Thoughts on Kenyan security situation right now - By Anna Banyard

I just got back to Kenya after a month at home in the glorious British summer time. Seeing my family and my friends and my pets and almost everyone I spent time with that had the ability of speech, voiced their concerns about the security situation in Kenya and whether safe it is to be here.

Of course this is all my own opinion and is by no means a validation of security or insecurity. It’s just a subjective insight in to what it’s like to live in what may be depicted in the international media as a dangerous city. I can only generalise based on those I know and what I have observed.

Nairobi is a vibrant place where flash mobs break in to dance in unexpected places, and trucks blaring Chris Brown full of people singing and dancing crawl along the streets, and ladies try to sell you second hand Zara skirts amidst festivals, art exhibitions, music concerts, yoga centres, graffiti workshops and tango dancing. This is the norm and it all continues as planned and people always seem to be having a great time. Perhaps security is something that is on everyone’s mind, but it is by no means the only thing on people’s minds. My mind is full of all the usual issues and although security is part of the pie chart, it’s not usually the biggest slice.

Over the last three years that I’ve lived here, the threat of terror in Kenya, and especially Nairobi, has increased and in response, life has changed. However, in my opinion, not to the extent that foreigners, or people with homes outside of Kenya’s borders, are choosing to leave. Of course if a terrorist attack shakes your city people may feel a sense of post-traumatic stress that manifests as a certain paranoia, a thinking twice about approaching certain situations. We have seen this in the West too. This does not however, mean a descent in to chaos, a total lock down or a fear of leaving the house.

The Kenyan government have responded to attacks with an increase in security in shopping malls, at the airport, and just about everywhere. Life continues without a huge deviation from the norm, changes to routines are slight and tend to be manifested mostly in subconscious decisions to decide to avoid large crowded gatherings and low security areas, or not to watch that particular football match in that particular bar tonight. Yet even in these situations, people seem to be calm and composed, not obviously uncomfortable and preoccupied with worry that they may be a target.

To close I should mention that although the British Government travel warnings have to be precautionary and sometimes can evoke fear, they do also say that most visits by British nationals have been trouble free. Most relevant for Dig Deep’s Kilimanjaro Climbers travelling from Nairobi over land to Tanzania, they also note that the “FCO’s advice against all but essential travel to low income areas of Nairobi does not include or affect transit through Nairobi airport.”

Whilst it’s true that people should only travel to places they feel comfortable going to, I personally wouldn’t think twice about flying in to Nairobi and travelling by road to the Tanzanian border. Last time I took that journey I saw some of Kenya’s most stunning landscapes, people, small towns and brilliant horizons. There was even a giraffe in the road at one point.

Interning at Dig Deep-by Sarah Caroll

I picked up an email from Dig Deep for the first time when James emailed Sheffield RAG asking for the go ahead to run their challenge programme in Sheffield. James explained his background with RAG and that he didn’t want Dig Deep to tread on our fundraising toes, I think this alone is a testament to how much the team respect student fundraisers.

At Sheffield RAG, all our money stays in the local area so we choose not to support international challenges but we also don’t find this an issue in most cases as challenges of this type don’t particularly need a RAG’s help, they pretty much sell themselves and can organise their own fundraising. I don’t see international challenges as competition for RAG simply because we facilitate a completely different range of events in comparison to climbing Kilimanjaro. One of the lovely things about Sheffield University is how popular fundraising is. There are 24,000 students at Sheffield University; we can let Dig Deep take 20.

Sarah rocking the benefits of multiscreening!

The second time I received an email from James was in relation to him hoping to find an intern as part of Sheffield University’s ‘Sheffield Internship Scheme’, backed by funding from Sheffield City Council. I miraculously managed to pick up the email one day whilst procrastinating from revision, and applied to work for 100 hours. In my first year of RAG I quickly realised I wanted to work for a charity when I graduated. Nevertheless, I’d never got round to finding any experience in the office of a charity before- the case of many students’ laziness towards making themselves employable. So I was very delighted to hear from James for a second time about something a little more self-interested.

My job was to assist Jessica in developing the student fundraising for 2014-2015. That involved organising and preparing resources for all the group leaders and their teams. Jessica asked me to write a student fundraising guide and pull together various bits of info about the trip, which led me to become very jealous of all the participants who are taking on Kili.

The internship has made me more confident in my own student fundraising skills and I enjoyed sharing stories with the team of some of the crazy things students come up with. I’ve seen fundraising from a professional level rather than a fairly manic and stressful RAG level (understatement?). I had never thought about the value of student fundraisers outside of University before, but apparently we’re quite a big deal to charities.

It was insightful to receive little snippets about the charities field work. I really like that Dig Deep create a panel in the communities to make the big decisions about the projects, and tries to keep these panels gender neutral. After all, the women end up being responsible for the water collections the majority of the time.

I will try and endorse the tagline “every poo needs a loo” wherever I end up. I think it’s fair to say that as a fundraiser I don’t think enough about how big a difference such little money can make. It’s always humbling to be reminded of stories, videos or pictures where money has changed someone’s life. Without a doubt the highlights of my time with RAG have been meeting the charities, so I very much enjoyed spending 3 weeks in the charity atmosphere. Filling out mundane street collection permits wasn’t a chore in the slightest knowing that as a result hundreds of school children would receive clean water and sanitary toilets.

                        

Interning has prepared me (I hope) for working after my final year at University but it has also been a very enjoyable three weeks. One of the nicest things about being in the office was how much time Jessica, James and Ben had to talk to me and ask my opinion on their work. It is a massive comfort amidst the panic of graduates to know that all three of the team have originated from RAG backgrounds and uplifting to hear of all the positive things they have to say about working for a charity. Being involved in charity has led me to meet some truly wonderful people and I can now add to that list. I would like to thank the Dig Deep team for having me in their lovely, tea drinking, Katy Perry listening office.

Could you do this job? - by Ben Skelton

When I first met Catherine in 2013 she had a very tough job on her hands.

Students at Kagasek Girls waiting for their first lesson of the day to begin

Catherine is head teacher of Kagasik Girls Secondary in Western Kenya, which provides a low cost education to girls who could not otherwise afford to progress beyond primary school. To get an idea of what this means to the students, this is how one of the girls sums up her life before enrolling:

"I was born in the year of 1995. I am the 6th born in a family of eleven children- five boys, six girls. One of my sisters passed away at the age of four. My parents have always been poor and can hardly afford one meal a day. There has often been quarrels and fights between my parents.

In the year of 2007, my mother left us and went to an unknown destination. She left us with a very irresponsible father who hardly buys food or clothes for us. During the year of 2009, all my siblings left home, men were employed as herd boys while my sisters were employed as house girls. Since then none of them have returned home. I have lived in a small hut with my irresponsible father. We eke our living out of begging for food from our neighbours.

During the year of 2010, I sat for Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and I became the only one in our family to have completed primary school education. I never envisaged that my education could go beyond that level but, thanks to our neighbours, Kagasik girls secondary and the principal, I now have this opportunity. They understood my plight and came to my rescue.

I was admitted into form one in the year of 2011. The school has provided me with a school uniform and food during lunch. If there is no supper for us at home, the lunch we take at school keeps our lives moving."

This story is obviously very personal, which is why I have left out the name and changed some of the private details – however, it is true and very similar to the lives of all the girls enrolled at the school.

Although Catherine is a fantastic head teacher, she faced some serious challenges in keeping the school going. The school had no dormitories and so the girls were either walking long distances to school or sleeping in classrooms. Lack of books meant that reading materials had to be shared in class. The teenage and adult students were having to use broken desks that were too small for them as they had been salvaged from a local primary school. But above all, the school suffered from an acute shortage of clean water.

The girl’s main source of water was a dirty pond some distance from the school. This was shared with livestock - when Catherine first took me to visit there was a cow having a bath in it.  To make matters worse, the pond was on private land, and the landlord was threatening to prevent the school from accessing it. All this meant that the girls who were enrolled in the school had their education disrupted by the inevitable water borne diseases they contracted and the time lost in collecting water. Also, Catherine felt that a lot of girls who could afford to attend the school weren’t enrolling because of the state of the water supply and so were missing out entirely on their secondary education.

Given all this, we decided to help the school by installing rainwater harvesting on the classrooms. This system provides a year round source of clean water by hygienically catching and storing rain hitting the school roofs. It cost just under £1,500 to install and, because it such simple low cost technology, the school can afford to maintain it in the long term.

 One of the new rainwater harvesting tanks at Kagasek

The old water used for drinking on the left and new water on the right.

The impact of this small intervention has been dramatic. The school enrolment has increased from 50 to 200 students and Catharine has reported a significant reduction in water borne diseases. The water project opening ceremony was also pretty memorable with over 1,000 community members turning up to celebrate – you can see the highlights here - http://digdeep.org.uk/kagasek-primary-and-secondary/4576459746

I was lucky enough to have a cup of tea with Catharine at the school a couple of weeks ago.  She told me that while the school still has a lot of challenges the increased enrolment, and the extra funding and parental support this brings, have helped her solve many of the other problems she faced (while I was there a delivery of adult sized desks arrived to jubilant celebrations by the girls!). She also told me that if it wasn’t for the water project happening when it did, she would have given up and gone to teach elsewhere – her job had just been getting too tough. I personally think she was being overly generous and would have battled on regardless, but it’s always good to see how one of our projects can make such an incredible persons job a little easier.  

Dig Deep is continuing to support Kagasik Girls School. We are currently training teachers and students at the school in the best ways to improve hygiene and menstrual health management (which is one of the biggest barriers to women’s empowerment) and are constructing toilets so that the school has enough for the increased number of students. You can support these and other projects here - http://digdeep.org.uk/donate/4574813866

Catherine in her office at Kagasik Girls