AFRICA

HOMABAY SCHOOL APPEAL

Heidi Foster

I need your help. I support an orphan village in Kenya and will be visiting in October. Parents of these children have died of poverty, Malaria, HIV/Aids and lack of education and medicine.

No doubt you’ll wonder why poverty and sickness still prevails after pouring millions into Africa. Unfortunately, money, development and food aid often does not reach the small communities who need it most. The recent G8 decisions and concert, which has raised yet more millions, be sure, will also NOT make a difference to many villages that are suffering.

However what we are not told about, are the many Africans who try, even in adversity, to be innovative, socially conscious and share the little they have with the more unfortunate around them.

I have sent money for the furniture, I am appealing to your better nature, not so much for money, although still needed, but small books for ages 3-8 (paper back as I have to carry them) your children don’t need any more, small educational or soft toys, colouring books and pens, bandages, plasters and anything light you can think of, a young school child with nothing could make use of.

I am grateful to Bogden for keeping a box in the shop where you can deposit anything you can spare.

A local friend has kindly donated new pens, rulers, rubbers, paper etc, which is wonderful and will give each child a set and sense of being at school.

When I return at the beginning of November, I will update you all on the highs and lows, no doubt, of an extraordinary community.

Its courage and despair.

A journey not for the faint hearted but extraordinary and certainly to be repeated.

First let me thank everyone who contributed to bring a smile to the orphan’s faces, the locals of Rye Harbour and my friends in different places. I am not sure you can imagine the joy of the children to receive the goodies for their school sessions/ the tennis balls which were a great success because they have no toys, and the gratefulness of the adults that a person from the West and her community would bother to consider them and come so far to visit.

From the donations and my own contribution we bought in Nairobi, 30 good blankets (nights get cold there) 30 T-shirts, food/juice and a manual sewing machine for the widows group who once accomplished in using the machine will sew school uniforms for the children and other items to sell in the local markets. A well spent 300 pounds.

My friends picked me up from the Nairobi hotel and from that moment I did not see a white face till I returned to the hotel. We crossed Nairobi by foot, a town that is overcrowded, sprawls, and is run down, with dirty streets and the neglect since independence very visible. People are selling bits on the roadside to make a few shillings. Yet they were smartly dressed and many spoke English. No doubt there are corners that are looked after with new buildings where gov officials and whites are working and live. I did not see them.

We found a Matutu, 12 seater bus, with hardly any suspension left. They all were the same, it’s the general transport.

Considering the areas we had to cross in Nairobi I did not feel uncomfortable or threatened. We drove for an hour on a dirt road to Thika, north east of Nairobi where my friends lived some of the time to earn money. David being a teacher is able to give extra lessons which put the family just above the abject poverty that I saw outside Nairobi and along the journey.

After a day of rest in Thika and spending the funds I had collected, we started the journey into the belly of rural Kenya. We travelled for ten hours to Homabay, a town near the Ugandan boarder. The roads were dirt tracks, dangerous and have not been touched in years. The bus had seen better days and again no suspension to speak of. The skill of the drivers and perhaps the blessing of a friend kept us safe yet the Kenyans of course put their lives on the line continuously, as I saw it, because they have no other choices.

In all my time there and travelling I did not meet any animosity but only welcome and curiosity of why I had come. From Homabay we had another hour journey ahead by taxi, even more dangerous down a track that was more like a river bed without water, many boulders and rubble and water logs. Half way we got stuck in a mud hole. We thought we had to push but luckily several young men were hanging out with their bicycle taxi (a bicycle with a padded seat at the back, very comfortable as I tried it out several days later and a two hour track became a 30 minute ride, though precarious) that helped get the car to the other side. By sun down we reached the village which looked romantic and idyllic.

Several compounds of huts. One with a sitting and bedroom and the other for cooking. The toilet (French style as all of them in Nairobi I experienced) was a few meters down the hill which was a bit of a chore for a night visit as there is no electricity except the stars to show you the way.

Life is hard in these rural villages. No opportunity to earn any money because of road problems, no jobs and no infrastructure. There is no safety net of benefits, not for anyone so everyone is reliant on each other and the few who work in a town share what they earn with the village community. Widows are most vulnerable because they are left with several children and no way of resource to be independent.

Women walk 6/7 miles to fetch water from Lake Victoria several times a day for themselves and the orphan children. There is no healthcare, no medical centre or hospital near by. One morning six men rushed by, carrying a bed. A woman had a miscarriage. They were running to the nearest dispensary 2 hours away. I know its distance as I made the track with my friends later in the baking heat to reach the main track where a Matutu passed every hour to take us to another town. She had not returned in the evening so we did not know if she made it.

Some of the solutions are so simple and don’t cost a lot in our terms. The community toiled a large bit of land with two oxes and a plough to plant vegetables for the food programme for the children. It is near Lake Victoria but still they have to water it manually because there don’t have a water pump. To create a well they need money to hire the equipment to dig a hole deep enough to reach underground water.

Considering the billions that have gone into Africa/Kenya in the past, each village by now should have both and a medical centre shared between several communities. However the corruption and greed of government, the lack of monitoring by the West and not making the leaders accountable, the prime minister has been able to use a fraction of specific target money for projects and the rest goes to whomever he decides deserving, himself and cronies as well as pro government constituencies.

Unfortunately, Nyanza District where the orphanage is, the people believe in their right to voice their dissent at the govts bad policy making for the poor and the MP represents his people so he gets no funding for his region.

People from far and wide in the valley came to greet me, most spoke good English, discussing the differences and politics of their leaders. I was honoured by the elders (no English) who came, though here communication was difficult as my Swahili was minimal.

There are many hopes and aspirations for progress as well as much frustration at the limitations because of gov policy.

However all of them were behind the orphan school and believed that education is vital for progress and alleviating poverty. The children themselves were wonderful, never having seen a white person and it was good to see them sitting on benches and table rather than learning rather sitting on the floor.

The schoolhouse is dilapidated and needs repair but because it belongs to a family who could turn them out any time they are reluctant to make it better.

Our dream: To find a doner who would help build a new schoolhouse with a dormitory, including a workshop for the women to sew the school uniforms for the children and other garments to sell on the markets. We want space for a vocational training section (by locals) for the children (most) who drop out of school at 13/14 because no-one can afford to pay secondary fees. School beyond primary is not free.

So if there is anyone out there wanting desperately to let their philanthropist part come to the fore, please contact me. The building would be about 10.000 pounds.

Remember that your taxes and donations which are paying for the aid money being sent to African governments often does not reach many of the poor, nor will it make poverty history in most parts of Africa. However, supporting a specific community, who helps themselves but are limited in their capacity to do so, who shares the little they have with the orphans, even when it gets tough and there is a drought, you will know that your money is being target and not misused. I can vouch for that.

I look forward to haring from anyone who is interested in the project even without any donations as you may have ideas to raise money or suggestions that maybe helpful.

My immediate and pet project is to raise 1600 pounds (estimated cost) for a water pump for the children’s food programme as the fear of drought and subsequent hunger, is never far away.