Devolution and Voter Education

Yesterday I travelled 2 hours to Kangundo to attend a community forum about devolution and voter education.  I discussed in a previous post (see previous post) that my boss, Mike, has written a book to launch a political reform movement in Kenya, and as part of that process the programme is being piloted in his home County.

The event took place at this church in a town called Tala which is in Kangundo constituency.

The pilot has so far involved the formation of a steering group made of about 40 community members to develop a draft strategic plan which maps out how key priority areas for how the County will develop in the next 3-5 years.  Mike believes strongly that the fact that Kenya has lagged so far behind in development cannot be blamed purely on corrupt and incompetent politicians, but that average Kenyans are also responsible for making sure their country develops, and that begins at the local level.

Constituents registering as they arrive. 

Waiting for the event to start.  It began an hour late, but ran over by 2.5 hours to compensate.

Now that the County Strategic Plan is in draft form, it is being taken around to each of the eight constituencies for consultation and to ensure local community leaders understand devolution and the new political offices it has created.  This is the second of these consultation events, and this one was hosted by my organisation so about 12 staff from my organisation arrived in force to ensure it was a raving success.

Wambui, Finance Manager, and Barasa, Programmes Manager, modelling the t-shirt.

Myself and Keter.  We were on photography and sales duty.

The meeting started about an hour late (which actually isn't too bad), with delegates continuing to trickle in over the first 3 hours. The delegates were specially invited by members of the steering groups and selected as individuals interested to contribute to this process and able to action change in their local area.  The forum started with prayer (as pretty much all meetings do), and greetings by the local chief and chairman of the local community development forum.  Mike then presented the concept behind the draft Strategic Plan and explained that while the plan highlights 13 specific areas for development in the County to ensure it's development over the next few years, it was up to the community to determine the priorities within those areas and specific measures.  Following this, the delegates broke up into 4 groups to look at and feed into 4 of those priority areas: water and sanitation, agriculture, finance and education. 

Mike presenting the outline of the Strategic Plan.

Group discussing water and sanitation.

Group discussing finance.

Then four members of the Strategic Plan steering group and who are experts in the 4 sectors being looked at came to share feedback from the small groups and background information on those particular sectors in the County. For example, currently while nearly 65% of children make it to primary school, less than 15% make it to secondary school and less than 4% attend any kind of post-secondary education (university or vocational). I've written quite a number of funding proposals and concept notes for this particular piece of work since arriving at my organisation, but it was the first time I actually was able to observe community consultation on strategic planning take place and it was really inspiring to see so many (nearly 400) members of this local constituency come together to discuss the needs and issues of their area and the changes they intend to make over the next few years.  Too often Strategic Plans are developed for individuals and not by them - and this demonstrated the start of real ownership of this process by the community.

Just a note that I was able to understand about 75% of what was said during the meeting.  The other 25% was in kikamba, the local tribal language.  But I think I got the general gist!

The best photo I could get of the whole group.

Koki Muli, key-note speaker.

The key-note speech was given by Koki Muli, a university lecturer and political columnist in a national Saturday paper.  She spoke about devolution - what it is and why Kenya has decided to devolve power - and what implication is has at County level.  I mentioned in a previous post the up to now Kenya has a very heavy and very corrupt central government and that the new Constitution (2010) has provided for a new devolved government which will be achieved through the creation of 47 new Counties.  The counties have been formed - but the upcoming elections will be the first time that newly created posts (e.g. Governor) will be elected, so the Counties aren't actually really anything yet as they have no government or resourcing.  Ms Muli explained that unlike American states which are fixed and permanent, the Counties can be easily changed, and she predicted where there are now boundaries for 47, if some are seen to be under-performing they will be merged with stronger Counties and so the result in 10 years time will likely be fewer Counties.

She also spoke about one of the key tenants of my organisation's political reform programme - which is leadership vetting, which is about creating a framework by which voters assess the candidates and select which is the right one for the job.  It is a key theme of the upcoming elections and the way my organisation is proposing to accomplish this is by using the Strategic Plan as a type of JD and then having candidates demonstrate how using their skills and experience they will deliver the plan. For me, it is a strange way of looking at candidate selection - that the community determines first what is to be done and then unanimously selects a leader to accomplish it.  My experience of elections is that there are often two quite different proposals from political parties on what needs doing and voters select the approach they most agree with.  What's being proposed in Kenya allows very little freedom for the candidate to present their own priorities and ideas for how the County should develop, but it is a very different context here and it is the common way of thinking - my boss and I actually just met with a Swedish development agency last week which is very interested in adopting our candidate vetting model across their governance reform programmes.

A bit of entertainment to keep everyone alert.

While there was no break during the 6.5 hour meeting,
we did distribute snacks of a loaf of bread and a soda or bottle of water to attendee.

The forum yesterday was really the beginning of this process - the introduction.  All the attendees have been asked to identify which sector they would like to work specifically on, and in coming weeks there will be a series of meetings for each sector to look at specific issues, objectives and targets at a constituency level to feed into the County Strategic Plan.  The meeting was 6.5 hours long, running 2.5 hours over, and I think if it hadn't been cut off could have gone on another hour or two.  People are excited and hungry for this kind of change and first the first time are being actively involved in shaping the change and being asked to directly contribute to it.  As I said before, it was inspiring to observe.

Briefly, in other news - I found out that my very first funding application has been approved since starting with the organisation 4 months ago (and considering average turn around time for most applications is about 6 months - this is pretty good!).  In addition, it was a (smallish) proposal to a UN agency and is as such the first piece of UN funding I've ever secured.  I can feel my CV getting fatter already!! 

VSO Sector Conference 2012

Ok, maybe not the sexiest title of all my posts to date, but sometimes I think just say it like it is, and it was indeed the VSO Sector Conference 2012.

The conference is the annual event where all VSO volunteers Kenya and representatives from their partner organisations come together for a few days of networking, information sharing, and skills development.  There were about 80 of us all together over the few days, and it was a great time.

The event opened on the first night with Speed Introductions. It's like Speed Dating, but without the dating part.  Which probably is for the best.

The second day had a packed agenda.  In the morning we began by hearing three (tear-jerking) testimonials from beneficiaries of organisations which work in partnership with VSO.  There was Zachary, a blind young man in University, and Bernadeta, a Maasi widow who began a small local enterprise despite gender inequility in her community, and Evelyn, a Lou widow who fought for her rights to prevent being "inherited" (a practice by which the brother or father of the widow inherit the women into his household largely for sexual exploitation).  Because VSO doesn't send volunteers to directly deliver services, we are in most cases in offices working in capacity building functions and often don't get to hear these stories.  It was really very moving and powerful. 

This is Zachary, a beneficiary of an organisation working with VSO.  He shared his remarkable story with us.  Kenya is  not in anyway a friendly environment for people living with disabilities, and Zachary has overcome some significant challenges to become the first visually impaired or blind student at the University of Nairobi.

 

Bernadeta. A Masai widow who through a VSO volunteer was supported to set up a small jewellery business which has now grown tremendously serving 3 markets. Even though the VSO programme was around secure livelihoods, the programme has done a lot to support inclusion of women on all levels within that particular community.

After the testimonials, we had the opportunity to take part in a series of small workshops covering issues such as governance, environmental programmes, and gender equality.  The two workshops I attended were in Mainstreaming and Advocacy, which are actually related issues.  Advocacy is about bringing a voice to those who aren't heard (usually to make specific needs or issues known) and mainstreaming is about working to effect change in policies and programmes (social, economic and political) to improve the lives and situations of those who are marginalised.  The mainstreaming workshop focussed a lot on disability, as that is a key theme for VSO's work in Kenya, but I was able to consider work my organisation does which we don't always consider to be advocacy or mainstreaming.  

A workshop on Mainstreaming led by volunteers Dan and Ben.

We provide drop-in health and counselling centres for high risk HIV groups known as MARPS (most at risk populations).  In Kenya MARPS include sex workers, long distance truck drivers (known frequent clients of sex workers) and MSMs (men who have sex with men). We also provide economic empowerment support to these groups and work with local community leaders and businesses to share with them why our work with these groups is so important and how they can be involved in developing policies to ensuring open access to health facilities and small business start-ups. That's because prostitution and homosexuality are illegal in Kenya.  What I took away from both the workshops is that we need to do more to articulate and celebrate the work that we are already doing in these areas and develop a more thoughtful and coordinated approach to our advocacy and mainstreaming activity (trying to avoid mentioning developing an advocacy strategy - but there it is!)

And after a busy morning we stop for a good (and calorific!) Kenyan chai (tea) break.

In the afternoon the volunteers and partner organisations divided into groups for our specific sector workshops.  VSO currently works in three sectors in Kenya: Disability, Secure Livelihoods and Health (formerly HIV & AIDS), which is where my organisation sits. The workshop looked at the recent history of HIV&AIDS in Kenya and government policy on the issue.  In 1999 the then president declared that HIV&AIDS was a national disaster and it as an issue (both health and social) was brought under the Office of the President rather than being allocated within one of the two health departments.  As this was a verbal declaration it was never actually put into formal written legislation, however the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) was set up to coordinate efforts.  Until this year more than 90% of HIV&AIDS funding in Kenya comes from international sources, with more than half coming from USAID.  (Nearly 98% of my organisation's funding comes from US government sources - CDC, FHI, Walter Reed).

In 1999 the HIV prevalence rate in Kenya was near 15% and today it is near 6% - a tremendous result in less than 15 years.  So why so many concerned faces??  Because organisations, such as mine, have built themselves to fight the long fight against HIV&AIDS and find themselves now in a situation where AIDS is decreasing as a priority area and funding is quickly evaporating.  NACC will likely be absorbed into one of the health ministries, no longer a national disaster, and USAID announced a couple weeks ago that AIDS funding in Kenya will decrease by 44% in 2013.  HIV&AIDS will find itself alongside other health issues such as TB and cancer which also have significant socio-economic factors, and government policy and resources will start to focus on meeting a range of complex health issues in large regions of the country.

My neighbours, Andrea and Harvey.

So, what's to be done?  VSO's example is to start early and move away from exclusive HIV&AIDS focus to encompass wider health issues.  As well, it will be important for organisations to form partnerships and consortia with other organisations who offer different geographic coverage as future funding will likely require full country coverage.  It's a changing time in Kenya and for organisations such as mine, which actually spotted this coming a year or two ago and started to move then to offer more holistic services to those infected and affected by HIV.  I will be carrying the conversation forward so we begin to identify long term partners, brining us neatly onto the next picture...

On the final morning of the conference there was a World Cafe exercise on funding.  A World Cafe is where there are a number of tables each on a slightly different discussion topic around a room and delegates move between the tables to contribute to a number of on-going discussions.  It a very effective and efficient way of gathering input from many people on many topics in a short amount of time.  Fundraising is a topic which comes up in everyone's placement - regardless of the job title - so this was a very welcome and pertinent activity.  There were 8 tables covering topics such as corporate donations, raising core funding, and alternative resource mobilisation.  I hosted the table on partnership and consortia fundraising. I really enjoyed the exercise and came away having learned a lot from the contribution of those participating.  I look forward to write up as well to see what I missed at the other tables.

My colleague Charles who came as the representative from my organisation.

After 2 days the conference was over and people started making their way back to the far reaches of the country from whence they came.  But not before a little boogie - what an appropriate way to end a conference!  It was great and I look forward to next year.

Hiking with Harvey

On Sunday I went hiking (read: "walking along dirt paths") with my friend Harvey, another VSO volunteer.

There are many places to hike outside of Nairobi which are amazing and beautiful.  However they are difficult to get to by public transportation, therefore requiring expensive taxis, and entrance fees can be quite high and sometimes include the cost of 2 armed guards which escort you on the hike. Finding expanses of green space inside Nairobi is difficult.  Finding green space in Nairobi which is safe even more difficult.  And finding green space which is safe, easily accessible by matatu and inexpensive to enter nearly impossible. 

Hiking is one of my absolute favourite pastimes, and with exception of the epic hike of Mount Longonot over New Year's (read: "climbing up face of volcano and nearly dying"), I haven't had the opportunity to do much since arriving in Kenya.  So when Harvey asked if I would go hiking in Karura Forest, a park run by Kenya Forest Service, just a mile north of the City Centre, I was definitely keen to try.  

Harvey points to a tall tree.

Karura Forest is just beautiful.  It is covered in tall (and I mean tall!) trees which makes it cool and shady.  There is a creek with a lovely waterfall.  And there is a line of caves which were used by the Mau-Mau, freedom fighters pushing for Kenyan independence from the British in the 50s.  For wildlife there are monkeys (which we saw plenty of) and other more obscure animals such as bush pigs and dik diks which alluded us.

The park used to have a reputation of not being safe, with muggings not unheard of at all, but the Forest Service has put up a fence and placed askari (guards) every few kilometers or so.  It is very safe now - there were many families and joggers and people walking their dogs.  Sadly in the whole day I can't remember seeing a single Kenyan in the park - it was all wazungu (foreigners). 

Might seem strange to have a whole post about a Sunday morning hike (still read: "walk along dirt paths") but Nairobi can be a difficult city to live in.  It is dirty (dirt on the ground, dust and exhaust in the air) and it is aggressive.  Just getting to work each morning can involve arguing over the inflated "foreigner" price for transportation, an elbow or two in the ribs trying to get a seat on a matatu, narrowly avoiding 3 car accidents, crossing highways heavy with speeding traffic, walking more than a mile over dirt and rock paths covered in broken glass, and crossing the Nairobi River on a rickety bridge basically put together with a few planks of wood and some gaffa tape. That's just the morning commute.  Finding a piece of quiet, clean, safe forest may just be a saving grace.

Standing in one of the Mau-Mau caves.

There are 50km of hiking trails in the park, so plenty left to explore. And plenty more opportunity to spot that elusive dik dik (will get a photo for you Nick!).

A Kenya Wedding Album

You may remember from the Jamhuri Day post that my house-mates and I were invited to attend the wedding of the son of Barbara's boss, Josephine. Well last Saturday was the big day.  So big, that I took 226 photos.  While I won't put all of them here, I thought I would put enough to walk you through the day, a la photo album style.  Let's give it a go..

Andrea and I waiting for the wedding to start.  
The invitation said the start was at 10am, so we arrived at 10.45am.
The wedding actually started at noon.  You may be able to tell a bit from this photo that the church was quite modern with capacity for around 1000.  When the wedding started the church was about 1/2 full, but by the end it had mostly filled up.

The flower girls and rind bearers.
We were surprised by how Western the wedding was in format and style.  There was a typical procession of bridesmaids and groomsmen in matching colour-schemes.
One difference was that instead of playing music during this part, there was an MC narrating the activity.

Waiting for the bride, part 1.
We were surprised that most of the 600 some-odd guests were women.

Waiting for the bride, part 2.

Here comes the bride..

Praying for the couple.

The ceremony begins.
The service was in English and included a 20 sermon, exchange of vows and rings and blessing by the parents.
This is a rare unobstructed photo as you will see from the next one...

Cameras cameras everywhere.
Yes, catching glimpses of the service in between the camera men
and photographers was difficult.

"Yes, you're married now"

The aunties sing a song.

All smiles.
The bride and groom with the bride's family,

The wedding car.

Reception tent.
The reception was held at a sports ground and had two tent like this one on either side, one for bride's guests and one for the grooms.  In the middle of the two tents was a walkway, space for dancing to come, and most importantly...

The cake stand.
The cake wasn't cut until the very end of the reception.  Most of the cakes there are given as gifts to the parents and family of the couple. For the other guests the cake is cut into bite-sized pieces and a plate is passed around with a fork to take one -
but I used my fingers to pick one up.

Barbara and I waiting for lunch.

Lunch.
 Lunch included traditional Kenyan fare of beans, ugali, irio and rice.  There were also another 3 dishes with goat - but I don't eat goat so you don't get to see those.

Dancing.
After lunch there was some dancing. After 2 hours the wedding party had not yet arrived at the reception so the MC encouraged people to dance while we waited.

With Josephine, mother of the groom.

Arrival of bride and groom.
When the wedding party did finally arrive, all the women went out to escort the bride to the reception while chanting and kind of shuffle-dancing.  I don't know what was being chanted, but we joined in the shuffle fun.

Once to the reception, the proceeded through an arch, followed by two lines
of shuffle-dancing guests.

Kikuyu dress.
Both the bride and groom come from the Kikuyu tribe - the largest tribe in Kenya and most prevalent in the central province which surrounds Nairobi.  This is a traditional bridal dress which was presented to the bride.

Speeches.
There were a number of speeches given over the course of the afternoon.
None of which I understood. Not because my Swahili isn't good enough -
but because they were all in Kikuyu, the tribal language.  There was one speech given in Swahili so that the wazungus (foreigners) could understand.
That one I didn't understand because my Swahili isn't good enough.

And the prize for the largest wedding gift goes to...
The bride's family for this bed. The giving of the bed signifies that the bride has chosen to leave her home and make home with her husband. When she returns to her family's home it should be with her husband.
Most gifts to the couple were money and little brown envelopes were distributed throughout the afternoon for that very purpose.  Groups of people who did have gifts for the couple would come up in their groups (family, co-workers, church members - there were about 10 or 12 different groups) sing a song for the couple as a group and then present them their gift.  We had bought a card and gave them some money which we discretely put on the gift table.  Andrea and I tried to work out what our song and dance might be if were forced to go up.  Due to childhood continental differences, the only dance we both knew was the Macarena, and for that reason let's all be glad we weren't forced to go up!

And that about brings us to an end. One other thing I wanted to share is a song that became the theme song of the day.  It was played while the couple walked down the aisle after the ceremony and several times during the reception.  It is catchy and Andrea and I had it stuck in our heads for a couple days - so I decided to share that joy with you!  Here's a link to it if you are interested - although be warned that you will be humming it for a while!