Saturday, 22 December 2012

CHASE Africa in the news!

Over 2012 I have been supporting the work of Lifebox - an amazing charity working towards improving surgical theatres and making surgery safer across the world. They have limited knowledge of Kenya - and I offered to help the coordination team with contacts in hospitals across the country who are in great need. The first hospital was Bungoma District Hospital. Located in the small town of Bungoma, near the border with Uganda - the hospital here is a referral hospital serving more than 1 million people. However there are few doctors and even fewer supplies.

I helped Lifebox coordinate the delivery of one pulse oximeter - and in the summer of 2012 I followed up on their progress. After seeing the amazing impact of the first oximeter - I saw a great need for another machine to further improve surgery. The doctors were performing multiple surgeries (many emergency procedures) at any one time - but only had one pulse oximeter - a life saving device. I passed on my findings to Lifebox - and they are sending over a second pulse oximeter this year! Lifebox decided to publish my story - so read all about it below!

Thank you Lifebox!

I’ll take you there

Posted on November 16, 2012

This is the road leading up to the Outpatient Department at Bungoma District Hospital, in Western Kenya, not far from the border with Uganda:

And this is the queue of patients trying to get in:

“The hospital suffers from a severe lack of staff,” explained Alice Greenlees, the International Coordinator for CHASE Africa. “If you want to see a doctor it is normal to wait for six hours, just for someone to take your name. It is such a small site for such large numbers…”

CHASE (which stands for ‘Cradle Land, Healing, Adventure, Safari’) is a service organization that sends volunteers on short term placements to grassroots projectsacross Kenya.

Alice spends a lot of time on the ground working with local partners, and she kindly offered to help Lifebox with our needs assessment, taking us with her to the district hospitals she visited.

She found the same problems that healthcare providers across low-resource settings continue to face: poor electricity, overburdened administration, epic battles with dust and bacteria, and a catchment area of more than a million people.

But she also found an overwhelming commitment from the hospital staff to deliver healthcare against the odds.

And she found a Lifebox pulse oximeter!

Earlier this year we sent a monitor to Bungoma Hospital, as part of our work with the cleft lip charity Smile Train.

“I really wanted to see the impact of the pulse oximeter donated,” said Alice. “And also to make sure they had received the instrument (as the postal service is notorious in Kenya!)”

Actually, we’re happy to admit it’s not technically true that she found it – because it was being used in the operating theatre for surgery.

“I met two theatre nurses, who showed me the box that the oximeter came in. They were beaming and obviously so proud of having such an instrument – outside was so dusty – but the oximeter box was perfectly clean and cared for!”

The surgical team at Bungoma does three operations a day, on average, and they try to use the oximeter for every patient.

“They said it had helped them so much – and wanted to express their gratitude to both Lifebox and Smile Train donors. It was just great seeing first hand what a difference a basic instrument can make!”

But Bungoma handles a lot of emergency cases, and often has to cope with multiple surgeries at once.

“They can’t monitor both patients when they have two operations at the same time,” Alice told us.

It’s terrible to think that staff must decide which patient gets the pulse oximeter, when all patients deserve this essential care. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we were able to send a second monitor to Bungoma when we heard about the situation from Alice.

It’s on it’s way!

About these ads

Thursday, 11 October 2012

International Day of the Girl

International Day of the Girl - Stop Early Marriage - CHASE Africa's Heroes of the Month!

Today is the very first time that girls have been recognised for their importance worldwide - by the UN has supported the establishment of this special day. Women yes have been recognised - but not girls. Not till now.

There has been a great response from media worldwide - grassroots organisations right up to international aid agencies - sharing their stories on the sheer importance that girls have today. Alongside inspirational stories of special achievements and testimonials from girls who have accomplished so much - there have been far too many sad accounts of the struggles that girls still face today - both in developing countries, but also in our 'own back yard' here in the UK.

I wanted to share my own personal experiences from my work in Kenya - and one experience in particular that motivates me to continue working for girls rights.

In Kenya among the Maasai tribe - girls are 'sold' into early marriage soon after they pass through the rite of circumcision. Most have no option in the matter - and it has now become the 'normal' thing for school girls to do. There are complex social and tribal traditions intertwined with this rite of passage - all slightly different as you move around Kenya and visit different Maasai communities. But overall, circumcision is the rite of passage from childhood into womanhood - and is traditionally the time where girls are viewed as ready for marriage. However, the girls are often as young as 10 years old when they are circumcised - and their potential new husband is an old man of 60 years! Even though being circumcised is seen as the normal thing to do - on closer inspection - I have found that the girls really don't know what they are signing up to - as the whole subject is still very taboo. it is something they are very often forced into - both the circumcision and the marriage. The parents are keen to 'marry off' their daughters - as they receive a very large dowry from their prospective son-in-law. The girl has no say - and is bought and sold almost like an animal.

The consequences of refusing circumcision and marriage are so great that many girls feel it is the only way. If they do not agree to circumcision or marriage - they can be thrown out of the village and family home and left to fend for themselves. Maasai boys are taught that girls must be circumcised and are not willing to marry an uncircumcised girl.

However there is a way forward - EDUCATION!

Through my work with CHASE - we have partnered with Mama Eve (featuring earlier in my blog!) and have expanded our anti-FGM campaign to even more rural schools in south Kenya. The plan - to educate both boys and girls on what FGM is - what can happen to the girl after FGM - and what her future would be like. Alongside this we empower the boys and girls to stay in school. Alongside this Mama Eve offers counselling to parents of girls who refuse FGM - and try to make them understand her decision.

Following our campaign this summer we have found our CHASE Africa Heroes of the Month!

These 5 girls (in the photo above) have stood up to their parents - and said NO to circumcision. So far they are the only girls in their class to say no. But, they are determined to stay in school. They are determined to finish High School. They are determined to educate themselves. They are determined to stand up for their rights as girls.

But this has not been easy - some of their parents have refused to care for them - thrown them out of the family home - refused to provide food and clothing for them - but they have stood strong. They are all below the age of 16 years. Having this type of conviction at such a young age is truly remarkable and these girls should stand as an inspiration for other girls out there suffering silently, scared at the prospect of having to undergo FGM.

Happy International Day of the Girl Child!

Thursday, 29 March 2012

How to feed 75 kids on less than £1 a day...

Chebukuyi – pronounced: [cheb-kwee]

Star of Hope - in Chebukuyi village (see pronunciation above!) is a home for orphans and vulnerable children - children who have lost either both or one of their parents, and have no-one to care for them – and children whose parents are not in a position to take care of them. Before taking in boarders, the children all attended the school part of Star of Hope – where they received porridge and lunch – and for many this would be their main meal of the day – not having dinner when they went home. Many had been physically or sexually abused at their home or the home of their guardian – and many were suffering from recurring illnesses, as their guardians were too poor to take them for treatment. The children taken in as full time boarders were the most in need – and all, when I arrived, were suffering from malnutrition.

My first few weeks in the village were taken up by finding out how the centre had been running for the few weeks the boarders had been living there – and the ways in which I could help out. Boarding schools are much more common in Kenya than in UK – and it is very common for children to attend boarding school both throughout high school and primary school. Therefore the idea of boarding full time wasn’t a foreign concept to these kids – but some are as young as 3 years – moving away from their family home was a big change for them, however bad the conditions were where they came from.

So we had around 75 attending school – and all school kids would receive porridge at break time. Out of these 75 there are 34 kids who receive lunch as well – these 34 are the most in need, in that they are the least likely to receive food when they go home. So during the first month of my time in the village I realised we had very little money to feed so many kids – and they had been struggling to get enough food to feed everyone. We grow a lot of the crops on the land – maize, beans, green spinach, cabbage, bananas, peanuts, sweet potatoes and cassava. However at that time we hadn’t grown enough to feed all kids, purely due to lack of land and poor weather.

Usual meal of Ugali (cooked maize flour) and kunde (type of green spinach) - eaten everyday!

Added to this when one of the boarders became sick – we would have to pay to see a doctor – as there is no such thing as free health care in Kenya! I actually spent every day of the first two weeks in hospital with at least one of the kids. There had been an outbreak of typhoid – and therefore we had a few kids receiving antibiotics but one girl Beverline was so severe she required daily injections for 7 days. Each injection cost us £1 – some days we were able to haggle her down to 70p. But in total her treatment cost £10 including the drugs. Therefore straight away I knew this would be one of my tasks for the next few months – eliminate typhoid.

Diseases such as malaria and typhoid take a serious toll on the children –it can leave them very weak for weeks on end. But it was also then that I realised the sheer toll it takes on the parents. Parents who only earn 70p a day just cannot fathom spending £10 to treat an upset stomach. They will visit the local witchdoctor and receive some herbs to grind and mix with water before they go to the clinic and are then unable to feed their families the next week.

Drying maize - this would last a few weeks

So these first few weeks were a struggle – we would eek out less than £1 a day to feed all the boarders – but even this small amount wasn’t easy to find and we would run out of money sometimes. Trying to understand this from a UK perspective is not easy when £1 is such a trivial amount –we wouldn’t even attempt to feed 20 kids 3 meals a day on such a low daily budget!

However this was one of the challenges I enjoyed the most – with such a small budget we had to be inventive, and really had to source out and barter with local farmers for the lowest price for maize, our staple food. The house mother and cook must then have thought I was truly crazy when I then proposed that we must improve the kids’ diet – by buying more food! As the majority of the kids were malnourished – this was an important improvement to then ensure their future health. Therefore we increased the amount of porridge each day, so each kid got a good amount. We added milk to the daily diet – so each morning the boarders received a large cup of sweet milk tea. We also introduced regular fruit into the diet – so we had bananas and oranges twice a week.

Porridge time!

As this was a new set up for all the kids we wanted to make it special in some way and the way we did this was to have a special meal on Sunday – we had chapatti and rice and lentils and cabbage! It is hard to describe the sheer excitement of the kids during the day as they looked forward to dinner! They would be jumping around, talking about eating chapatti and having some orange! This was always one of my favourite days – and I’m not going to lie - the thought of Sunday dinner was pretty exciting for me too! When you eat the same food for lunch and dinner for a whole week – the thought of a piece of chapatti and some rice really makes you hungry! However cooking all this over one small open fire was pretty challenging – and rolling out chapatti dough on a small wooden board on the dirt floor is quite an art to master.

I will write later about the wonders of the Lifestraw water filter system – but as regards the basics of food – this is really how we managed to feed so many children on just pence a day. The creativeness of our house mother and cook was incredible – and even when you thought there was no answer, somehow we would find food somewhere. We also replied upon the incredible generosity of parents and local villagers – we would find bags of maize sitting at the entrance of the centre – so that even those with so little themselves couldn’t help themselves but to give a little to help us out.

Monday, 27 February 2012

Chebukuyi village becomes home for four months

The CHASE Expedition proved yet again that when you get the right group of people all wanting to make a difference, a lot can be accomplished. It is too difficult to find just one single stand out highlight from the entire trip – each week there was always another great story, another great memory. If you want to see what we got up to in detail check out our Facebook page – and there’s lots of great photos there too! As I wrote below, our work with the Maasai girls really made a big impact on me – but there were just so many more experiences which I’m sure I’ll write more about later!

When the 8 weeks were up, the UK volunteers all returned home – but I hopped on a bus – well 3 buses and 1 motorbike – and made the long journey back to Chebukuyi village. 30 hours later I found myself back in a very familiar setting – but at the same time very different to the last time I was here with the CHASE team. We visit this village with the CHASE team – and have worked with this community since the start of CHASE. For one main reason – this is Leonard’s (director of CHASE Africa) home village. His mother, Esther Nasike, was an amazing lady – and started a CBO (Community Based organisation) years ago, focusing upon improving public health in this remote village, by going round people’s homes and educating them on how to prevent the spread of common diseases. Therefore her children grew up with this and many have since spent their life working in community development, following in her footsteps.

Working alongside NACODE teaching community health

The reason Nasike felt so impelled to teach others was the sheer speed at which disease spread in such a community. Only ten years ago or so, HIV spread fast and wiped out a large proportion of the young adult population. The community is still troubled with some of the highest rates of typhoid in Kenya – and common diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea still kill many children every year. Even something as simple as hand washing can save lives here.

Therefore when I returned this time – I was on my own – and with only a couple of English speakers, I was definitely thrown in at the deep end! But I was ready to take on the challenge – how many people really get the opportunity to work and live in a truly remote village, totally immersed in the local way of life for months on end?!

These photos give you an idea of what the village looks like

Some of my neighbours

Isaac - at his grandmother's home and also my closest neighbour

Lwakhaha town- the closest shops 1km from Star of Hope

There was lots of work to be done – so I didn’t really have much time to sit around and get bored! As a consequence of Nasike’s work in Chebukuyi village, there is a newly opened school and orphanage for local children affected by the impacts of the spread of these common diseases. This would be my task for the next 4 months – to manage the Star of Hope Centre school and orphanage on a daily basis, making sure everything ran smoothly and the kids were all healthy and happy.

Star of Hope was started in early 2010 as a small hut where Teacher Humphrey voluntarily taught some local village kids, whose parents could not afford to send them to school. It soon started growing, as more and more children were found to be in need of education, with such high numbers never had the chance to go to school. With the support of Leonard (my colleague at CHASE Africa) Humphrey took on the challenge of teaching more and more children, with the help of a couple of volunteers from the village. In just two years, the centre has grown from a handful of kids learning in basically a small mud hut – to teaching over 75 children in a three roomed school building and having 20 of those kids as full time boarders!

All this has come about with very little and limited funding – but a lot of passion and motivation to succeed. When I arrived at Star of Hope at the end of August 2011, the boarders had just moved in full time – and so alongside managing the school side of things – we now had 20 kids to look after – feeding, clothing and caring for them 24 hours a day is a big task. And with such a small budget – of literally around just £1 each day to feed and care for all 75 of these kids – the challenge became a whole lot bigger!

Monday, 20 February 2012

CHASE Expedition hightlight

In 2011 I spent 6 months in Kenya, arriving in late June – I spent the first two months with the CHASE expedition team as we travelled and volunteered at different projects across

Kenya

. CHASE 11 proved that even after 2 years acting as project coordinator and expedition leader, the same trip is in no way boring! It turned out to be one of the most empowering trips for myself personally – and mostly due to just one of the projects we worked with.

At the last minute we decided to go deep into Maasai land and visit a wonderful lady working hard to teach girls about the dangers of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). She lived a few hours outside of Kajaido town, a few hours south of Nairobi. After close to an hour on a dirt track road, we turned off the ‘main’ road and were soon driving deep into the bush. Sitting in the back of a pick up hanging on as we drove through dry river beds, scaled small rock faces and ducked from the overhanging thorn bushes - we picked up some local women along the way – we were apparently the only transport passing the road that day!

Mama Eva as we called her, works as the education officer for the region – but has a deep passion for empowering her own community. She invited us along to see what she gets up to. FGM has been performed for hundreds, probably even thousands of years in many tribes in East Africa. All are slightly different – but all with one very common theme – there are no physiological benefits for the girl. Mama Eva beliefs strongly in the fight against FGM – she has witnessed first hand the devastating consequences to women in her own village of this horrific initiation process.

FGM, or female circumcision is usually performed on girls around puberty age as an initiation ceremony into adulthood. Circumcision is also the main initiation ceremonial practice for boys – but here the similarities end. For boys on the whole, circumcision has no detrimental effects on the boys’ health – plus recently it has also been proven to have a positive impact on reducing the spread of HIV. However among girls there are no medical benefits to this procedure. Some of these effects include life long infection to the open wound; fistula (loss of bladder control); high loss of blood during the procedure; complications conceiving and giving birth; intense pain for the rest of their lives; and many girls die from blood loss. Therefore there has been a big push within the last few years to increase education about the effects of circumcision and try to mobilise local communities to educate each other. This is where Eva steps in and travels around local schools talking to the girls to empower them to say no to FGM.

However it is not always easy for girls to say no – even if they do not actually want to be circumcised, there is often a lot of pressure from their family and from the wider community. There can be many negative consequences for a Maasai girl if she is not circumcised – with many girls been shunned and thrown out from their family home. Even though it is an illegal practice in Kenya – this family and peer pressure is often overpowering.

For 5 days we accompanied Eva to different schools to talk to girls about women’s health, FGM and human rights issues. Each school was very remote – one actually only accessible by walking an hour through the bush to reach it. Many of the children were scared of us – having never seen a white person before I wouldn't blame them! At each school we got all the girls together in a classroom, normally from ages 9 to 14 years. With the help of Eva, we talked to the girls about their basic rights as girls – and the sheer importance they hold in their own community. In Maasai culture the women really do everything – from cooking and cleaning to fetching wood and building their homes. We talked with them about the importance of keeping good hygiene as a woman and the impact this has on their later life.

We then moved on to talk to them about FGM. What really shocked us that hardly any of them really knew what would happen to them during circumcision – and as a result, were quite happy to say yes. We thus educated them on the details of what would happen to them; and then what the possible side effects are. It was very evident that the girls were really taking in what was being said, when at the end when they had the opportunity to ask questions. What was really shocking was that many of the girls we were talking to had already been circumcised, but had not yet reached puberty.

Before speaking, we asked the girls how many of them want to be circumcised when they become of age – all hands went straight up. We then asked this question at the end – this time there were no hands. Girls were standing up and telling us they wanted to go and tell their friends to say no. We only hope they are able to stand up for their rights.

When a girl is circumcised her human rights are instantly stolen from her. She must then fight hard to regain control of her own life, her health and her future.

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

first impressions

I have spent the last 4 months living and working in a rural Kenyan village. Chebukuyi village, situated just along the road from the Ugandan border, looks very much like the classic preconceived idea of what an ‘African village’ looks like. A wide red dusty road runs through the centre, with fields of high maize on either side. Goats are tethered and grazing by the side of the track road – and children are running by, chewing on sugar cane or wielding sticks of some sort. Women pass carrying jerry cans of water balanced precariously on their heads, as they gesture widely chatting to friends, discussing their crops or the latest village drama. Local matatus (small cars/ buses) fly by, literally stuffed full of, what on closer inspection turn out to be people – crammed in so tightly men sit with their shoulders and arm out the window, men huddle in the boot, the driver kindly shares his seat with a fellow passenger and of course there are chickens on every lap. The roof is strained with bags of crops and luggage strapped on, and usually empty jerry cans are strapped on to the back window, flying around at each tight corner. This may sound overly stereotyped – but this is really just what a usual morning looks and sounds like!

However beneath this rather quaint scene, there are devastating statistics highlighting the sheer poverty of this village and the surrounding area. I won’t bore you with all the details – but in brief here goes: the area has one of the highest and most constant high levels of typhoid in East Africa; malaria is as common as the cold; HIV wiped out a large proportion of the adult population 10 years ago, and the community is still suffering from the spread of the disease. Apart from this girls are married as young as 15, there are high levels of infant mortality, high rates of illiteracy, and there is very poor health care provision. It is rare for girls to finish high school – and many boys drop out early due to not being able to pay the school fees or pressure from parents to start working and contributing towards the family. This is a mere overview of some of the major issues facing just one small area in Kenya – and there are so many more villages even worse off.

I have been travelling to Kenya since 2008 – but only ever for 3 months maximum time. Travelling with the CHASE team – and teaching communities across Kenya about how to prevent the spread of common diseases, and how to care for the environment; I wanted to see for myself what it is really like living in one of these villages. What is it really like living in a mud hut – with no water, no electricity, no special treats, no luxuries for months on end? What does everyday life here look like? What does it feel like to live in poverty and how do villagers really survive? What does it feel like to survive on less than 50p a day? And most importantly – can I hack it? I was soon to find out…

Saturday, 14 January 2012

Story behind the title

Wangari Maatahi once told the story of the hummingbird. The forest is burning and all the animals flee in fear and watch, feeling powerless, as their home burns down - all except the hummingbird. The hummingbird flies to the nearest lake, fills its small beak with a drop of water and drops this on the burning forest. It continues flying back and forth as fast as it can. The animals all turn and ask why she is doing this - you are too small to make a difference, they say. The hummingbird replies by saying: "I am doing the best I can."

Wangari Maathai urges us all to be more like the hummingbird - we can't let anything get in our way of obtaining our goals of working towards saving our planet just because it looks impossible and everyone tells us it cannot be done. What the world needs is more hummingbirds. We can't solve all the problems in the world at once - but we can do the best we can - and strive to be more like the hummingbird.

Chasing the hummingbird will follow my work in East Africa as I travel and work with grassroots projects, communities and tribes all striving to make their lives better - by improving their health and protecting their environment. Combining my work at CHASE Africa with Maathai's hummingbird philosophy - I hope to do the best I can to make a small difference.

Chasing the Hummingbird