Kenyan Internet Cafes: Boys will be boys...

As I'm sitting here adding these latest posts to my blog, I look over to the left of me and there's a chap checking out porno sites next to me. I just hope he doesn't go to unzip his trousers...

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Where's that smell coming from?

Most people have probably heard some of the negative things said about NGOs, which can range from the work they're doing through to the way that they run their organisation. I've recently come across one of those organisations - unfortunately due to a couple of friends of mine working with them - that give the rest a bad name. And boy, do they stink of corruption and ineptitude (you take your pick in which order).

So let's see, where do I start?

The projects they work on are of around the same scale as ours, yet they have about 10 times the administration staff as us. Of course, I use the term "staff" very loosely, as most are "volunteers" who actually seem to do very little from all accounts. Actually, worse than that, they actually seem to actively disrupt those who do try to work.

And the term "volunteer" over here has a slightly different meaning to what we are used to. They are actually getting paid, admittedly not as much as if they were employed, but still funds are going to them that could be used elsewhere.

One of my friends, a foreign volunteer sent here by VSO as a business advisor, worked out that around 70% of the organisation's finances was going to administration. Considering that the target for any NGO should be around 15%, that is quite an amount. Of course, that estimate is based on what little that can be discerned from what few records are kept. Did I say "few" I mean, none. The estimate is based on what he has elicited as the costs of all outgoings. He can't say for certain if that is all the money that is going out of the organisation, since there are no account records to confirm this.

A large chunk of this estimate goes to finance a fairly large office in downtown Nairobi, an office that is only used for the occasional meeting, and which is populated predominantly by people sitting on computers and playing solitaire for most of the day. They also have an office in Thika, which is the one that would make sense since their work is in the area. However that too is populated by a half dozen people who don't do anything most of the time, and when they do go out to network and speak with potential partners/donors they do so en mass with at last four of them together at a time.

Apparently if they closed the Nairobi office the extra funds available would cover the running costs of their main project, a children's home.

Then let's look at the work they're doing...

The sad thing is that some of the work they do is actually helping some people. As mentioned, they have a children's home with around 20 kids, which is providing them with a positive outcome. Of course, I am not aware of how many of these kids are actually orphans with absolutely no family, and how many of them perhaps could be going back to family. But at least the kids are not being harmed.

They have also done some useful work in the area of health education within the local community.

However, the plans they have in store for their new orphanage is quite... um... interesting, to say the least.

They have a small parcel of land they are planning to build a larger facility on. The two friends of mine have been working on these plans, and putting together a proposal to raise the necessary finances and materials. However a week or so ago they found out that - without their knowledge, as project managers - that the plans had changed somewhat. And boy, are they some plans!

The original plans called for a dormitory for around 40 children, a shower block, a small dining hall and kitchen, and outdoor areas used for recreational space and a number of small micro-enterprises (eg. chicken farming, maize growing...etc) in order to become as self-sustainable as possible. These plans, apparently (having not seen the land myself), are about right for the size of the land and the possible funding available to the organisation.

My two friends were called into a meeting recently where they discovered that new plans had been drawn up. These new plans included:

• Four large dormitories holding 200 children in each.


• An extremely large dining hall (either to feed to 400 children staying there, or a small army from the camp nearby).


• Two schools (even though there are schools nearby).


• A 400 bed maternity hospital, costing patients 3000 Kenyan Shillings (Ksh) a night (in a rural area where the average wage is less than 100 Ksh a day).


• A dispensary.


• An administration block.


• A community centre.


• A full size basketball court.


• A handball court.


• And, to cap it all off, an Olympic-size swimming pool!

Perhaps you might imagine the response of my two friends upon learning of the new, Olympic village style plans.

The organisation's business manager - not the VSO volunteer - was asked how someone from the area would be able to afford the 3,000 Ksh a night. He replied that a woman is pregnant for nine months, so they can save up. Seriously.

So, how have they funded their work so far, and how are they looking to fund their rapid expansion?

The director of the organisation is a politician's wife, and from all the signs the organisation is basically her "plaything" that he has given her. The funding up til now seems to have come from his own pocket, or the pockets of friends and business contacts. And in all honesty, if that was how it was to continue, then though disappointing that so much more could be done with the money, that would be entirely their choice and good luck to them. However...

Since being here, both my friends have been asked countless times to request funding from friends and family back home (in the US and the UK). They have also gone out with the children on a number of occasions to a couple of the upmarket shopping centres to, basically, beg for money from shoppers. And the main reason the VSO person is here is to put together a funding proposal to elicit some major financing from an international donor. So, all of a sudden, rather than someone's personal little toy they can spend what and how they want on, we're talking about money that could be used effectively rather than wasted.

The lawyer in charge of our legal aid department (okay, he IS our legal aid department) says that the politician concerned is basically a crook and that the organisation is at best a tax dodge, at worst a front for something, and has advised my two friends that they should get out ASAP. He has also warned them to be very careful on how they do leave. Apparently "corrupt" can also refer to "dangerous" in this neck of the woods...

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Slums, football and FIFA

It seems that there is more than just corruption and poverty coming out of the slums of Nairobi. There is also a model for community youth football that has recently been adopted by FIFA as the model for community sports programs to spread across Africa. The Mathare Youth Sports Association has been running for around 20 years, and has grown into an amazing community program encompassing sport, health education, community outreach, leadership and skills training, and environmental concerns. They now run the largest boys youth football league in Africa, with around 13,000 registered players. This together with an equally impressive (perhaps more so, with the gender roles as they are in Kenya) though smaller girls competition.

This is the model that both Thika United and myself are hoping to replicate in the Thika area, my pet project for the next nine months. Me thinks I've got a lot of work to do...

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Mombasa afternoon

Had a few hours to kill in Mombasa on the way back from Lamu, so got down to the Jesus Fort and the old town.

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Lamu: Beautiful beaches, ancient Arab influences

Escaped to Lamu for the Easter break, and a very relaxing place it is. Not quite as intersting or diverse as Zanzibar, but still a very nice place to spend a few days and experience some very different Kenyan culture from most of the country, a unique blend of African, Arab and Indian influences from over the centuries (and a few nice beaches).

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Sleepless Nights

No, not the title of a bad 80s romance song... "I'm having sleepless nights... waiting for your love to arrive...", sung by one of those guys with really BIG hair, but rather my last few nights. Seems I'm having a lot of thoughts running through my head when I lay down for the night, a lot of things going on at the moment. And unfortunately counting sheep isn't working for me. These Kenyan sheep don't move quite as fast as their Aussie counterparts and so between sheep there's just too much time for my mind to wander... and so here I sit at 3.00am...

It's certainly been an action packed first couple of months, talk about hitting the ground running! From the get go I was given the unenviable task of finding additional donors and funding for some of our programs. Whoa! Think of the hardest sales job, and then double it. Basically I'm approaching organisations who have had hundreds of people come to them asking for exactly the same thing - money. Plus with the drought conditions still lingering up north east, why should money go to our street children programs and not there where people are dying each and every day? Good question, and one which I really have no argument against.

So I'm in the middle of trying to get some proposals written up in the required format, which is not the most exciting task, plus damn difficult with all the differing advice coming from so many sources.

I've also been trying to get my head around exactly where our programs fit within the big scheme of addressing the street children problem, and what else we could be doing to compliment our current work. While Action for Children in Conflict (AFC) have been fairly effective dealing directly with affected kids, it's becoming increasingly apparent that we have to address more effectively some of the contributing environmental factors, such as livelihood issues for the parents and families, and wider community issues such as poverty and basic services. I would certainly hope that, over my time here, I at least facilitate some initiatives that help to address these wider issues within the community.

For example, I am planning on having further discussions with the local professional football team, Thika United, on how they may implement some sort of community youth training program and competition. There are some good programs running in slum areas around Nairobi such as Kibera and Mathare, and I'm hoping we can use those models as starting points. They have programs based around football and recreation, but use it to further other areas such as education and advocacy on HIV/AIDS, gender issues, and similar issues.

I have also heard mention of water projects within urban slum areas, where the provision of water for a fee (water is a purchased commodity) is used to fund community hygiene and sanitation projects. If anyone knows or hears anything about this, please drop me a line.

Along with all this I'm also in the middle of redesigning/building the new AFC website, which as you can see from the current one is much needed, and have also just finished a new brochure for them.

Oh, and then there's the personal stuff, though we don't really want to go there do we? Suffice to say, I have family members who do not support what I am currently doing at all, and dark shadows from my past coming back to ruin a present day relationship in the ugliest way imaginable.

Just another month in the life of yours truly...

Anyway, chin up and tally ho chaps! Now where's some of them Kenyan cockroaches I can count instead of sheep...

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