Facing problems, solutions and education

Now, two months after my return from Kenya, I finally want to reflect about my time there and which impact it had to my life.

There are two major points that became obvious to me. The first point is facing problems and solutions. Now I am doing my internship in Berlin. It is an internship at an IT company and I have absolutely no clue about computers and technical devices in general. Perceived, the company launches a new product every week, so I have to fight with new technical terms every day. Usually, I would lose patience at one point and just do my work in a way that is hardly sufficient. It would be a real problem for me to constantly work on something unknown until I am able to understand the topic.

In Kenya I saw an obvious contrast how people face problems compared to Europeans. We, as Europeans, always have a problem. When the train is one minute late or the computer does not work the way how we want it to work, we directly have a serious problem. In Kenya I saw people who have real problems like that they do not know how to feed their children in the evening or that teachers have to teach children in classrooms without electricity and holes in the rooftop. Just imagine a teacher at Hanze who should teach a class without power point slides. It would directly be a major problem. In Kenya I never saw someone complaining. People seem to live according to the motto: „I do not have problems, I just have solutions!“.  This is something I want to keep in mind and I also want to live according to that motto. I already noticed some progress. My start in Berlin was also not easy. I left many of my friends in Groningen and I have never lived in such a big city before. So, always when I start complaining I remind myself that I only want to focus on solutions instead of problems from now on. I have to admit that this philosophy makes my daily life easier. Especially at work with technical devices.

The second point is very touching to me and showed me something about the importance of education. We visited the Blue Bell Nursery School together with Salim, a Rescue Diver from the Mombasa Fire Brigade. I was standing at the schoolyard looking at the buildings that were built how I built tree houses when I was 14. I was so impressed how the people managed to took their fate in their own hands and built such a school out of nothing. In Kenya it is not like in Europe that money will be spent to built schools. I heard from Condor representatives with how few resources they did it at Blue Bell, so my appreciation doubled.

While standing at the schoolyard a little boy came to me and just took my hand without saying anything. He was quite small, much smaller than the other children running around the schoolyard. He was maybe around 3 years old. From one second to another 20 children ran up to me, hugging me and trying to pull me down. I had a lot of fun, but I also got worried about the little boy who was holding my hand. The other children were way larger than him so I was afraid that they would hurt him by mistake. So I was looking around and could not see him and I tried to calm the other kids down, but if you start playing with a mob of Kenyan children, they will never stop. Then, I was looking down directly in front of me. The little boy was standing directly in front of me. Smiling. Laughing. And now holding BOTH of my hands. He was so small, but he managed to establish himself against all the other children who were way older and stronger than him.

This moment was very touching for me because I saw my own life in the eyes of this little boy. I was born in a slum of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. In the days after my birth my future was already clear. I would never have an education and a good job. It was not even clear if I would live for more than 10 years. I had the luck of getting adopted by a wonderful family who took care of me and gave me the chance of education. In this moment I realized how important schools like Blue Bell are in a country like Kenya, where many people even cannot read or write. I am sitting here right now and writing a blog about my experiences in Kenya. My voice was getting heard. Schools like Blue Bell give children, like the little boy who held my hand, the chance to start learning when they are very young. So Blue Bell gives the little boy the opportunity that his voice will be heard, too.

 (written by Brian)

Humbling, love/friendship, culture, difficult/sad, uncomfortable/scary

Before going to Kenya I tried to read blogs, watch videos and talked to people who went on voluntary trips. The main thing that those people were trying to explain was that volunteering in a developing country is definitely an emotional roller coaster, but at the end of the day none of them regrets doing it. I also understand now that you can never be quite prepare yourself for the kind of experience that change your life, you just have to jump head first and hope for the best.

In order to describe my personal experience I have picked words which describe my 5 weeks in Kenya.

1. Humbling

For the first time I discovered what poverty really is. In Europe, we don't realise that we are so incredibly lucky to be born in families that can afford a roof, food, medicine.... Clearly we don't realise that many young Kenyans of our age would gladly take our spots and benefit from a paid education. We have so much and yet we are greedy, we complain about small things and don't appreciate how good our life is.

In Kenya, the people we met were happy, hopeful and grateful for the small things that they could afford. The people we met and worked with taught me the great lesson of always appreciating what I have. I hope in the future to be able to give back.

2. love/friendship

The most obvious was that the group got pretty close during the trip, despite the ups and downs of living together for 5 weeks. We also were very lucky to meet people who were helpful and nice to us.The greatest feeling during the trip was to develop friendship with the local people, out students and the kids of the village (Majengo). I will always cherish memories of playing with kids, singing with them, having "drawing classes"....

Without a doubt my best memory is when one of the little girls of the village fell asleep in my arms as I was rocking her and singing.

3. Culture

I'm so happy that we got to experience some of the Kenyan culture. For example through the food (my personal favorite is Ugali). We had the chance to visit different parts of Mombasa; from small villages, to beautiful beaches, to the old city center. We also had the opportunity to go to church in a small village, which was a great opportunity to understand the importance of faith in Kenya. Lastly, with the help of our students and friends, we all tried to learn some Swahili words such as "sawa" (ok) "habari gani" (how are you)

I also have to mention some less positive aspects:

4. Difficult/sad

It was extremely difficult to see the poverty and not being able to do a lot. Especially with the kids. While working at the feeding center playing with children of the village heartbreaking to see kids in ragged clothes, many of them were very skinny and had cuts on their feet from walking barefoot. The hope I had concerning this situation was that some people like the ones running the feeding center or Carol (who founded the St Joseph House of Hope school) work hard to improved the situation of the community (around Mtwapa and Majengo).

Secondly, I must adress that I was very shocked and disgust at the behavior of some westerners (often older men) who clearly come to Kenya for sexual tourism. The harsh reality of Kenya is that many girls of my age or even younger try to make it by prostituting themselves. I am not trying to judge those girls by any means, I completely understand their situation.

5. Uncomfortable/scary

I must admit that sometimes I didn't feel completely safe. Being a white female in kenya, you tend to attract a lot of attention. We were never in dangerous situation, but I know I wouldn't have wanted to go outside at night by myself or without one of the guys. I sometimes felt very uncomfortable with the way some men were looking at us, random men following us in the street or in the beach trying to talk with us.

I also remember that the other girls and I were quite upset that some of our students tried to flirt with us or get our numbers, which was very inappropriate in my opinion. I think that we were just the victims of the stereotypes of many westerners who come to Kenya to "have fun", and I understand that to some locals we represent money or a chance of a better future.

This experience was definitely "an adventure" and I know I will always remember it.

(written by Anne-Sophie)

Kenya: my home, but still surprising

Almost two months ago I was in Mombasa with the Contribute Kenya team working with them on various community projects all located around Mombasa. The community work and life experience we made is still quite present in the back of my head even though I am in a completely new and different environment right now. I am currently doing my study abroad on Reunion which is an island in the Indian Ocean. On that account I must say the environment meaning the palms trees, beaches and Ocean isn’t such a different environment than Mombasa after all. This blog entry is not about my adventurous study abroad it is about my reflection on the time in Mombasa with the Contribute Kenya team and my view on this amazing life experience.

Unlike the rest of the contribute team, Kenya is very familiar to me because I was born and raised there. For that reason the environment and people around me weren’t that new to me. However, the whole community project aspect was something fairly new to me. Prior to this 6 week endeavour I had never been part of a community project even though such a project had been in my mind since I was 16 years old. The project that I worked on during my stay in Mombasa was about developing and implementing an accounting system for the Blue Bell Nursery School in Mtwapa, a town on the outskirts of Mombasa. If I reflect on the question about how successful we were in implementing the accounting system I can truthfully say that we managed to implement the system very well. The approach Robin and I took in implementing the system was to first understand the current accounting system and build a relationship with Grace and Gideon before introducing our ideas. During the course of the first weeks the relationship building went extremely well which made the corporation extremely pleasant. The product that we left behind in the end is one that I believe will make a difference for the school and simplify a lot of procedures regarding the book keeping.

Working and living together with 10 other honour Students also contributed greatly to the whole community project experience. Over the course of the 6 weeks I got to know a lot of my fellow students better and create lots of new friendships. In my opinion we started off as a group of 11 students each working on their project and later on transformed into a team all working together on the various projects and helping each other out. Simply experiencing this process has given me a new definition of what a really team looks like and a better understanding of group dynamics.

One last thing that I would like to share before ending this blog entry is one of the most memorable moments I experienced in regard to the community project. A couple of weeks after we had already left Mombasa I received an e-mail from Gideon, the person in charge of the administration. Attached to this e-mail was a perfectly comprehensive and transparent income statement that he had created with the accounting system that we left behind. This e-mail showed me how sustainable our work is and the difference we were able to make.

(written by Biko)

Challenging, humbling and inspiring

If I could squeeze my experiences this summer into a triangle, you would find one of the following labels (challenging, humbling, inspiring) at each of the three equally significant pinnacles. The triangle is not only symbolic in the sense that the contents of each label are intertwined, denouncing inherent existence, but that my experiences were pointedly extreme at times.

As a member of the Mombasa Fire Brigade team, we were challenged with a municipal strike commencing on our arrival. That meant no less than handcuffing us in terms of collaboration with the fire brigade, but provided us the opportunity to act freely as external consultants and focus our efforts where we felt they would have the largest impact. Now, in my experience we tend to evaluate success according to the relationship between objective and tangible results. If I am correct in this assumption, than it would appear that we were rather unsuccessful at the Mombasa Fire Brigade.

Our project objective was to devise a marketing plan and raise awareness among the local population of the existence and capabilities of the Fire Brigade. The tangible results are the creation of a new logo and the printing and distribution of 500 stickers throughout Mombasa County. According to a usual evaluation it will likely appear that we score quite low on the success scale. But, as biased as I may be, I would say that a conventional evaluation would overlook the many successes we had.

For example: we worked very closely with Mr. Jackson Mjape, a firefighter and paramedic whom we would never had met had it not been for the Mombasa Fire Brigade. During a drawn out meeting in his office at the fire brigade, he briefly mentioned his passion to help the local population by building and operating an orphanage in his nearby village of Likoni. Although it was not part of our objective, we saw potential in his idea and met with him on various occasions to guide and advise him towards realizing his goal. By simply combining our experience and knowledge with his vision we were able to help him go from a grassy plot of land to professional blueprints and applying for permits, licenses, and other documents from the local authorities. It was completely outside of the scope of the fire brigade, but significantly impacted one individual with the vision to help his community.

I could share a number of similar stories, such as the development of the Coast Aquatic Rescue Team with Mr. Salim, but I fear they would come across as rather redundant and may be difficult to fully grasp as they all occur in a different world called Kenya.

On another note, I would like to share how I was inspired and humbled by my experience. Growing up in a very western world it is quite normal for me to feel at home in an individualistic and capitalistic environment where equality is taken for granted and planning for the future takes the front seat in nearly every daily decision. That does not denounce the growing importance of instant gratification and living in the moment, but rather addresses the long-term orientation that seems to cloud our vision for taking action and making a difference while we are still capable of doing so.

In Kenya, however, the collectivistic environment is still intact, but lack of education and ongoing corruption deprives the population of social equality and paints capitalism as a picture of sunshine and laughter. What I mean is they place our way of life and prosperity in the same box, which is far from reality if I simply look at the way our linear economy treats the world. In relation to us they are very short-term oriented, which means planning does not take a front seat, and for good reason since they do not have much of a future as we maintain possession of it by exploiting commodities and labor, only to specify two.

I find this not only humbling, but also inspirational. My experience has emphasized the importance of returning the future that we have for so long been in possession of by overcoming challenges existing today, in the here and now, and empowering the population to progress as a community and not as individuals. To not follow in our footsteps to ultimate self-destruction, but to grow as one with the natural world as the stewards we were instructed to be. 

In short, I had an amazing time in Kenya this summer and hope that you take my experiences and insights simply as my opinion, as far from fact or fiction as you deem it to be.

(written by Mike)

5 weeks, 15 amazing people, unforgettable experience!

It has been over a month since I came back from Mombasa; however I am still speechless. Recently, I have spoken to some of the volunteers and one of their first sentences was: “”I miss Kenya so much, I would like to continue what we started”.

Thinking through the entire experience and how our project developed, I need to say it was full of surprises and unexpected events. I came to Kenya, as most of the others, for the first time with some basic knowledge of Africa or Kenya itself. As usually, most of the things were quite different.

Starting our journey with assignment of the projects, and introduction to all the locations: Blue Bell, St. Joseph´s and Fire Brigade, we arrived very excited and ready to work.

I was a part of the team that taught business classes to the high school students and young entrepreneurs. For 5 weeks five of us, prepared, taught and explained our topics to the willing students. As we soon realized our time management and perception differed greatly from the one from our students, our initial planning had to therefore be adjusted. Being for the first time volunteering abroad it was amazing and eye opening experience for me. Things I have seen and heard in TV and from others were so different to my personal encounters.

Having experienced both the positive and negative parts of Mombasa and its surroundings, I still am impressed and charmed by this country and people there. The positive response that we received during the last week from our students was astonishing. Next to that, we were delivered various business plans from them, which proved us that our material and lessons were useful to them.

This experience not only allowed me to help others, but also broaden my cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity. Even though, I have been travelling before, this was unique and astonishing experience.

I hope that I can continue my involvement with ConTribute Kenya in future and that our students from Mombasa will not lose their willingness to learn and that we will hear soon their success stories in developing and establishing their business.

(written by Magda)