Outreach Weekend
Outreach weekend is something that Fadhili has started for their volunteers, so that we may get to see the not so pretty sides of Kenya, and the areas most affected by poverty and election violence, so that we may be able to help as much as possible. Volunteering wise it has been the most amazing thing that I have done on this trip, a truly remarkable, sad, and somehow inspiring weekend.
Outreach was to start early Friday Morning, so we had to go back to Nairobi on Thursday and stay the night there.
Friday
We woke up quite early in the morning and were picked up by the Fadhili guys, and brought to Junction the main meeting place, and a huge white person area....its still really weird to see large groups of white people. There were probably just over 30 of us from Fadhili in total that attended outreach weekend. So we all met up and then off we went.
We drove 3 or 4 hours until we reached Naivasha, on the way though we passed down into the Rift Valley, and we stopped for a couple minutes at some view points, it truly was quite gorgeous. When we arrived in Naivasha though, we went into the outskirts of the town and made our first real stop of the weekend at KCC Slums. From here we were split up into two groups, one group stayed and played with some of the children from the school that is part of the slum, and the other group, my group went on a tour of the slums. As we walked through we were told all about the slum, and these are some of the main points:
There are 6000 people who live here, they have absolutely no way of getting any clean water and the water they do use is from a little creek that can be very dangerous due to hippos and crocodiles and is almost guaranteed to make you violently ill. It is the reason that many people here have died, There is also only 1 bathroom per 200 shacks (and there are 4-8 people living in each shack) The toilets are also very dangerous for two main reasons, they are terribly constructed and several children have fallen through and died, as well as at night they are impossible to use, because of the risk of getting raped, and that risk is very very high here. With the large percentage of rape the rates of HIV within KCC slums are also extremely high.
The Fadhili volunteers that have been working here have definitely been doing some amazing and very helpful things, for example they built a very small school, and have started a feeding program so that the children actually get something to eat everyday even though it is usually very minimal. They have also started working with the women and have taught them how to make jewellery out of old magazines, so that they can start to sustain themselves. Afterwards the other group did the tour while we played with the children and got extremely worn out by them! Also we helped to dish out and serve the food for lunch to the kids and help clean up afterwards.
Then we left to go get our own lunch at a small supermarket. After lunch we went off onto our next thing what was supposed to be the not so serious part of outreach weekend, visiting Hells Gate National Park
At Hells Gate National Park we all got fitted with bikes and sunscreen, and then started our journey through the park. We biked on what weren’t the nicest roads in Africa but did enjoy some very nice scenery as we biked the 7.7km to Hells Gate Gorge, on the way we saw quite a bit of wildlife, mostly just gazelles, zebras, and warthogs. You had to be quite careful though when you were looking around at the animals because you would hit a huge rock in the road and almost be thrown off your bike, some people were!
At the Gorge after our bike ride we all hiked down into the gorge itself, and saw some really really beautiful natural scenery, and water erosion. We walked past the place where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed, as well as parts that are the inspirations/replicas to parts of Avatar. So you know it was pretty gorgeous. I really love this kind of hiking, and truly need to move to a place that isn’t so flat and is a little more interesting nature wise.
Then we just biked the 7.7 km back, except uphill – me and hills we just don’t get along so well apparently. It was very cool though because on the way back we passed right by a huge herd of water buffalo!
Then we were driven to Gil Gil which wasn’t far, and were put up for the night at one of the local hotels, it was so weird we all had our own rooms and toilets and showers....I think everyone had a hot shower as well except for me, go figure ha!
Saturday
In the morning after breakfast we all worked together to portion corn flour and vegetable fat, as these were the things we would later on distribute. We drove only a very short distance, and came to our first stop of the day. Vumilia IDP Camp, an IDP camp is a place for internally displaced persons, and is essentially the same as a refugee camp, it is just within their own country. These people are here as a result of the 2007 election violence that happened, where people had to flee from their homes, and people were being killed due to the disbelief in the election results.
The people that are living here, and there are 130 families here, were only supposed to be here for 6 months, the governments plan was to have relocated and re-established all of these families by this time. It has now been 3 years and they are still there, though in good news a few days before we left 28 families got relocated.
The living conditions here are terribly sad, the tents the gov’t provided were temporary only supposed to be there for 6 months just like the people, and they have now almost completely diminished. Each tent is supposed to hold 1 family, but a family can range from 4-12 people. They are held together with little scraps of fabric, and are full of holes. The cold weather here is a huge problem, and has cause many many health issues for these people, they also dread the rain as they basically have no protection from it at this point. The Gov’t brings food for these people only once every 3 months, so they must ration it for the whole 3 months, and there is just never enough. They really depend on the food that we distribute when we come to visit them. Very few people here are able to work as well, so Fadhili volunteers have helped to establish programs for the women to weave their own baskets, and make bracelets as a way to sustain themselves. Fadhili volunteers have also started a school for the young children (4-7) because it is too difficult for them to walk the 4km each way to the nearest school, the children 8 and up will make this walk 2 or 4 times a day though. The volunteers have also started a feeding program so that the kids get uji (porridge) every morning and lunch 2x a week. Another volunteer is also in the process of helping put in a water tank and irrigation system. So while we were there we toured around saw the tents, or what is left of them and helped give out the uji in the morning, and helped dig the trenches for the irrigation system, and we distributed the food to the families. They were so grateful and did a thank you song and dance for us, which was very nice.
From there it was time for our own lunch and then to head out to the last and one of the saddest places that I have come across here in Africa, and in all my life. Gioto Garbage Slum.
This garbage dump is located only 10 minutes out of one of Kenyas large towns, Nakuru – it is the main dumping spot for all major hotels and hospitals. There are approximately 700 people that live here amongst the rubbish. The rubbish that has consumed their daily lives, this garbage creates the rooms they sleep in, the food they eat, and the playgrounds for these children. These are the people that have absolutely no where else to go, 98% of the people here are unemployed and 50-60% of them are HIV positive. There is such a high HIV rate for several reasons, girls as young as 10 resort to prostitution to make some sort of money, they will sell themselves for 10 or 15 minutes for only 20 shillings. That is not even 20 cents Canadian. Rape is also a huge, huge problem and risk here, and another way that HIV is spread so quickly here. Another problem that was adding to the high HIV rate was a result of the garbage from the hospital. The people here have hardly anything more than the clothes on their backs, if they even have that. Shoes are almost never seen here and the people here walk over the trash everyday all day with no protection, many of the children were getting poked by infected needles that were disposed by the hospital. Now as soon as rubbish from the hospital comes in, they immediately set it on fire to further prevent this as a means of the spread of HIV here.
The chances that a child born here will live past the age of 4, has an extremely scary statistic of only being 20-30%. They have no access to food or water at all, the only nutrition they receive is whatever they can find from sorting through the trash and eating the rotten left over scraps from the hotels. Their only means of making money beyond selling their bodies or stealing are to search through the trash to find plastic bottles where they can sell 1kg of plastic bottles for a mere 15 shillings, Fadhili has trained the women to weave bags out of discarded plastic bags that they find, as a means of supporting themselves. Fadhili volunteers are also working on educating the women on how to sew, so that hopefully with enough donations they will be able to open a shop one day to sell things out of to sustain themselves, they also hope to do this with the men for establishing a barber shop. We are also working on sponsoring the kids so that they can get sent to boarding schools, so they can escape this sad and harsh life, and actually have a chance to make something of themselves. It is not cheap to sponsor a child though, but they have currently got over 35 kids sponsored, and after talking to some of the girls I realized just how much they really do need to go to school and get away from the dangers here. The government does not want these people here, but they do not do anything to help them get out of this situation. Every 6 months or so they government will send people to kick them all off the land, and then they all just camp out on the side of the road for a few days until the people leave and then just go back to their daily life as it was before.
We distributed the rest of our food here as well, and I have never seen people so desperate for food in their entire lives, it was very eye-opening.
I just want to quickly share 4 stories, so that people at home really understand just how terrible and dangerous it is for the people living here.
There is a lady who suffers from such severe arthritis that she can hardly even move, she is quite elderly (for Kenya at least – the life expectancy rate is only 54) She has mothered 14 children, 4 of these kids were the for sure result of rape, and some of the others may have been as well. She can do absolutely nothing to support herself or her children. It is likely that some of these kids will not live to see their 20th birthdays.
There is a girl here who is only 15 years old, and has just had her 3rd child, all 3 children were the result of her being raped. This girl should be in school.
The boys here have no good male influences as most of the men whose families come here will just disappear as they are so shamed to not be able to support their families, these boys resort to drugs quite often, as drugs are cheaper here than any sort of food is. 1 joint is only 10 - 15 shillings, and 1 loaf of bread is at least 60 shillings.
The most heart breaking story I heard from here was a girl who was only 10 or 11 years old, was kidnapped essentially and locked up in this tiny little shack for a week, where she was raped and beaten repeatedly by 7 different men. This should not be happening anywhere. The girl immediately got sponsored and got sent to boarding school, and is starting to do better but has much physical and mental trauma obviously, and when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grows up she says a Nun.
The things that I saw over this weekend are things that I will never forget, and are things that will stay with me and change the way I am to many different things over the course of my entire life. It is extremely sad and upsetting to read about in a book, or on a blog like this one, but to actually experience it is a whole different thing.
The Sunday after we got back into Nairobi we went on a city excursion to kiss some giraffes at the Karen Blixen Giraffe Centre, and see the elephant orphans at David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust ( I got to see the elephant that I sponsor there but I did not actually get to meet it – so I will be doing that next week) Then we went to play with some Monkeys in Nairobi City Park.
I know this was a long read, but for those of you who made it through thank you for taking the time to read all of this, and I hope it has touched you in at least a fraction of the way that it has touched me. If anyone has anymore questions about any of these places or wants to know how to help, just get a hold of me! Love you and miss you all!
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