Working and Living in KenyaWorking and Living in KenyaJune – July 2007June – July 2007

Jacob SiegelJacob Siegel

The Kenya Project runs under “Global Initiative for Village

Empowerment” (GIVE)

Founded in 2006 by UBC students wanting to provide HIV/AIDS

education in Kenya

Immediately, the founders struck a friendship and partnership with

a PhD student at UBC who had helped found “Kanyawegi Support for

Orphans and Widows” (KASOW) – a grassroots organization in rural

Kenya

BACKGROUNDBACKGROUND

Poor village in Nyanza province on the shore of Lake Victoria

WHY KANYAWEGI?WHY KANYAWEGI?

Nyanza Province has HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of between 10% -

27%

National rate is 6%

Poverty rate in Kanyawegi is 70%

WHY KANYAWEGI?WHY KANYAWEGI?

Most fishing regions in Africa exhibit a high HIV/AIDS rate

Men do all the fishing while women are responsible for taking fish

to market

“Jaboya” is a practice whereby women have sex with men to

guarantee they will get fish

This is extra-marital sex, usually without a condom, and both

women and men commonly have multiple sexual partners at any

given time

WHY SUCH A HIGH PREVALENCE?WHY SUCH A HIGH PREVALENCE?

Furthermore, polygamy is not uncommon, and there are many

tribal customs that increase the spread of disease

i.e. When a man dies, his brother inherits the widow

All the villagers are Christian, so they learn about abstinence but

never about safe sex

There is a lot of stigma regarding HIV, and so it is rare for people to

get tested, and even if they do, they will often not tell even their

spouses – so the virus spreads without control

WHY SUCH A HIGH PREVALENCE?WHY SUCH A HIGH PREVALENCE?

Villagers live off fairly small plots of land growing mainly

subsistence crops

Main crops are maize and millet

Other staples include yellow sweet potato, cassava and kale

Fresh fruit and fish is also eaten on a semi-regular basis

Iron and protein deficiencies are common, although not necessarily

because of a lack of appropriate foods

Rather villagers do not know which foods to eat

Also, quantities are generally much lower than known RDI's

FOOD STATUS IN KANYAWEGIFOOD STATUS IN KANYAWEGI

Poverty is of course a factor in poor food security

Food availability is seasonal and villagers may not have the

resources to store food for low season or have enough cash to

purchase

AIDS targets the working age cohorts – young men and women

who would normally provide for their families are weakened by

the disease

If they die, they leave young children to fend for themselves

or to be adopted, making it harder for large to provide proper

meals

FOOD STATUS IN KANYAWEGIFOOD STATUS IN KANYAWEGI

I was accepted into the project only two months before departure,

so there was very little training beforehand

The group participated in one full-day session taught by a UBC

Sociology professor

This session attempted to provided insight into working abroad

in a new culture and prepare us for the challenges we might face

PRE-DEPARTUREPRE-DEPARTURE

For example: As foreigners living in a very poor village, we might

get asked for money by many of the villagers. What is our role as

professionals? Can or should we give hand-outs to individual?

The consensus is no, every penny we spend in the village must be

part of a planned, sustainable project

Otherwise this perpetuates an established culture of giving.

Another lesson covered how to assess the sustainability of a project

What are the goals and indicators for success?

PRE-DEPARTUREPRE-DEPARTURE

I flew alone to Kenya (recommendation: never fly alone to Kenya)

12 hours to London, 8 hour stopover, 10 hours to Nairobi, 8 hours

to Kanyawegi

This last 8 hours was on what could have been a Soviet-era bus,

with no suspension, no a/c, worn down seat cushions

Our driver made one stop for the entire ride

Most of the drive was on a dirt or mud road

DEPARTUREDEPARTURE

I met the rest of the 12 participants from

Vancouver, finally, in our humble, cement

home with no electricity or running water,

although it stood out from our neighbours'

mud huts.

ARRIVALARRIVAL

Every week 2-4 of us would go to one of the

18 primary or secondary schools to teach a

one-week curriculum which had been

designed by the group

Members of a local youth group –

Kanyawegi Action Youth Group (KAYG) –

joined us to assist in translating and teaching

THE WORKTHE WORK

Each classroom would have about 40-50 students in grades 7

and 8 or 9 and 10.

The curriculum consisted of:

Basic anatomy and sexual reproduction

Biology of Sexually Transmitted Infections

History, transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS

Making healthy life choices

Stigma and Living with HIV/AIDS

Safer sex and condom use

THE WORKTHE WORK

I was responsible for teaching Day One

“Anatomy, Sexual Reproduction and STIs”

The first time I stood in front of the

class was nerve-racking – even though

they all understood English – would they

understand my accent? Would they

laugh when I said words like penis,

puberty and herpes? Do they even care

about this lesson?

THE WORKTHE WORK

The first few times I taught, the students did

not understand me very well, and I needed our

translators to help me out. Often they repeated

what I said in English just in their own accent.

After living in the village and getting

accustomed to the accent I started speaking to

students using the same mannerisms I was

spoken to by locals. Eventually I did not need

the translators to help me out, and I was able to

connect better with the students

THE WORKTHE WORK

THE WORKTHE WORKThe most enjoyable part of teaching

was question period

They asked many questions about sex,

relationships, condoms, HIV and health.

One of the most common questions

was whether or not condoms really

work.

There are many myths about

condoms in Kenya, especially among

youth

Condoms are purposely made with holes to

increase the spread of HIV/AIDS

Lubricant contains HIV

Condoms are poorly designed by the US against

Africans

We don't know how these myths came to be so

widely accepted, but it is a combination of

Christian belief (abstinence is the only safe sex) as

well as rebellious, uninformed anti-American

Africans

CONDOM MYTHSCONDOM MYTHS

Our group lived in the house with two staff, who helped cook

our meals and keep the house and property clean.

Mili and Benard became some our closest friends, and they

helped us orient and integrate in village life very quickly

Kanyawegi has one dirt road running around its perimeter. To

get from home to field to school to church there are small dirt

paths, or you just have to walk through someones field.

We spent a lot of time exploring the village, meeting with

locals and talking to them about everything

LIVING IN KENYALIVING IN KENYA

We did some research into the orphans of the

village.

AIDS orphans are children who have lost

both their parents to AIDS and either live

with older family members or have been

adopted by other families

We went door to door of all the homes in the

village we knew had AIDS orphans and asked

how the family earned an income, if the

children went to school and other information

THE VILLAGETHE VILLAGE

““BE EPEEMO OBER KAMOTH” BE EPEEMO OBER KAMOTH”

This health centre was severely

underutilized and acted only as a pre-and

ante-natal care facility.

On another occasion we went around the village

telling people about a mobile HIV testing facility

that had set up shop for three days at the local

health centre (“Ober Kamoth Health Centre”

““COME GET TESTED AT OBER KAMOTH” COME GET TESTED AT OBER KAMOTH” Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) is the international standard for HIV

testing

People are counseled by a trained professional and then given a rapid HIV test

People who undergo VTC (even if they test negative)

Show reduced risk behaviour

Less likely to become infected with HIV

The mobile VCT was an initiative by our group

THE WATER PROJECTTHE WATER PROJECTI became involved in a side project to the education component

A local widows' group (husbands almost exclusively died from HIV) approached

our group to fund the construction of a new water well

I researched the availability and cost of water in the village, and came across

another organization – SANA – which was building a pipeline from Lake

Victoria to various kiosks in the village

These kiosks would be operated by other small groups, who would sell water as

an income generating project

I brokered a partnership for the widows' group to become involved and take

control of one of these kiosks

THE WATER PROJECTTHE WATER PROJECTI became involved in a side project to the education component

A local widows' group (husbands almost exclusively died from HIV) approached

our group to fund the construction of a new water well

I researched the availability and cost of water in the village, and came across

another organization – SANA – which was building a pipeline from Lake

Victoria to various kiosks in the village (water would be filtered and chlorinated)

These kiosks would be operated by other small groups, who would sell water as

an income generating project

I brokered a partnership for the widows' group to become involved and take

control of one of these kiosks

THE FUTURETHE FUTUREI am going back to Kanyawegi this summer

I am leading a new project for food security and nutrition

Short term goal: Implement a Nutrition Resource Centre with scales, tape

measure, growth charts and plenty of relevant, easy to understand nutritional

information for children, pregnant women, persons living with HIV/AIDS and

other target groups

We will train some villagers to run the centre, and pay them so the centre

can be open year-round without our presence

THE FUTURETHE FUTUREWe are also in the process of becoming a registered non-profit, charitable

society

Involves a lot of restructuring of the organization to meet Canada Revenue

Agency standards

Necessary step to get grants and provide sustainable solutions to Kanyawegi

Long term goal: expand to other villages in Africa, or the world

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH INTERNATIONAL HEALTH CONFERENCECONFERENCE

April 2008, Yale University, New Haven CT

Organized by Unite for Sight, an American NGO working to provide free eye

care in the US, Ghana and India

Two day conference brought in 2300 delegates and 150 speakers to present the

latest research and information from around the world on all issues relating to

global health

Keynote speakers included Dr. Jim Kim from Partners in Health and Dr. Jeffrey

Sachs from the Earth Institute at Columbia University

Some of the presentations I attended:

Mental Health Issues among Sudan

refugees

The latest personal water treatment

technology from Proctor & Gamble

The power of technologies in

developing countries

The process of developing vaccines

for HIV and Dengue

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH INTERNATIONAL HEALTH CONFERENCECONFERENCE

I had the opportunity to meet some incredible people and made some

important contacts for GIVE

Dr. Blaschke from Stanford is involved with a large project in Eldoret, Kenya

that deals with HIV/AIDS from many angles, including a food security

component and a antiretroviral dispensary

Mr. Bossche from “Raising Malawi” (Madonna's charity organization) introduced

me to a successful project on the opposite side of Lake Victoria from Kanyawegi

I plan to meet with representative from both organizations this summer in

Kenya

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH INTERNATIONAL HEALTH CONFERENCECONFERENCE