An interview with Steven Otieno - Political tension and HIV/AIDS support work in Kenya

In the second of our interviews this week, here is Steven Otieno from Cadif Kenya. Steven represented Kisumu, Kenya at our latest international conference, Footstep 12, in Slovakia last year. Cadif operate in the slum region of Kisumu, right on the shore of Lake Victoria. Cadif improve the lives of many through their health and education programmes. We talked about the current political situation in Kenya, Cadif's work in 2011 and some potential new volunteering opportunities.

13:39

Hi Steven

Hi, how is it going?

Good thanks. I'm doing some interviews for our Global Footsteps blog page, would you mind answering a few questions?

No

just send me some

Great, so firstly, how is life in Kisumu today?

Kisumu is warm, there was some rain but generaly okay, there is absolute peace but political temperature is raising.

What's happening politically?

Kisumu is ODM zone and there are many ODM politician from Rift Valley that want to ditch the party. This is because they are being left to take personal responsibility for their involvement in the 2007 post election violence. So there are ethnical blames between Rift valley and Nyanza on Raila Odinga's position at the post election violence trial in the Hague.

Raila Odinga is the current Prime Minister correct?

What does ODM stand for?

yes

from ODM

ODM Stand for Orange Democratic Movement

What do you mean by 'ethnical blames'?

Political leaders from Rift valley who are named to have sponsored the 2007 post election violence, most of them are from ODM, so the people of Rift valley (Kalenjin) expected Odinga to defend them, reasoning that all that happened was for benefit of Raila Odinga. Luo's in Nyanza oppose this view point and are very strong on their stance. They believe that the political leaders have to take personal responsibility for their involvement. This would be damaging to the implicated politicians, so they are threatening to leave the ODM if Odinga does not support them. This is a hot debate and accusation ahead of 2012 General election

Kalenjin and Luo are both tribes in the region, is that correct? And Kisumu is home to mostly Luo?

Yes

Kalenjin are from Rift valey region in Kenya while Luos are from Nyanza Region

Are you worried that violence could once again erupt in Kisumu?

That is a slight fear but only if the constitution is not fully implemented. If it is not there will be worse violence in 2012 than 2007.

That would be terrible. So are people hopeful about the new constitution?

Yes, its taking root, Kenya anti-corruption is now little bit effective due to new constitutions, but there is still a lot of amendment needed for it to be effective.

Things are moving slowly in the right direction.

yes

What about CADIFKenya, what does the week ahead hold for you all?

At CADIF we have started the year well, we are now starting our school outreaches , this week we will have 3 outreaches every week, we are also having community mobilization and sensitization in 2 locations, 4 moonlight Voluntary counseling and testing at night targeting commercial sex workers and their clients

What exactly is sensitisation?

This is an organized forum for creating awareness on HIV/AIDS within slum areas

check on our videos on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFE6u3jGMJ8&feature=share

I see, thanks, I will do that.

Is the HIV/AIDS situation getting better or worse at the moment?

The prevelance rate is going down among the youth but increasing among the couples and with that, we are lobbying for small grant to target couples for HIV education

To who will you apply for that grant?

Well I'm loking at the government through National Aid control council, and partners like Global Footsteps.

Unfortunately we cannot directly send money to fund projects like this, but we could try and send you a volunteer to help deliver the program and raise some funds for you too.

Thank you

I could also write you a recommendation letter.

would that help?

That will be helpful

I can do that for you no problem.

And the issues of having one of us join some of your volunteers for fundraising in UK later this year or next year, can it be productive?

This may well be feasible and useful yes. We will have to to discuss this further another time.

Its okay, so do you have some volunteer that are showing intrest to come?

We are going to do a big push for volunteers in the next few months, I really hope to get two people to Kisumu to work with Cadif and Kosimbo.

Thanks for the updates Steve, it is really great to hear what you have been up to.

Thank you, Volker was working on some reports, I will send them to you.

I'll look forward to them. Do you have any messages for our Global Footsteps members?

CADIF has been happy for the Global footsteps exposure and we will be sharing our project updates, opening up possibilities to partner. We are working on our new website, we will share with you our progress.

OPEN LETTER: Friends of Kisumu Link - An appeal.

11^th November 2010

Dear Friends of Kisumu,

In 1985 the much missed founder of The Rendezvous Society and Global Footsteps, Mr. Dennis Mitchell, initiated a link between Gloucestershire and the Kenyan community of Kisumu. This link was hugely successful in uplifting the lives of many Kisumians while also providing an opportunity for the people of Cheltenham to learn about life in one of the most interesting parts of Africa. Over the last 25 years Global Footsteps has sustained this link through various reciprocal visiting activities, but recently we have been working to breathe fresh life into our links there.

The Global Footsteps programme has set up links with two community capacity building projects with a view to sending volunteers over there on two to four week ‘Global Ventures’. In the centre of Kisumu we are linked to CADIF Kenya who work on everything from vocational training and IT literacy to urban agriculture, education and HIV awareness campaigns. In the rural district surrounding Kisumu we have linked up with Kosimbo Widows and Orphans group which was set up to improve primary health care, education and sanitation in a very remote village, Kirindo. Through Mikidadi Olela and Edwin Ochieng, our long time contacts there, we are also helping to develop ‘Kisumu Link’ which acts as a crucial co-ordinator for us in Kisumu. Without ‘Kisumu Link’ we would not have linked with Kosimbo and CADIF and we would not be able to find host families for our volunteers in the region. Kisumu Link is effectively our presence in Kisumu.

With my good friends Arosh Ali and Mary Paterson I have recently been involved in the setting up of a charitable trust here in Cheltenham called ‘Friends of Nowder’ it exists to raise funding for our linked project in Bangladesh. I would like to propose that those with an interest and a passion for helping the citizens of Kisumu come together to form a similar body ‘Friends of Kisumu Link’ to support Kisumu Link, Kosimbo, CADIF Kenya and potentially other suitable projects in the future.

I should be clear from the outset that while I am keen to help in establishing ‘Friends of Kisumu Link’ and can offer advice in how to do this, I would not personally have the time to contribute heavily to its activities. At the moment Friends of Nowder is quite enough for me on top of my other work! But, I am very happy to help in my capacity as co-ordinator of Global Footsteps and can certainly offer the use of our cafe in Portland Street as a hub for setting this up, but I would hope that a few committed people would be able to come forward to drive ‘Friends of Kisumu Link’ or something similar.

Please forward this letter to any interested parties. If you are interested in finding out more and potentially getting involved in any way, small or large, please get in touch with me.

Email: info@global-footsteps.org

I look forward to hearing from you,

Very best wishes,

Morgan Phillips (Co-ordinator, Global Footsteps)

P.S. The picture is of me with Mrs Margaret Kawala, founder of Kosimbo, it was taken in July 2009 at Kisumu railway station, just before departure. I promised then that I would gather help, please help me come good on that promise.

Kenyan Venturers in the Echo

Daisy Blacklock at the Gloucestershire Echo interviewed our Founder Dennis Mitchell following the recent Film screening held at Friends Meeting House. Please click on the article to read it in full.

Kosimbo Women's Clinic

In June and July a team from Global Footsteps visited a volunteer run health clinic in a rural part of the Kisumu region of Western Kenya. The clinic was set up by a widow, Margaret Kawala, who wanted to make access to basic medical care easier for widows and orphans in her remote home village. Kosimbo volunteers managed to build a very basic medical centre, dig a borehole to gain access to fresh water, while also contributing to the building and running of the local school. When our team visited the project seemed to be operating well. But the need for more work and resources was clear. The health clinic needs to be open more often, the school needs books, pencils, uniforms, teachers and computers and more boreholes are needed so that people don't have to walk miles to fetch the dirty water of Lake Victoria.

Since July conditions have become more difficult for Kosimbo and life has become harder for the people of the village as a result. Crucial funds from the Kisumu Rural Community Development Fund have been diverted to other projects. Because of this and some other more troubling, deeper, cultural reasons Mrs Kawala has found it increasingly difficult to keep the project alive. She recently sent me the following email:

morgan,

how are you. i have not been myself for the last four months and was almost giving up on kosimbo widows group.
it has taken me a while to realise that this project was started with a purpose of helping the widows and our orphans.
It also took me time to realise that very few people appreciate a person interested in development and especially if the person is a woman and a widow . But this has given me the courage to be a stronger person and work hard for kosimbo to be able to improve the lives of the widows, ophans and needy in our community.
since i have not communicated for sometime, im not sure of the plans you have for kosimbo. i will give you an update after your reply.

thank you

margaret

On December 12th Global Footsteps is screening a documentary made during the June/July Global Venture. The Kosimbo project is featured and we will be giving a fuller update on the latest developments. You can get a sneak preview on youtube

Kosimbo is crying out for help and support, but more than anything it needs recognition. Kosimbo is in many ways a pioneering project and of huge value not only to those directly benefiting from its services, but also as an example for other villages to follow. Please send messages of support to Margeret and her team via: kosimbo@yahoo.com

Global Footsteps is an inter-cultural linking and sustainability charity. We very much encourage anyone who would like to travel to Kisumu to volunteer with the Kosimbo project. Whatever your skill set there will be huge amounts of things you can contribute.

Please email us on globalfootstep@googlemail.com for more details. Projects like Kosimbo need support from partners in the richer parts of the world, please offer what you can even if it is only kind words.

Rites of Passage

Here is another post from Howard following the latest Global Venture:

Death is reflected in different ways depending on the cultural & religious practices unique to that community.

In Kenya funerals of the Christian religions take place on Saturdays.

Priests both Roman Catholic & Anglican travel the length of the country to bury their dead in the place of birth or their home town on a Saturday.

When interviewing priests of both the Catholic & Anglican faiths the concept of cremation & burial in municipal cemeteries is usually unheard of. They couldn’t understand why funerals in Europe take place on weekdays. To them Saturdays is the most convenient day as people are less likely to be working on a Saturday. They were also very disapproving of cremation that is standard practice in most parts of Europe.

Apart from the Sikh & Hindu community cremation is unique to them and not normally practised by other religions including Christianity.
The Kenyan people have a very matter of fact approach to death & there way of dealing with it is very different to that of European traditions.

The death of a loved one is very much a fragmented (DIY) Do it yourself arrangement. Unlike in the United Kingdom where a funeral director takes care of all the arrangements.

On weekdays in the local market you will see carpenters making coffins along the roadside. A practice unheard of in many parts of the western world.

On Fridays the municipal mortuaries are open to the public to collect their loved ones. However there is a restriction. If the family don’t have the money to pay the mortuary fees they are charged rent for each successive day the deceased remains in the mortuary. This often means they cannot be buried the following Saturday as planned.

Having overcome the obstacle of mortuary fees and your loved one being released from municipal refrigeration the process is still very complicated.

Whilst in Kisumu I witnessed many systems of primitive carriage for the conveyance of a coffin. Two of these included balancing a coffin on the crossbar of a bicycle or using a beer crate trolley. One of the priests I spoke to said it was not unusual to put the deceased on the roof rack of a car. For those that can afford it a hearse may be hired. An African hearse is not the same as we are accustomed to in Europe. Very practical they will use a Ford transit van. The seats are removed on one side to accommodate the coffin with the family sitting in what remaining seating space is available alongside.

Death is always a very emotional time for those intimately involved. It is very important that this taken into consideration by those directly & indirectly taking part. My experience in Kisumu was that the selling of a coffin was no different to the person on the next market stall who may be selling fruit & vegetables.

However in a country that is very poor materially they remain very strong in their Christian Faith. The African people approach death in a way that most Europeans couldn’t cope with. This is to their credit and shows how much we take for granted in the Western World.

Despite them being poor we have a lot to learn from them in a very materialistic world. What is important is that they never give up on their faith. They are very strong people both physically & spiritually.

Howard Marshall. Kisumu, Kenya. June/July 2009.

Visit To St. Lukes Parish

This blog is a little late, but better late than never! Its entirely my fault that it is late, but it is well worth a read....

Tuesday 07th July 2009

Visit To St. Lukes Parish, ACK, Manyatta, Kisumu, Kenya.

This morning I visited St. Lukes Church, Manyatta, where I was shown around the Parish & his Archdeaconary by the Pastor Canon Shadrick Jackim Owour.This was quite an eye opening experience as the Parish is in quite an impoverished slum area of Kisumu. Canon Owour s Parish was close to the epicentre of post election uprising of 2007. Only 100 yards from his church are the destroyed ruins of homes occupied by members of the Kikuyu Tribe.Despite the trouble church services still took place during that time of unrest. Many people could not get to church due to road blocks. At the same time time the Vicar could not always get out of the Vicarage to visit his parishoners for the same reason. When I interviewed Canon Owour later that morning it was quite horrifying what he saw and many experienced during that time of unrest. He and his wife kindly put people up in the vicarage who had lost their homes for their own safety as well as providing them with a place of shelter.

Outreach Projects.

Many of the roads around Kisumu are dirt tracks so Canon Owour showed me around the Parish in his much needed 4X4 vehicle. A lot of the communitities are not in the most accessible places and cannot afford transport to the main church at St. Lukes. As a result they have a number of Mission Areas where they are building churches accessible to the local community they intend to serve. I was shown 2 of these projects.

Herald Church.

This church when completed is in a rural area on the outskirts of Kisumu, close to where the post election violence took place. It is uncertain when the project will be completed due to funding. The churchs current structure consists of wooden uprights that supports a corrugated metal roof.

Riat. ACK Church.

This church is situated on higher ground with a scenic view of Lake Victoria in the distance. We were met by the Church Warden who lives nearby. He showed us the ambitious architects plans for a new church building on this site. Due to many factors including funding this project will be ongoing and will probably not come to fruition in many of our lifetimes. It appears to be a long term project. The existing church is a mud hut with a corrugated metal roof, which although functional is not ideal in the long term.I get the impression that people like churches, particularly in many of these rural areas as they bring small communities together. It doesnt matter what their religious beliefs are they often look upon the church as a source of help and support as well as being the focal point of that small community.

Howard Marshall.

The Rotary Relief Fund Kisumu

Yesterday afternoon, Alice, Aby and I met up with some people from the Rotary Club in Kisumu...

Tuesday 7th July

It was another busy day today, we met in town before heading over to see an old friend of our very own Dennis Mitchell, Sat Jobanputra at his beautiful home in Kisumu town centre. He moved into this house when it was built in 1937. He told me how the city had changed dramatically in the proceeding years. Kisumu sprang into existence in 1901 when the British completed the Mombassa – Nairobi – Kisumu railway, built to link the Indian Ocean to Africa’s biggest water body, Lake Victoria. The Lake is the origin of the great River Nile and Kisumu is on its coast. Mr. Jobanputra was born here and told me that during his lifetime the population has risen tenfold from 50,000 to 500,000. He has watched it spread outwards as more and more people arrive here from the surrounding rural areas in search of work. What they find is a difficult life, over 50% of the people live in slums or shanty towns, some of the poorest in Africa. Although the city centre, at the moment, is coping with the volume of vehicles here, it is surely only a matter of time before it becomes as gridlocked as Nairobi (or London!)

Mr. Jobanputra, now retired, used to be an active member of the Rotary Club in Kisumu. We wanted to know what the Rotary Club had done here in response to the Post Election Violence in late 2007. He took us to meet an American couple Dan and Patty Schmelzer at their home in Kisumu town centre. Dan and Patty are heavily involved with the Rotary Club here and were instrumental in the Rotary relief project that was launched in the wake of the post election violence. The relief project is ongoing and utilises the US $20,000 fund they accumulated from around 20 different organisations, of which Global Footsteps was one. Dan reported to us what they have achieved. They spent the money in three key areas. 1. Emergency food relief, 2. Provision of medical services, 3. A peace initiative.

1. Food: Four local volunteers went into the slum areas to uncover individuals and families who were badly effected and were on the brink of starvation. They helped around 1,200 people to stave off hunger
2. Medicine: Two medical camps were set up in the rural areas to help people needing basic treatment for illnesses and injuries. On top of this they funded life saving operations for people who were very badly injured during the violence.
3. Peace: A headline grabbing and very effective initiative was set up by Rotary to promote peace in the city. They wanted to spread a message of peace and settled on an innovative way of doing it. Rather than spending money on billboards they decided to approach the local 'boda boda' bike taxis. A boda boda is a push bike with a seat on the back for a passenger who pays around 30 pence to travel a distance of around 2-3 kms in the city centre. Rotary decided that they would make t-shirts with the slogan 'Peace begins with me' and they distributed them gradually to 1000 boda boda cyclists who wore them as they travelled around town carrying passengers. This made the cyclists themselves committed to the peace movement and their enthusiasm rubbed off on the other residents of the city. Rotary gave the cyclists small financial incentives to keep wearing the t-shirts which facilitated the good will between them.

As an extension to the boda boda peace initiative Rotary helped the wives of the cyclists to set up businesses. They did this through a micro-finance initiative as a Small Micro Enterprise Programme (SMEP). This has been very successful and continues to grow as women take out and pay back loans of increasing size to grow their businesses from side of the road shacks to down town shops.

Rotary has spent $10,000 of the $20,000 originally donated, the focus has now shifted to sustainable long term development. Through the SMEP they are helping environmentally and socially sound businesses to start up and grow.

Dan has promised to send us an interim report, when he does I will ask permission from him to publish it on our main website.

Dan and Patty also run Capstone Ministries Child and Family Restoration Outreach in Kisumu, please visit their website: http://www.capstoneministries.org/

The Tungari Youth Project

On Tuesday morning we visited a volunteer run mobile HIV testing service on the fringes of one of Kisumu's slum's.

Tuesday 7th July - Morning

On Tuesday morning we went off to meet my host, Shamsia Nuru, who volunteers for a HIV testing organisation. The Tungari Youth Project is a mobile HIV testing service. Each day 6 stations are set up on the fringes of Kisumu’s slum areas and people voluntarily arrive to be tested. Shamsia told us how it was often difficult to encourage people to come to be testing, a combination of fear, shame and lack of awareness means that the testers (there are around 5 at each station) usually fail to meet their target of 10 tests a day. Shamsia and her colleagues are all volunteers, they are trained on how to use basic testing kits and how to counsel those who test positive and give information to those who test negative on how to stay infection free. The results are almost instantaneous and those who test positive are referred to a doctor immediately so that they can begin treatment as soon as possible. The testing kits are very expensive, it costs over 1000 Kenyan Shillings (about £10) to test each person. The money is raised by a charity in Atlanta in the USA.

At present around 300 people are tested each day across the 6 stations, so far they have tested around 35% of the population, they aim to increase this to 80% by the end of 2010, they need more money. HIV is a huge problem here, it spreads rapidly because of prostitution, the tendency for men and women to have polygamous marriages, the lack of awareness about whether one is infected or not, the reluctance of men to use condoms and the generally low levels of personal hygiene. There is a campaign at the moment for males to be circumscribed as this reduces the chance that they can contract and pass on the infection, it is a difficult campaign because men do not like to do it. The traditional methods of circumcision sound brutal, they involve a machete, a big stone and a lot of blood. These methods are still in practice in some rural areas around Kisumu but men are now given the opportunity to have the operation using modern hygienic methods.

Last week Shamsia and her colleagues has been on a course to train them in how to go door to door in the slums to try to encourage people to take tests in the privacy of their own homes. I'm sure this will make a big difference to the amount of tests they can get done. It is sure, however, to be much harder work for the volunteers, but they seem to be a determined and committed team so I am hopeful they will succeed and make a big impact on the lives of the people of Kisumu.

Monday in Kisumu

We spent the whole of Monday in Kisumu meeting various people, below is a report

Monday 6th July

The first appointment on Monday was a meeting with the Mayor of Kisumu at the town hall. Howard had collected letters from the Mayor of Cheltenham, Lord Surgener and Lord Nigel Jones and we passed them to the Mayor. He very graciously received them and presented us with a Kisumu plaque for us to pass onto his counterpart in Cheltenham. He was encouraged by the letters we had delivered and told us how happy he was to see people connecting at a grass roots level. He did, however, tell us that he was disappointed that Cheltenham seems to have fallen behind its other linked cities in Germany, Sweden and the USA. He hoped that the links between Kisumu and Cheltenham will be revitalised at a Civic level in the future and will write to the Mayor of Cheltenham to express this optimism.

After our meeting with the Mayor we headed in an old seven- seater Peugot matatu to Kisumu airport. We had an appointment with the Meteorological department. We were hoping to get some insider opinion on the impacts that climate change is having in this region. We spoke with the Deputy Provincial Director for Meteorology – Berike Arera. He was very cagey not allowing us to record the conversation, he explained that he was only willing (or allowed) to discuss the data collected in Kisumu. He could not talk about climate change or long term trends and even though we pushed him quite hard he would not speculate on what the weather might do in the next few years. They are not involved in prediction.

He did explain to us however the traditional pattern in the weather here. Kisumu is almost on the equator, but this does not mean the weather is the same all year round. The weather here is affected by weather patterns in other parts of the world as these effect the winds converging or not at the equator, winds that bring in moisture from the Indian Ocean. Kisumu usually has a Long Rains season during April, May and June during which it can expect to receive around 50-70mm / day of rainfall. It then has a Short rains season in October and November. The temperature drops a little during these periods, at all other times it is hot and dry. Arera told us that in recent years there has a dramatic reduction in rainfall during both of the rainy seasons, he said that last year was below average and this year was lower again. This is a big concern as this is not a part of the world that copes well with drought conditions. When there is little rainfall crops fail and people get hungry, it is as simple as that. All around Kisumu we have seen evidence of this, there are fields full of failed Maize crops and the news is full of stories about predicted shortfalls in other crops.

Our day on Monday ended with a dramatic thunderstorm which lasted for around 2 hours bringing much needed rain. The wise residents here collect rainfall from their roofs when it falls. They use this ‘grey’ water to flush toilets and water any plants they may have in their compounds. Aby’s host, Michael, uses this water for his paper making business. This was the first serious rainfall we have experienced since we have been in Kenya, it was certainly very refreshing.

Churches

Yesterday Howard and I experienced Christian Church services here in Kisumu. Howard attended St.Lukes (which is twinned with his own St. Lukes church back in Cheltenham) and I accompanied Edwin Ochieng (Chairman of Kisumu Links and sister cities) at St. Stephens Cathedral in Kisumu town centre. Both churches were very well attended, there were around 400 people at St Stephens, several sat or stood outside listening to the service via loud speaker!The services here are much longer than back home, both of them lasting over 3 hours! As guests of the church we were both invited to say a few words to the congregation. I was only made aware of this the night before (just before going out for a few social drinks) but I had a feeling it might happen so had been giving it some thought. I have been reading Barack Obama's first book: 'Dreams from my father' (his father is from this region of Kenya) and there is a part in it (pages 292-293) which I thought would be worth drawing on. I thought I'd type up what I said here as it definitely captures how I feel about Kisumu and Kenya.

Hope

I want to talk about an inspiring man and a passage from his inspiring book: "Dreams from my father" by Barack Obama. In this passage he talks about hope. He is reflecting on a sermon he heard when he was working as a community organiser in one of Chicago's most deprived neighbourhoods. He writes this:

The title of Reverend Wright's sermon that morning was "The Audacity of Hope." He began with a passage from the book of Samuel - the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting titled 'Hope'.

"The painting depicts a harpist," Reverend Wright explained, "a woman who at first glanceappears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

Obama continues to quote the Reverend as he relates the story to the troubled Chicago neighbourhood Port-Au-Prince:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-Au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere... That's the world! On which hope sits!"

What Obama is saying is that despite the problems we might face: hunger, deprivation, depression, pain, poverty, hardship and the greed of others; despite all these things we can always hope. The Reverend Wright ended by talking again about the painting:

"And yet consider once again the painting before us. Hope! Like Hannah, that harpist is looking upwards, a few faint notes floating upwards towards the heavens. She dares to hope... She has the audacity... to make music... and praise God... on the one string... she has left!"

Kenya is so very different to the UK. Kisumu is so very different to Cheltenham. Kenyans need to find that audacity Obama is talking about, the audacity of hope. They need to stand above all of the difficulties they face, big and small and hope and believe that they can overcome them. I've been here for two weeks and seen many, ma ny problems, from accidents that happen to cyclists because they have no reflective clothing, lights or helmets to major problems caused by the changing climate and global warming. If I was a leader, at any level, here in Kenya I think I would be overwhelmed by this and not know which problems to address first.

What I do know is that I, like President Obama, would be optimistic, I would hope. There are enough people in this wonderful country who are committed to postive change, enough people who look outward rather than in, enough people to have the audacity to hope.

I am only the leader of a small charity, Global Footsteps. We are based in Cheltenham in the UK, but we have members all across the world, some of them are here today. We exist to link communities and people together to promote intercultural understanding and environmental education. We do this through holding international youth conferences every other year and by linking schools, charities, community organisations and churches. I hope that we can link this church with one of a similar size in Cheltenham. And I hope that by doing this both Churches will benefit as they learn from and help each other.