April has come

I am wishing everyone a thoughtful Easter weekend this year. In Kenya, the churches have been celebrating since Friday morning. You can hear them worshiping from the early morning way into the night. The church in Kenya is big business. In fact, for individuals who have no means of supporting themselves, some will write sermons and then deliver them on the buses. People will pay 10 - 50 shillings after the sermon has commenced and the bus preacher can move on to another vehicle. I always find it somewhat amusing that one can be a preacher hustler. That aside, whatever your faith or religion is, there is great value in taking some time and recognizing the creator, respecting life, respecting the great fortunes you have in being born in this world, and accepting the huge responsibility that each person has been given.

I am very excited to report that my Satelite group: Kush-Ites Family is now a fully registered CBO (Community Based Organization). There were several layers of bureacracy we had to wade through in order to achieve this goal. It involved writing up a constitution, establishing a mandate, holding an election, and running around from office building to office building to get permission from the Chief and the District Officer. I spent many mornings waiting in long line-ups to talk to the Chief. When I finally got the chance to speak with the Chief, I was, thankfully, full prepared. I had all the documents and details that we needed to register. I met him with the Chairman of our CBO, Joseph Maina, and we diligently explained what the CBO was setting out to accomplish. The Chief was looking for a bribe and was trying to make us look bad. This is how our conversatin went:

You must have three copies of the members list
Yep, we do
Well you can't just register, you need meeting minutes and a Constitution
Yes, we have it here
You need to get an application form
Yes, it is right here
Well.... you need to go and buy some folders for us to store it in
..... Right

We spoke to the Chief on Friday who told us to come back on Monday so that he could review the Constitution. ... Right. Anyways, on Monday we returned with folders in hand, only to find out that our original copies, that we had left with the Chief, were misplaced. Several hours later - they were found and away we went to he Ministry of Social Services to send in all our documents for registration. Fastforward two weeks: we received our certificate and are a fully registered Dagoretti CBO. We are now undergoing research to establish some income generating ideas. We have discussed and looked into various businesses such as: Building and renting out trappers (forms for building), outside catering (tents, speakers, etc...), garbage collection, car wash, restaurant, chicken/goat/guinea pig rearing, charcoal businesses, among others. We have yet to come up with an idea that we want to follow through on, but the research and ideas keep coming each week. There is a saying in Swahili: Subira kuvute heri. Patience brings success. Of course, at some point patience turns to stagnation, and nothing gets accomplished.

While I am never short on things to do, a new project has emerged. A project that I just couldn't say no to. I was walking through Kibera and stopped to buy some sakuma from a mama selling from her kibanda along the main drive. Being a mzungu (foreigner), I regularly hear pleas for assistance. This particular mama told me she had a daughter who had finished Form 4 (Highschool), but had no job, no opportunities, and needed some help. She asked if I could help her daughter out. I told her that I would be back tomorrow, and to bring her daughter so that we could talk. Sure enough, the next day, her daughter (Lucy) is waiting for me at her mom's kibanda. I tell Lucy that if she is serious about doing something, she should bring 5 friends together and we could pool our resources and discuss some options. We decided to meet the following week.

Lucy (foreground) and Mwendi (background)

I made up a members form to get the girls contact information, interests, abilities, skills, and limitations. I handed the forms out at our meeting, and sure enough, there were 5 young women (all young mothers) eager and willing to do SOMETHING. At that first meeting, it was revealed that the women were interested in forming a self-help group. A self-help group is a formally registered group in Kenya whereby its members work together to help one another out. We are now working on registering the group, we are short 3 members for registration (total members is now 7). We have already written our Constitution and have established regular meetings and weekly dues. Once we find three more members who are serious and willing to join the group, we will start the bureacratic process of meeting Kibera's Chief and ministry offices. We have also come up with a number of income generating ideas. The women have been diligent in doing their business research and we have struck many businesses off the list that are not looking profitable. Currently we are looking into three ideas: making charcoal briquettes, opening a cereal shop, making and selling soap. In fact, this morning, I am heading out to Karioko market to see how feasible it will be to make charcoal briquettes.

At Lucy's house in Kibera (our meeting place is a little cramped)

Though I have spent considerable time with my two community organizations (Kush-Ites and Kibera Ladies), I am still very much a member of Shiriki organization. In fact, I have some very exciting news to report. I previously mentioned that we had entered a blog competition about Youth in Agriculture. I found the blog competition online, and thought it would be an interesting way to record our progress, train staff on blog creation all the while sharing our ideas and methods with the world. The competition has now closed and though we didn't win, we were the runners up in East Africa!!! This means that they are going to pay for one of our members to travel down to South Africa to network about agriculture, meet other youth with similar mandates, and receive the runners up prize. Praises to the Most High... I am so excited about this outcome. It is always nice to see projects come to fruition. I am off to the Maragua farm this Easter weekend to see the progress that has been made there.


The water is running over at Soweto Academy. The water pump has now been fixed, and I have been helping Elsie market the water to different shops, stores and Health clubs in Nairobi. I have not spent too much time in marketing before, so this was new territory for me. However, I found it enjoyable to talk about Soweto Academy, and how the water profits go back into the Kibera community. I have signed up many new shops from my Dagoretti community with the HELP of several KUSH-ITES members who have taken me around, exhausting their connections in the Dago community.

Mama making mandazis Dago

For those of you who follow my updates, I know it must sound like I am involved with many different things. I have used this year as a time to scope things out, learn about the language, culture, lifestyle and challenges of living in Kenya. I have more that I wish to update, but this morning, I must get going. Wishing everyone many many blessings.