Archive for July, 2008
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IDP Camps
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Internally Displaced People’ s Camps. These are a result of the post-election violence.
Peace has returned to Kenya; the hostilities are over and life has returned to
normal. Or so we have been told by the media. In the main this is true not
for the thousands of “internally displaced persons.” In the wake of the
post election violence there were over 300,000 people who fled their homes to safety at local police stations, schools and churches. They came from all walks of life but had in common that they were members of tribes for whom this was not their historic tribal area.As a political compromise was reached many have been able to return to their homes but there are still thousands for whom a plastic tent remains home. These are the people with no where to go.
Today we visited a IDP camp in Eldoret and spoke with some of the leaders
about the situation in their camp. They shared stories of children whose
parents were killed during the violence, wives whose husbands chased them away because they were of a different tribe and they no longer wanted them. There are elderly ladies whose families are no longer alive and those whose
landlords are no longer willing to provide them a place to live. The government is offering people Ks 10,000 ($150) but this is not enough to start a new life for those who have nothing. The camps is slowly being shut down but people are not going for, as they say, “where will they go?”
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Being A Mzungu
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Well, we are leaving for Western Kenya and may not have internet access. The plan is to go from their directly to Uganda (and white water rafting at the mouth of the Nile!).
This past weekend we were able to act the part of white tourists or “Mzungus” as we visited the Karen Blixsen museum. For all of you who do not know (i.e. males everywhere), she was the Danish lady who started a coffee plantation in Kenya and wrote about her experiences in the book (and now movie) called “Out of Africa“. It was not all that bad and, as my mother pointed out, we did get to touch Robert Redford’s pants!
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Dream Big … Dream Home …
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Instead of “going big or going home”, why not do both? That appears to have been the thinking behind the Jamii Bora Housing project called Kaputiei New Town. This partially completed project involves the construction of 2,000 new dwellings, sports fields, schools, commercial areas and the infrastructure to support them… basically an entirely new town 50km from Nairobi. These houses are to be made available to members of Jamii Bora whoa re currently living in some of the world’s largest slums: Kibera and Mathane.
This is the group that the AIC is looking to partner with in their effort to establish a micro-finance project. A bit more information about Jamii Bora might be helpful:
Jamii Bora
Jamii Bora was established in 1999 at the initiative of 50 street mamas in the slums with the help of a Scandanavian women, Ingrid Munroe. Their micro-finance program has grown to 180,000 members as of April 2008 and opertes out of 72 branches and 140 outlets, with loans totalling about 2.2 billion ksh.
You can visit their website here…
Kaputiei New Town
This project is a testament to thinking big. While Jamii Bora is a larger organization now, when this housing project was concieved they only had 5 staff and operated out a residential home. Now they have raised about 1.2 billion ksh in capital and are in the process of constructing an entire town from nothing! The project employs 700 people from the local area (as can be seen in the picture) and they make all their own building materials, such as bricks, roofing tiles, windows, etc.
This “start from scratch” approach has allowed them to incorporate other, more experimental ideas (such as a wetlands santiation system that hopes to recycle 70% of all used water) into their community. There are definitely difficulties, including logistics as they are about 50km away from the city and connecting to the ntional power grid, but everyne involved has been infused with a huge sense of pride and hope for the future.
A lesson to us all … how many of us in the West, with all of our resources and infrastructure, would ever be able to envision getting together with 4-5 friends and planning a new city costing 1.2 billion dollars?
Dream Big…
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Story of a Micro-Entrepreneur
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
Let me tell you about Chris…
About 1 year ago Chris was sponsored to attend one of the African Inland Church’s (AIC) Vocational Training programs. He chose to take catering (this includes food preparation, hygiene, serving, laundry, etc). At the end of his year long training and three month attachment (unpaid internship) he began looking for work. Unfortunatelyfor him, there was no meaningful work to be found.
Not to be deterred, he approached the AIC with a plan to set up his own food stall in the Toy Market in Nairobi. He needed 20,000 Kenyan Shillings ($1 CDN = 70 Ksh) to rent and fix up a stall for cooking and he hoped to make 200 ksh a day after paying back all expenses, wages for 3 employees and loan repayments of1,000 ksh a month. Not bad considering just over a year ago this young manwas without a future of any kind, living in one of the world’s largestslums.
As it is with most stories, it does not end there. Just one month after setting up this business, Chris got a job making cakes that paid 7,000 ksh a month. A true entrepreneur he decided to take the job while continuing to run his business. Unfortunately, businesses require time and careful attention, especially in the beginning stages. He is now down to only 1 employee, but still is making his loan payments and developing his customer base. We took a look at his books and found that after he shrunk the business down, he is still able to make 300-700 ksh a day (not including wages and loan repayment). His hope is that he can he can quit the job and focus on growing the business until he can leave it in the care of others and move on to the next oppportunity… a true entrepreneur!
This story should sound remarkably familiar, much like every other microfinance story you hear nowadays. However, it is fundamentally different. Mirco-finance (MF) has evolved and is now very institutionalized. MF groups are more like banks than non-profits and, as such, have fairly strict loan criteria. While they still focus on the poor, they really are only set up to help the reasonably poor. You must have savings, or collateral, or must put a % of the loan into an account in order to qualify. While MF has helped raise people up the economic ladder, it cannot fully address the bottom rungs as it currently is done.
Something to think about is the question posed earlier, “How can the micro-finance concept be expanded to help those who cannot even cover their own basic necessities?”
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Peace - Building
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Most of us can remember the news reports of the violence in Kenya surrounding the elections this past December (if you need a refresher, here is a link to an article on the topic). While the situation has returned to normal, there still exists an underlying tension and fear that violence may yet erupt again.Out of sight, out of mind is the traditional way of dealing with tribal tensions in Africa, but if any change is to take place, these underlying and unspoken conflicts must be addressed. Our churches in Canada made a financial contribution to peace-building in Kenya following the election violence, and yesterday we were able to visit the project that had been supported.The project has gone through 3 phases, and we visited the group participating in that 3rd phase.- Areas that had been greatly impacted by the violence were invited to identify people who could participate in conflict resolution training.
- From this large group of people, smaller groups of 5-7 people from different tribes were formed. After an additional 4 days of training to help these groups develop and work together, they were asked to go back to their areas together to engage their communities in dialogue / workshops / forums / etc.
- The most active and involved team members were brought back to Nairobi for 10 days of advanced training and will be sent back as official mediators
To put this into a bit of context, the task facing these mediators would be akin to bringing warring inner-city gangs together, except that these gangs have worked together in a deferential manner since colonial times.
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Entrepreneurship without basic necessities?
Monday, July 21st, 2008
The picture above is of the worship band playing at church. As usual the music was very impressive, especially given the mass of cords running everywhere to keep the instruments alive! We were asked to speak… but thankfully not to sing.
We have spent the first couple of days going to church and having meetings sorting out the purpose and goals of this trip. Things are a bit up in the air as there was no micro-credit pilot project, just a proposal. However, we have had the chance to meet with a lot of partners whom we support and work on projects with, but have never met before!
Without going into too many details to our discussions and some of the interesting questions that have been brought up, I thought I might pose a question for you to consider. Can you expect someone to utilize a micro-credit loan for entrepreneurial income generation if that person cannot currently even cover the basic necessities for life (i.e. they are starving, do not have water, cannot pay school fees, etc)? If the answer is yes, what activities can they reasonably expected to participate in (and how effective can they be) with the money they have been loaned? If no, how can you provide these basic necessities while still clarifying the purpose of the micro-credit loan and that it must be paid back, or that it is somehow differentiated from the subsidies you are also providing?
Just some “food” for thought…
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Arrived Safely in Kenya…
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
We have arrived safely in Kenya after about 25 hours of travel time. We are staying in the Anglican Church Guest House (the guest house we normally stay in). The acronym of the guest house is “ACK” (Anglican Church of Kenya) and it is quite nice even if the acronym is somewhat misleading!
After sleeping off the jet lag, we have ventured downtown to buy water and pick up some Kenyan shillings. Some items of note are that the violence and unrest following the previous election are no longer evident at all in the city. There are also a lot more foriegn visitors now that peace has returned. The standard of living of those with money appears to continue to rise, with new cars everywhere, and presumably this increase has not also benefited the poor, only increasing the wealth disparity. Other than that, there is not too much to report. We will be going into the office today and to the Highrise Church in Kabira slum on Sunday.
Thank you everyone for the travel wishes and prayers. Take care.
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Preparing to leave…
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
Well, we are finally at the packing stage and are just preparing ourselves to leave. Thanks to everyone for all the best wishes and prayers, they are much appreciated. We will not have a laptop with us this trip, so updating of this blog may be somewhat sporadic; however, we will make sure to fill it in after the fact at the very least! The picture above is of where we will be visiting in Kenya and Uganda.
