There are great projects and great people doing wonderful things around the world. They have experience in the areas they are working in and are the best people for the job. For us, living in the rich countries and not being able to make a difference hands on, what we can do is to support the people that are making a difference. We have the easy job. All in all I loved the trip. My eyes are now wide open and I'm ready to take action. I will try my best to convince people that education really is the best solution. It is the answer to so many problems! I saw the results! |