Stories From The Field

In November 2007, I made my way back to the land that some have described to me as my spiritual home… the land of Kenya, to visit my friends and family there, and to do some work with SFH. There was something different in the air, different than when I’d last been there just a few months earlier. There was a charge, like when you rub your feet against a wool carpet, building and building, till you’re afraid to touch anything metal, because you know it’s going to sting….

Walking through Kibera, I found myself at an ODM rally, where emotions were high, the party leaders had the crowd chanting the various campaign slogans till the collective voice became a deafening roar. I walked away and continued my journey to the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy. That day I’d met up with the girls and let them know that the books for Form 3 were on their way. I also met up with another friend (of a friend), who at that moment instantly became my friend. He gave me the tour of his development organization, and the work he’d been doing in Kibera… true grassroots, true empowerment, teaching the community to build itself.

He had youth off the streets involved in the arts, he had single mothers running their own businesses and becoming self-sustaining. All over Kibera, that day, were the signs of development, and the hope of future prosperity. Change was happening because of love, and because of the efforts and togetherness of the common man, using the resources they had, they were able to create, and transform.

That was the last time I was to see Kibera in the state, probably for a long, long time. Today, Kibera is burning, and many of its residents have fled. Overrun by gangs and fear… My friend from the development organization, has fled, his home and belongings burned to the ground, and all his work, work for the love of Kibera and its people, now destroyed because of politicing and ethnic hatred. And that’s what kills me, all the rioting, all the protesting and violence and murder, is supposedly about bringing back justice and equality to Kenya, looking to leaders to save them, when I feel the people have lost sight, and have been manipulated by these leaders, because change will only take place when the people change their communities. So many years of progress have been destroyed in a matter of days, by ethnic violence.

250,000 at least have been displaced around the country. Watching the news, and seeing the places I’ve worked in Kibera, covered in ash, and black smoke, leaves me heartbroken. That is the true injustice, not about voter rigging, or the right of one party to be in power over another, but the dividing of a once peaceful nation, that the most fragile of communities has now a long way to go to regain the momentum it once had, that those who have truly given their lives to bring something significant to their community, now have nothing to show for it.

Kibera, my heart is with you today, and I know you will recover, but the choice is yours.

I was raised up speaking Kiswahili (mostly Sheng) and Dholuo. So English pretty much came second after Kiswahili (”Swa” as it known here). My current residence is Wanyee, this is a small estate off Ngong Road in the city of Nairobi. Before i moved to Wanyee. I lived in Mathare North (”Mnet”, as it popularly known). I lived in Mnet almost my entire life. My family, friends, enemies, everyone that I know are there. I went to school there. Basically, Mnet represents my whole life.

I was brought up in a 4-walled room (single room) along with my 5 brothers and I can tell you that this was very comfortable for me; I had known no other house. I was fortunate enough to go to school as my father valued education but I did not at that time. I never saw the importance (especially in the primary level) but I managed to finish. My father struggled to make ends meet and despite that he managed to take all of us to school, up to a certain level, of course.

When i cleared high school i really had bad grades.i could not go to college(i never attained a college grade) and on top of that my father had no money to take me to another college.i wanted to repeat high school but could not because of financial constraints. I stayed out for one year doing church service.It is in this service that I met group of Americans who were visiting Nairobi for the first time. I had never in my life had Americans friends and these were my first real American friends. They showed so much love and care that I had never witnessed in my life before even in my family. They basically turned my life around and taught me so many things in the process.

Education here (Kenya) is not so important to many, save for the rich. A big percentage of the population drop of out school for one reason or the other. One would tell you “Why should I go to school and eat nothing at night”? KWANINI (Why? in Swa). And you stand there helpless with nothing to do. Many who offer to help children to go to school do it with so many conditions, and this discourages so many people and hence youth at a very young age find themselves in drugs and other abuses.

Seeds For Hope has stepped in at the right time, it’s never too late. Very young children as young as 10yrs get pregnant even with the free primary education and have given up on life at that young age. Because most do not know the importance of education of because they are simply too poor to afford the basic needs and hence the saying “I’d rather look for food than waste my time going to school”

Many of us who are encouraged everyday by Seeds For Hope staff are thankful but there are still so many more out here that need help. Everyday they search for answers that they don’t find. And I believe that everyone who is taking action out there is helping in little way possible to bring smiles and confidence to the youth here in Africa.

Junae Ndolo, a volunteer with Seeds For Hope, is a web applications developer and aspiring entrepreneur in Nairobi, Kenya working for one of the prominent HIV/AIDS clinics in the country.  

Today, the world marks the International Day for Eradication of Poverty. As I went through the morning paper today, there were a number of articles and ads that highlighted campaigns and issues related to the day’s theme: Poverty. Every piece began with statistics and definitions of what it means. And it made me think… Is there really a single and right definition of poverty?

Institutions that monitor international development and the global economy also for years have set quantifiable definitions based on indicators which we’ve all heard about at some point or in some form. Maybe you also study or work within the area of public health and development…. Or maybe its in those 2 minute briefs on the evening news or during celebrity interviews that intermittently discuss the topic of global welfare. I’m not downplaying the importance of all this. On the contrary, they are critical! These markers and statistics give us very clear indicators which we can conceptualize and measure progress or regression in light of all the activity happening and funding being allocated. I’ve given it much thought, done academic research and also considered my experiential observations working in the field. Still, I question if we’ve lost a greater understanding of what poverty is.

When you consider circumstances of poverty – in the many forms it manifests itself in – emotional, material, spiritual, and physical – the bottom line is this: Poverty is inextricably linked to human suffering and suffering is something that cannot be captured by a definition. I read an article in the Daily Nation today, which is the primary national newspaper here in Kenya entitled. “Its Time to Stand up and Speak Against Poverty.” Its first paragraph is definitely meant to make a devastating impact on its readers:

“ A Child dies every three seconds as a result of extreme poverty. More than 1 billion people around the world live in abject poverty, on less than 1$ a day. About 800 million people go to bed hungry every night and more than 6,000 people die from HIV/AIDS everyday.”

Astounding and devastating? Yes. Grabbing? No… at least not personally. I’m telling you as much as these depictions of poverty is important – we are surrounded with it constantly to the point that it can just become numbing.

Let me share with you what was the most grabbing and impacting statement in the entire ¾ page article. It was the first sentence in the second paragraph which simply stated to me the most important fact that we must hold on to in our awareness of the immeasurable levels of suffering that surround our world: “ It does not have to be this way.”

This is the point. This is the fact that enables us to take a stand and speak and act. It does not have to be this way. And this is why my understanding poverty and approach to affecting change has always been one that considers the definitions, indicators and measurements but is not bound by its limitations to perceive impact and improvement – but capturing also that you are touching that part of a person who is suffering. The fact is that the alleviation of poverty and human suffering can’t be approached as a formula with fixed elements that will derive a successful or exclusivly quantifiable outcome. Suffering and poverty cut deeper than material quantification. Poverty has a personal impact on people, which must be addressed as their daily earnings increase, their access to safe drinking water and adequate health services improve and as they learn or begin a trade to stand on their feet. It requires humanity in how you understand it and how you approach people living in it. I will always understand development in a wider scope which is not simply a matter of changing statistics – although that undeniably important- but rather restoring undeniable human rights: to live, to exist, to express, to explore and to become the full person we were all created to be.

So today, if you remember that it’s the International Day for Eradication of Poverty, I want to encourage you to really explore what it means- the lives and needs behind the statistics, behind the images and all that stuff. From there you will know just where you stand. You will know what to say. You will know how to respond. Finally, from there you also can refocus your attention onto the dreams, the growth, the rights and the HOPE that will be restored to others from that which you discovered inside yourself.

I recently read something said by Nelson Mandela:

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.

It’s been 3 years now since I moved to Kenya from NY. I don’t realize how the time passed to be honest. And I don’t quite feel the difference from NY anymore because it feels so much like home. But, being in a country like Kenya brings many questions to the forefront of your mind. Questions that you might not be so inclined to mull over if you were maybe in another part of the world, or even here but entrenched in a more sheltered more comfortable lifestyle. I have often mulled over questions of social inequality and justice between continents but even between communities in the same country. And I have to say it is even easier working with HIV/AIDS to get lost in what seems like an endless prolonging of an inevitable prognosis, no matter what you do. Or so one would think.

I have always seen things a bit differently. And if its one thing that is a residual life lesson for me it’s a lesson of opportunity that I wish to share with you. The questions we have in our minds that seem irresolvable….. The problems that compound society and the world at large… the gaps that exist for justice and humanity are quite simply opportunities.

These are opportunities to take a stand and commit to making a difference, even if your reach is to your neighbor- where ever you may be. It’s an opportunity to impact someone’s life with a word, a touch, a prayer or even a glance. It’s an opportunity to remind people on the other end of those questions that they are not forgotten, and they never will be.

Seeds for Hope is an opportunity for many young people. And being here on the ground working is giving me the gift to ask questions but also to seize opportunity. Not too long ago when Paul was here doing the entire preliminary work for our upcoming campaign, he introduced us to The Kibera Girls Soccer Academy and its director Abdul Kassim. In this informal school we came to meet young girls whose struggle to get an education became an opportunity for them to break down barriers for girl-schooling not only for themselves but for younger girls soon to walk in their steps.

Abdul works to bring these young people their education not by focusing on the challenges and restrictions, but on the possibility that exists from these girls’ inspired lives. It’s far easier to get lost in the magnitude of barriers before them: the money, the costs, the politics, the volume of people who need help, the culture the families…. It can go on an on. But instead they seized the opportunity to react with what they were able to do… and it snow-balled. SFH has committed to react along side Kibera Girl’s. We are engaging in a partnership with them to provide them with text books for their next level of academic education. And this, we expect and hope, to be the start of more opportunities to react. Again and again.

Abdul Kassim and some of the girls, from The Kibera Girls Soccer Academy

You have to realize though, that opportunities cannot be put on hold…. They pass. Its important to remember that at whatever place you will start, others will join you by the sheer commitment that you exhibit… no matter how small a start you take. That’s how SFH began and that that’s how we joined Abdul and his girls.

You see, it’s in reacting to questions that you find your answers. And the biggest and most complex problems of the human condition find their resolve a bit more within yourself because you know you’ve taken a stand and will make your mark. Nelson Mandela’s statement resounds so strongly within me. Most of the complications around us are man-made…. And even in our pursuit for Divine guidance and intervention, we have the ability and strength from God to take an Action and help change the world.

Life in Nairobi has been bounteous, as can be expected from the trend of my other African tales. I am particularly overwhelmed by the people that seem to come into my path. Between Helen, individuals I had the privilege to volunteer with through Invisible Children, and now here in Nairobi, I am in rare company. I am blessed to experience wisdom, strength, playfulness, and compassion that is at best, hard to come by. I’ll introduce you to more of these individuals soon.

From the first day I arrived in Nairobi, I felt plugged-in. Nadia (she’s one of them!) put me up in her beautiful new apartment. I am totally spoiled with lights that always work and water that is always running, and hot at the push of a switch and a turn of knob! In fact, I’m so accustomed to my 3-4 day showers from Gulu, that I am out of practice. I have to remind myself to shower in the middle of the day, because it’s vanished from my morning routine. Eh, its probably better for my skin, and certainly better for the environment. J

The next day after I arrived I started volunteering with Nadia’s organization, Seeds for Hope. We are mounting a campaign to jump-start new programs and support for the organization. We are preparing to mail out some pamphelets, collecting addresses, Paul revamped the website at www.seedsforhope.org , I am researching various funding sources, and we are all building community connections. It’s a great vibe between us. Everyone is committed to giving of themselves—time, energy, thoughts, prayers, with humility and a seeking heart, to plant even just “some few” seeds of hope…I am still ignited and fresh from my Gulu High School experience, and it feels so right to plug right into this work.

Not that we don’t get our down time! I am definitely getting caught up on my American delicacies: lattes, pizza, ice cream, Indian food, and just the shear luxury of choosing what I want to eat. I get plenty of local food too, which is great, because I am not at all satiated from it. I’m loving the balance that Nairobi brings! I am getting time to get caught up on “vegg-out” time as well, with movies, “Friends” re-runs, girly candle-lit pajama evenings, facebook, and surfing the net. In the midst of such spoiled fun, I’ve even been humbled to have the chance to join a community in mourning the loss of a baby girl at a burial ceremony.

Teaching theatre to Coptic Youth
On Sunday I taught a theatre workshop with the youth. They were every teacher’s dream. They were attentive and so eager to participate. Art and performance is just so natural in East Africa. I am finding that a large number of students is an obstacle, but an eager learning spirit surpasses it. I did more theatre with 40 participants in 1 ½ hours, than I can manage with my Performance Club of 8 students in 2 hours time!

Yvonne, Kenyan Performing Arts Group
I’ve also had the chance to visit other organizations. Paul and Nadia connected me with a Canadian lady named Yvonne. She is a masseuse by profession and a fellow lover of dance, movement, and theatre. I’m coming to call myself a masseuse in the same way I have come to call myself a dancer. I have no training, but I love to do it. Yvonne has taken me under her wing. I spent a couple days with her and KPAG. KPAG is a “theatre meets dance” group. They improvise, fuse, and play with music, dance, and theatre, primarily dance, and create unique performances while training young people in the performing arts. Yvonne is part of a massage initiative that has been introduced to KPAG, which values the healing power of touch for the dancer AND the audience. Yvonne is teaching a new group of young people with disabilities to self-massage, move, and play ensemble-building games in order to train to be mixed into KPAG. I joined her and another teacher in two classes the first day. Then I hung around and got to know some of the youth, and watched a little open-floor performance. They were such an easy group to get comfortable with, and as always, so warm and welcoming. Artists are artists are artists…they were passionate, dreamy, liberal, and playful. Just like home. So I went back today to join my friend Moses’ ballet class. Thankfully for me, it was the first level course. I had a great time leaping and piroutting around on my toes. They were very forgiving, and Moses was a great teacher.

SHOFCO
Yesterday I met Kennedy with an organization called Shining Hope for Community. Shofco does community development work in Kibera through theatre, sports, a women’s empowerment initiative, sanitation, and information technology. I went as learner and representative of Seeds for Hope, and I found a friend. Kennedy is a kindred spirit, a extraordinary heart, and a truly multi-dimensioned genius. He was raised in Kibera. He is formally educated and thoroughly life educated. Throw in his creativity, compassion, and charisma and you find an individual with a rare perspective on community development and life in general. We had a great conversation over lunch, and over less than two hours we generated enough ideas to keep both SHOFCO and SFH running for years. Since I am only temporarily in Kenya, I can only hope that SFH will continue to forge a connection with this unique organization.

After lunch, Ken took me back to Kibera to see his community and meet others from Shofco.

Just two days left in Kenya. Thursday and Friday Nadia and I have meeting with a guy from a school in Kibera and another gentlemen who runs a boys rehab center to continue networking and merging ideas.

I woke up today, just like any other day. Opening my eyes minutes before my alarm clock, and the usual tension between my bed and the outside world, as to which would serve me better for the next few hours. My bed will serve me, but I could serve the outside world… and so I got up, and out.

We’re working on a campaign now, to create more awareness in the US about the growing need of education in countries like Kenya in the way of fighting and eventually crushing poverty. While there are many actions needed to be taken to end poverty, education is just one of them, and that’s where SFH fits in.

Nadia gave me the responsibility to go out and find contacts and make relationships with people, that we can both build relationships with, and also interview, as part of a short film that will be one of the main venues of our campaign.

Coffee With Gerald

Gerald was a man I got in contact with, through a friend named Debs. Gerald who was brought up in Western Kenya, has made it his life’s mission to educate young people. This guy is SO active, not just in his full time job as director of a Primary School in Riruta (outside of Nairobi) but he volunteers at Vision Africa, and administers a 118 school partnership in the Kibera slums, among MANY other things.

Gerald and I spoke over coffee, and then he invited me to take a trip with him to Riruta, to check out his school and meet the kids, and see if we could arrange for some video footage, and interviews for Saturday. We took a nice but bumpy Matatu trip out to Riruta, to a place called “Precious Junction”… named after the Precious Blood Catholic Mission in the area….

We arrived at the St. John’s Academy, a primary school for the equivalent of K through 8. One room for each grade level. 9 Rooms. The teachers are paid roughly 4500 KSH per month, which is about 60 dollars… roughly 2 dollars per day. School fees cover all expenses from rent, to salaries, to food, to logistics… and they’re barely making it. The kids however, are resilient! Many of them are performing better, according to the national standards, than the “upper class” school, JUST next door. They are proud of their school, and proud of their work. Unfortunately, many will not be able to continue to high school.

The grade 7-8 classes were much smaller, and mostly women were attending. Turns out that many children drop out after grade 6, because it is a weed-out year, in the Kenyan system. Many people don’t see the need at all to be educated because jobs are just unavailable. Why spend the money for a degree if you can’t even get work afterwards? This is the big question that many people ask.. and it’s a question that our organization will have to face.

I got a chance to meet the kids, and talk with Gerald in depth, and I see this as a great opportunity to find a school to partner with.

Soccer Academy

Later that afternoon, I met up with another man that my friend referred me to, named Abdul. Abdul is a technician for one of the major telecom providers in the country, and he has made it his life’s work, outside of his day-job to change the lives of a group of young women in Kibera. It started out as a soccer club, where these girls could get away from the stresses of their home lives, and some of the high risk situations that they are in, in order to form community and partake in something positive.

After some time, Abdul kept seeing the need for these girls to get educated, and to overcome their situations, but unfortunately, the money to pay for secondary schools is just unavailable! Usually girls in their early – mid teenage years can be taken to early marriages, and other less-favorable situations, but he wanted to give these girls a chance.

With very limited resources, he decided to start a secondary school of his own, and not only is he running it, but the girls themselves take on MUCH of the administration. They are making and building their own school! While their school is not government approved, the idea that they will devote 6-7 days a week to their education, even if it doesn’t have a presidential stamp on it, is something impressive.

I met these girls, and they really really were a blessing to me. On their own accord, they are taking their education into their own hands, despite what the society around them would rather have them do. The name of the school is the Girl’s Soccer Academy.

When the number of girls doubled, and private funding for meals did not increase, the girls decided that they will skip meals, in order to make sure ALL are fed all the other days.

I cannot wait to spend more time at this school, next week. This is a story that has really touched my heart, and I hope that through this campaign, these young women will be able to tell their story to you all.

Old Friends, New Opportunities

SO back to my old friends, A and J… That day we just hung out for about an hour outside the Yaya mall, where we just chatted. Spending time with those 2 is always so special to me. They are survivors, with so much potential, but so much risk at the same time. Asking me questions about life in the States. While they are able to survive in the toughest conditions, and have been knee deep in the harsh life of the Nairobi Streets, they maintain an innocence at the same time… its just humbling.

These guys share their food with me, even if it comes little at a time…

I’m hoping for the best for them. These guys, ever since my 2006 trip, have just been so much of my motivation for returning…. not just for them, but the idea that they represent something huge… the potential of the human spirit, undermined by circumstance, but ready to just grow, and come alive. Empowerment… that’s what it’s all about for me. Empowering people to just LIVE.

Small steps… small steps… but I have to keep going with this, even if it is for a short time every year… it’s the short time that I really do live for.