Work in Mituntu

(6/20-7/2)

Sorry for the lapse in posts – after the poultry farm adventure we really buckled down to work on all of the projects we needed to accomplish. And the projects were numerous:

Bike Ride
Ezekiel, the sponsorship facilitator in Mituntu, is planning on doing a fundraising bike ride from Mituntu to Nairobi, approximately 270km. Getting details for this project was important because there is a team working on it in the US, and we needed to get information from the ground over here to share with them. We met with Ezekiel and Doris, the coordinator for Mituntu, to discuss logistics and the purpose of the ride. There are still many aspects that need to be sorted out, but we were able to get many details that were previously lacking, like who would actually participate and when the ride should take place. The funds raised from the ride will go to the development of a Community Resource Center, which will have books, computers and training classes, a cultural heritage center, and demonstration farming to help educate locals on farming practices for the area.

We also spent some time at the Resource Center location, where two buildings have already been constructed but are not really functional yet. We had a sort of a photo shoot with three adorable young kids to use to promote the event. They were perfect and did everything we asked of them. They deserved the lollipops and chewing gum they received as payment at the end of the affair!

Work Plan for CRC
While many preliminary plans have been discussed in regard to the Community Resource Center, we really needed to nail down some details. We met with Doris and discussed all of its functions, how to determine costs and where to look for additional funding. While Mo and I were a bit burnt out from working non-stop for eight days or so and were not particularly helpful (for example, at one point as I was distracted by a letter on the table and Mo was staring out the window, Doris stopped talking, put her head on the table and laughed, telling us, “I realized no one was listening to me.” Sorry, Doris! We really tried to pay attention!), I was able to write a preliminary proposed work plan recapping the meeting.

Sponsorship Manual
SOTENI facilitates a sponsorship program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in three of its Villages of Hope (the program is in the beginning stages in the fourth village). Sponsorship provides for school fees (applicable in secondary school; primary is free), uniforms (every school has uniforms), health care and food as needed (many of the children are at boarding school, and get adequate food there, but when they return home it can be very trying). It is a pretty comprehensive program, but as the children have gotten older and different situations have come up, it has become clear that a more detailed, concrete sponsorship manual was needed to make concretely establish the exact purpose of the funds, the responsibilities of the sponsor, the child, and the child’s guardian, duration of a child’s sponsorship, and other details. Mo and I met with Ezekiel again for almost two hours discussing a variety of questions, and we got his opinions on the role of sponsorship. Because he knows each sponsored OVC in Mituntu and understands their histories and personalities, he was a great source of information for all of our questions.

OVC Visits
Part of our responsibility in each village with sponsored OVCs is to visit all of them to get an update on how they’re doing. Mo and I spent two and a half days traveling around Mituntu (note: Mituntu is one of SOTENI’s four villages of hope. When they use the term “village,” they really mean huge area covering lots and lots of kilometers) to visit all nineteen sponsored OVCs. We met all of them at their schools, and we tried having conversations with them about how school is going, what they enjoy doing, how their health is, changes in their home situation, and current needs. While some were more forthcoming than others, I had loads of respect for each child. Most of them are orphans in some sense – many live with extended family as one or both of their parents have died, several from AIDS. They have grown up in unstable homes, not necessarily because their parents were ignorant, although that may be the case in some instances, but often because they were unable to afford school fees or adequate food. To read their previous updates and then to meet them and see how so many of them have changed for the better and are now allowed to pursue their studies without the burdens they previously faced is an honor. They were all pretty incredible, although I did have a favorite, I will admit…

Women’s Group Projects
While Mo spent three days working with the AIDS Barefoot Doctor home-based care program, I traveled around the “village” visiting something like 23 women’s projects that are being funded by a Danish group, DANIDA, in conjunction with SOTENI. The program has provided training for the groups to establish profitable, sustainable businesses to help raise their standard of living. This was an interesting endeavor. It deserves its own post/this post is already far too long! Sorry about that!

Thanks for the comments, by the way!

Baadaye!

PS- I have lots of pictures from Mituntu, but uploading them takes forever and my patience is waning, so you'll have to wait until I'm back in the US to see them. In fact, I may stop posting pictures in general because it takes so long and usually I lose the internet connection before I can even make the post.