TwoHelp Kenya

Finishing in Nairobi

February 4, 2006 on 1:37 pm |

Amidst the confusion surrounding the collapse of a building, Susan and I returned to Nairobi for the last few days of our trip. Nairobi, like the rest of Kenya, grew on me during my stay. Warnings of danger are worth heeding but common sense is king. I would never wander alone in the streets of an unknown neighborhood in Boston let alone even consider it in a city with which I am unfamiliar. My fear of the city, based on unsolicited warnings from many different people, collapsed into the reality of the way I live my life and I enjoyed the final days I spent there.

The hospitality of the Kenya Red Cross was amazing. In every location we visited we were met with thankful and happy staff and volunteers. All of them were excited to meet us, more than willing to help however they could, and eager to boast of the successes of their programs. Running a volunteer-driven organization is a challenge, the tackling of which requires the motivation and drive of a saint. While the intentions of the Kenya Red Cross are admirable, volunteers need more than admiration to work. In an environment where there is nothing other than peer support and the occasional free T-shirt as incentive, the program managers and project coordinators of the Kenya Red Cross have built volunteer-driven programs more impressive than any other I have seen. Considering the economic status of most of the volunteers (remember: more than 50% of Kenyans survive on less than $1 per day), the Kenya Red Cross has done remarkably.

Of course, there is room for improvement. The output of our project is meant to build capacity internally to help the Kenya Red Cross move itself towards an even better position. As a team, we continue to work with the data we collected and look forward to the chance to apply the impact measurement instrument that we develop to the programs we visited.

As a parting gift to us, Winnie, our contact through the Fritz Institute, arranged for Susan and me to meet the director of the Kenya Wildlife Service and have a special tour of the Kenyan national animal orphanage inside of Nairobi National Park. While the rangers claimed that they were fully domesticated, since they had been orphaned at 3 weeks of age, walking into an enclosure with 3 fully grown cheetahs was nevertheless somewhat intimidating. Their hair is coarse, not soft, and the black spots protrude slightly further than the yellow hair surrounding them. It turns out that when you pet a cheetah behind the ear, it purrs like a regular housecat. They also lick like housecats, raspy tongues and all.

Anybody interested in a film that portrays some of the challenges of working in public health in Kenya should watch The Constant Gardener. Many of the locations in the film are places we visited during our trip and the issues raised, while fictional, are realistic and germane to the work that we did.

Kenya is a fascinating country. The demographics, climate, scenery, and styles of life vary so greatly from Kisumu to Mombasa that it is sometimes difficult to believe they are in the same country. As the dry northeastern portion of the country suffers from a terrible famine, I think frequently of the infrastructure and services that we have in the United States that prevent us from ever being hungry. Had Kenya our roads, food distribution would improve. Had Kenya our economy, purchasing power would improve and famished sustenance farmers would not need to walk away from the food that is available due to inability to purchase it. Had Kenya our sense of environmental protection, many of the drought stricken areas may still be lush forests and pastures.

Hope survives, in spite of the disappointing political situation in the country. As Kenyans come to terms with their young democracy and begin to understanding the power they have in their vote, the international community must also learn that they systems of funding that we have for developing countries need to improve. It is ironic that ‘Band-Aid’ was the name of the 1980’s effort to raise money for famine relief in Africa. Band-aid style relief and development support is exactly what Kenyans do not need. Donor organizations and countries must learn to locate and support Kenyan projects that build capacity and sustainability within the country, instead of bringing it with them from other places. What comes easily goes easily; the aid truly needed in Kenya is neither easy to understand nor apply. More than anything, it must all be undertaken with a slant towards encouraging transparency and the development of internal capacity within existing systems of government.

It is my hope that the project that we helped with contributes to the Kenya Red Cross in this manner - that they may have less need, in the future, for help from outside. I hope you enjoyed reading my updates from Kenya. TwoHelp.org will continue to pursue work in international public health and will maintain websites meant to help inform you of the work that we do. Please check back from time to time for more information. Thank you.