CADIF Kenya

This update is only two days old, so not bad by our standards! CADIF is a fantastic project and I hope we will be able to form strong links with them. Please read on:

Wednesday 1st July

Before heading to Kenya I connected with CADIF Kenya a community capacity building project based here in Kisumu. We spent today with them and although the situation within which they operate is desperately difficult, what CADIF (Community Aid Development Fund International) are doing is truly inspirational. I’ve been sat here for 1 hour trying to write about what we saw, learned and heard today. It is incredibly difficult to do it justice. Instead I will hold back until I have worked through the audio and video footage, written materials and photos we gathered today. We will make a short film about it and strengthen our links online and hopefully in person. For those of you aware of the project we are involved in in Bangladesh (Curry With Love/ HRA Foundation) I can tell you that we now have a link with a similar project here. CADIF are helping to rebuild a community on the margins of Kisumu and people who are truly on the margins of life. The community they work with is a slum on the very edge of Lake Victoria, in fact when floods come it is in the lake. Nylenda They are not doing it solely by raising money to provide short term aid; they are working WITH the community to create long lasting change by training people. They close the gap between education and the knowledge and practical skills needed to run businesses and this helps people to work their way out of one of the worst slums, Nylenda, in Africa. They train people in urban agriculture and agri-business. We were shown a training centre they had built with mud, straw and timber in which they train people how to recycle rice straw to grow mushrooms. They spread awareness of safe sex to help bring down the prevalence of HIV in Nylenda (24% of people there have HIV, much of it as a result of prostitution). They go far beyond simply promoting abstinence and the use of condoms, one of their volunteers, John, is trained in psychotherapy, he helps women who have contracted the HIV virus to deal with it psychologically. At their centre a few hundred metres from Nylenda they provide ICT training and simple business planning advice to encourage young people to be entrepreneurs while crucially helping them to gain the practical skills and knowledge needed to start and run their own business.

The last two hours of our time with CADIF were spent at The Oasis of Hope Secondary School. The Oasis was set up by a friend of Steven Otieno (Founder of CADIF) who wanted to help orphaned children to get an education, CADIF was instrumental in making it happen. The school is situated on a flood plain right next to the main sewerage pipe serving Kisumu. When the rains eventually come the school is under 2 or 3 metres of dirty water, the land there was very cheap to buy. The Oasis has 250 pupils some of whom walk 15km a day to attend. Because there is so much to learn pupils are expected to arrive at 7am and do not return home until 5.30pm. The school has no electricity, no running water and no sewerage system. Classes of over 50 pupils are housed in corrugated iron buildings with no glass windows, a mud floor and a teacher armed with only a piece of chalk and a blackboard. For the children who can afford it lunch is cooked on site and cost 10 Kenyan Shillings. 10 Kenyan shillings is equal to about 9 British pence. Many of the children cannot afford this, they therefore go the whole day without eating hoping that whoever they go home to (remember they have no parents) will have something for them to eat in the evening. Steven told me that many do not even have breakfast. The situation becomes even worse when Kisumu suffers a dry period. When it is dry the supply of food drops meaning the price of it rises, this is when hunger becomes a huge problem. Kenya as a whole is suffering longer and more intense dry periods as a result of global changes to the climate.

I’ve now been sat here for one and a half hours and I need to get some sleep. There is so much more to tell about CADIF and I promise to expand on this as our link grows. Lastly I want to make the point that CADIF has only been running for 3 years, it has achieved an incredible amount on funds that have been raised by its volunteer staff through their own hard work. It has struggled to raise money from government and large corporate sources due to its small scale, we plan to help it to raise money and hopefully to raise money for it. I left 1000 Kenyan Shillings (about £8) of my own money with the director of the school, it will buy 100 lunches, it is not enough and I wish I could give more. The more money CADIF can raise the better it will do, we are aiming to provide opportunities for volunteers from across our network to volunteer their skills to CADIF to help it grow. Global Footsteps can make this happen and volunteers will be able to donate not only their time and skills, but hopefully also some money.

HRA Foundation / Curry With Love

Global Footsteps is partnered with a Bangladeshi Community Capacity building project called The HRA Foundation. It has recently run into difficulties, Global Footsteps director Morgan Phillips has written a report outlining the problems and is trying to raise awareness and support. This message is currently being sent out to journalists:

The HRA Foundation, a community capacity building project based in the Bishwanath sub-district of Sylhet, Bangladesh, has been forcefully and illegally closed down by powerful and self-interested local members of the ruling Awami League Political Party. The Awami League promised in its recent election manifesto, Vision 2021, that it is ‘committed to freeing Bangladesh from its current state of crisis and building a country whose citizens are able to live prosperous and happy lives.’1 The HRA Foundation was set up along very similar principles to the Vision 2021, it is supported by UK partners The Rendezvous Society (UK registered charity: 293357) and Martin Horwood MP (Cheltenham, Lib Dem). Its closure clearly contradicts Awami League promises and is an example of the political obstacles standing in the way of economic and social development in Bangladesh. Awami League public representatives with dual Bangladesh and British citizenship are implicated by their non action. They have thus far failed to attempt any arbitration and have willingly and very wrongfully painted the closure of the foundation as a simple family feud over property rights. The reasons for its initial closure were due to disagreements at a micro level, its continued closure highlights worrying truths about the Awami League at a macro level.

The HRA foundation was founded by Arosh Ali and is financed purely by the Curry With Love Bangladeshi takeaway and delivery service in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. I have uploaded a report outlining the origins and current situation of the HRA Foundation and Curry With Love to the Global Footsteps news page. Please read it here