My Biggest Challenge in Kenya

Hello Everyone,

Today I wanted to tell everyone about some of the other things that are going on with the project. First though, I will attempt to describe what I think will be my greatest challenge here. It might sound obvious to us, but the concept of making a project self-sustaining is difficult to get across. Unfortunately, past foreign aid to Kenya has created a culture of dependency here. People will see mzungus and think that they have come to bring money. For example, we were discussing a tailoring training program that has some great potential. The concept would be that the tailoring teacher can teach the students to make either school uniforms, items which can be sold in the market or even items which could be sold outside of the country (Amanda, the director has a shop in Canada which sells African handicrafts). I was discussing the project with the local people here and trying to figure out how much it costs to purchase the materials to make the items vs how much they can be sold locally at the market. We were talking about petticoats, they told me the different materials they needed to purchase, which I added up to 190 shillings and when I asked how much they are sold for, I was told 130 shillings. Hmmmm.....something wrong here. When I was pointing this out to them, they said ' wow, we can tell that you are very good at business'. Oh boy! I'm not too sure about this part, but I think that in the past they have had donations to purchase materials and therefore they hadn't accounted for that cost. It sounds pretty obvious, but for some reason here it's not always clear to everyone. If I ask why a project has failed, the typical answer is that they stopped receiving donations or that the donation that they did receive ran out.

So....I think the biggest challenge is to figure out how projects can be self sustaining. I would like to see any donation money used towards projects that will be able to function independently of donations in the future.

In saying all of that, the locals do have some great ideas, which I really think have some real potential. As I mentioned, They would like to have a tailoring school, in the past they did have a little school going, but it hasn't been running for a couple of years. In the past they had received the sewing machines as a donation, so they even have the equipment to get started.
I am working with them to set up a plan for items they would like to make. They already have a teacher, who has agreed to a salary that will consist of a portion of any profits from the school. Another thing I am working on is setting up a system of follow up for the project. I am going to be visiting past students of the school to see what they are doing now, whether their training has made a difference in their lives.

Another project that has some potential is a brick-making school. Amanda, the director has told me that she does think that there is a market for this. I haven't done too much research into this project, but it is on my to-do list.

There is also an interest in some small scale farming. They have the land to use for the project site if they want to, and there is even a good well on the project site for water. With this project, I am hoping to help them set up a sort of agriculture educational centre for the community. There are other ngos in the area working on agriculture, so I am hoping to talk to them about what has been working in the area.

These are the main things I have been working on, there are many many other projects in the area that I haven't even touched.....like fish farming, poultry projects, dairy or a tree nursery.
I will look into those things in time though.....

I think I've pretty much written a novel for you guys today, I hope you are still reading, despite the lack of pictures.

I will post some pictures soon. I am planning on doing a little segment on food so that I can tell you about what I have been eating and how it is prepared.

Bye for now!