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) 

GOODBYE is always a SEE YOU AGAIN

Now after exactly 42 days in Kenya it is time to say goodbye. What a time it has been for us. As you might have followed during the past weeks in the blog, we had many extraordinary and exceptional experiences.

After having given so much time and energy day by day towards all the projects and beyond, I have asked myself what we will take with us:

• We have gained huge amounts of personal experiences for ourselves
• We have faced overcome many challenges of the most different sort
• We have gained lots of friends in a far away country
• We have received lots of recognition for our work
• We have had the grateful opportunity of seeing/experiencing this b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l country

For all these small and big wonders I’m so grateful to be counted as part of the ‘We’.

I regard myself as a very lucky person to have been given this one in a lifetime opportunity to be part of this awesome project, to everybody who has been part / contributed to ConTribute Kenya 2013:

“MY DEEPEST AND SINCERE THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED TO MAKE THIS IDEA/DREAM COME TO LIFE”!!!

In light of saying the words of ‘THANKS’ I want to also push out some words which have been nagging on me for quite some time: “LET’S SUSTAIN”.

The thing I have personally learned most about the projects is that ‘Time’ and ‘Know-How’ are the two most sustainable things one can do to help the local population in countries like Kenya.

In the home country of Obama’s father let’s do it again;

ConTributeKenya 2014 –‘Yes -WE CAN’

So, see you again next year ‘Oh Kenya The Beautiful’

(written by Robin)

Last words from Mombasa

It is hard to believe that the time went by so quickly. I still remember our arrival on the 28th of June and now 42 days later, Robin, Mike and I left Mombasa for good. We had five wonderful and adventurous weeks in Mombasa and one amazing week in Nairobi.

While working on three main projects in Mombasa (St. Joseph 's House of Hope, Blue Bell Nursery School and Mombasa Fire Brigade), I can say that we reached and even surpassed our set goals and expectations, not only our own but also the ones from all involved parties. What we were able to change and create within this short time period of five weeks shows the willingness and endeavour of everyone and the great support of many people outside the main project team in Kenya.

To bring home some of this success, we asked the children, students and teachers from St. Joseph's House of Hope to write down or draw their feelings, thoughts and emotions about the time that five of the students had spent teaching them business subjects. Result is a stunning amount of letters and pictures from all kinds of people. All of the letters are positive and everyone enjoyed the time with us, learnt a lot and is hoping that we can come back next year for teaching even more and supporting them during the realisation of their business plans. Until then, we will stay in contact with the students via email and Facebook to provide further business related information.

I hope that everyone will keep us in good memory and actually realise that we were able to make a contribution and change something. Especially at St. Joseph's House of Hope we were able to open up a youth club in connection with Carol the founder of St. Joseph's that will help the entrepreneurs but also the students from Majengo to sustain their life and make a personal contribution to their village. The Mombasa Fire Brigade team opened up people's mind-set and created awareness for the need of fire protection training and rescue service in order to help people and show them how to help themselves. Lastly, Blue Bell Nursery School successfully implemented the accounting system at their school to be more efficient when it comes to cost accounting.

Six weeks later I see what 11 students are able to create and change and I am very proud of this team. Especially Robin, who presented the projects and gave us the possibility to fly out to Mombasa, but also everyone else who was somehow involved in the fund raising process and helped us realising this project.

I sincerely hope we can sustain the projects and visit them again next year to develop them further. Asanti Sana to everyone and I am looking forward to ConTribute Kenya 2014!

(written by Lena)