Final assignment completed.

 

Yesterday and today was my final teaching assignment for this visit to Africa. It was a joy to spend time with a group of 10 Tanzanian church leaders who all have a heart for prison ministry and have spent the week exploring what it could look like to set up a Tanzanian hub for Good News Global, the international Christian charity that seeks to take the gospel into prisons across the world.

I’ve been doing some training for GNG hubs already in Rwanda, Kenya and Burundi, so it was lovely to add Tanzania to the list today. During times in the training, they spoke about the challenges that they are facing as leaders relating to the increase in mental health issues that they are seeing amongst those in the community and those in prisons – challenges that are being faced in so many countries, although often with their own cultural and contextual nuances. It’s so heartbreaking to hear these stories, but so inspiring to be with those who care so much about trying to do their part to improve the lives of others.

The training went down well, and the feedback at the end was humbling and encouraging. I feel so honoured to be able to play even a small part in these prison ministries, and to come away with the knowledge that the information that I’ve shared has helped to equip the prison chaplains to better support the inmates and staff who are living and working in such over-crowded, under-funded, under-resourced conditions. No wonder mental health spirals downwards in such conditions, quite apart from the impact of previous traumatic life experiences that will so often make the individual more vulnerable to mental health issues in the first place.

As always, the requests for me to return to carry out more training in different parts of the country were many – and as always I avoid making any promises. Never say never, but my real desire is to train up trainers in the countries so that they can do the delivery in their own language and with relevant cultural awareness. So that is my aim, and it was good to identify some folks today who are keen to explore taking on that role.

The training was a wonderful way to finish what has been an incredible 8 weeks. So many memories, so much achieved, so many experiences and conversations and thoughts and insights to process and work through. And so many prayers answered in so many ways, including the unexpected and the unsaid prayers, but all answered to perfection. Thank you God!

 

My visit to The Voice School this week

 

I love visiting the Voice School! Based in a small town called Usa River in Arusha district, it is an independent boarding school that was set up by Daniel Mpanduzi and has at its heart a focus of ensuring that girls have equal access to education. In Tanzania this hasn’t always been the case. Indeed Daniel, who has nine sisters and three brothers, was inspired to set up the school when he realised at a young age that none of his older sisters had gone to school because, according to his dad, ‘girls don’t do that sort of thing’. Sadly it seems that gender equality still isn’t achieved at secondary level, and so it still takes schools like the Voice to proactively enrol more girls than boys, to ensure that the balance is shifting towards gender equality.

My visit here this week has included a number of different foci. I’ve had the joy of delivering 360Life training to the teaching staff at the school, which included some interesting discussions about the mental health challenges that they are increasingly seeing amongst young people, particularly when their students return from school holidays.

 

I’ve also delivered training of some parts of the 360Life materials to the students, focussing on the areas that help them become better learners, and understand themselves better as unique and wonderful individuals. In true teenage style, there were a range of attitudes to being in a classroom for two x 80-minute lessons (the chunks of time that I was asked to fill), but overall the sessions went well and there were some very good questions at the end.

 

One of the other foci has been doing a mid-funding monitoring and evaluation session for a project that is going on here as a result of a grant obtained by CRED Foundation from the Guernsey Overseas Aid and Development Commission (credit where credit is due!). The funds are enabling the school to convert their kitchen from wood fuelled to biogas, and it was great to see just how far the project has progressed, despite El Nino rains, and carrying the work out whilst students are in school and requiring meals every day! Once the schools break in a couple of weeks, the project will pick up steam and be finished in the holidays – providing El Nino goes away.

 

I’ve also delivered training to staff at a community-based organisation here which provides vocational training and empowerment to young people, including single and married mums, and a range of other programmes. 

 

And I’ve attended the form 4 leavers assembly / graduation ceremony which was a wonderful honour and experience. The whole school was cleaned from top to bottom by the students on the preceding day, the speaker’s platform (complete with canopy to keep the sun off) was built by some of the lads, and the gazebos for all the guests were beautifully decorated. Thankfully the rain stayed off, and the ceremony was a beautifully memorable occasion for the students and their parents. Such a sense of celebrating every student for who they are and what they have achieved, and there were some beautiful and tear-jerking songs by the children of the local ‘Pathfinders’ group that is run in part by F4 students from The Voice, and so this occasion was them singing goodbye to some of their friends who have risen up through the ranks. It was a privilege to be included as a speaker at the ceremony, and to be part of this special day. 

 

Still to come is some prison chaplain training, but that’s nothing to do with The Voice, so I’ll leave that for another day. For now – big thanks to Daniel and Pendo Mpanduzi (my womdeful friends and hosts), to Joseph Mwemba (head teacher), and to all the staff and students at The Voice for giving me such a wonderful week so far.

 

Introducing Norbert

 I’m in Mombasa for a few days, partly having a little break with the Dudis, and partly to meet Norbert, a Kenyan church leader who has recently moved back to Kenya to set up a new permaculture project in his home village which is about 20km north of Mombasa. 

Yesterday, amidst massive rains and floods that left parts of Mombasa cut off and reeling, I had the delight of getting to meet Norbert in person and seeing his project in action. 

The first thing I have to say about Norbert is what an excellent driver he is! Despite many very huge puddles and potholes, and roads that were sometimes flooded right across, he managed to drive us safely from Mombasa to Kilifi and back again, and even keep a conversation going while he drove. I was so impressed!

Norbert and his wife only moved back to Kenya in the summer, having been a church leader in the Home Counties prior to that. He returned home as he was aware that his home community was struggling to adapt from being a fishing community to one that had to draw its food from the land. Mombasa is normally a very hot dry place, and obviously the salinity in the soil is a problem as well. So traditional farming methods are not always well suited to the area. 

Norbert has been studying agriculture and permaculture alongside his church leadership roles in advance of returning to Kenya to support his community. And now he’s back and embarking on his demonstration garden. 

So far it’s going very well. Irrigation systems are in. The soil has been dug over and all the big rocks removed. Mulch is down. Compost has been dug in. Crops are growing well. In fact they are growing so well that the household (12 in total) don’t need to buy any veg or fruits, and have even sold excess to those around. 

And just to confirm how impressed others are, a neighbour has now started growing crops as well using Norbert as a mentor. 

Yesterday was my first visit to Norbert and his demonstration garden but I pray it won’t be my last. I’m looking forward to journeying with him and Mercy for years to come. 

Introducing IDAK

 For many years now, Kenyanito has been burdened with the plight of so many individuals that he comes across who, for all sorts of reasons not of their own making, have lost sight of their dreams. Each time that he has heard from someone about the way life has crushed their dreams, he has felt that story to be an extra impetus to doing something about it.

Well, now that dream of Kenyanito's has been birthed into reality, and the reality is the I Dream Again Kenyanito Foundation (IDAK) which was formally launched earlier this year (https://idakfoundation.org/)

Today I had the joy of sitting in a coffee shop and chatting with Kenyanito about IDAK, and getting an update on what has been achieved so far in the few months of its existence.

There are seven pillars to IDAK's work: education, school feeding programmes, shelter, healthcare, business startup and empowerment, disaster response and environmental conservation, and mentoring and coaching. Already, activities have taken place in 5 of these pillars. 

On the education front, 6 students are being supported through high school, each of them from a background that means that they would not have been able to find the fees for themselves. Also 3 students have been given an 'encouragement gift' of finance to help them with daily costs. The government covers tuition fees in the form of a loan, but daily maintenance expenses have to be met by the students, so IDAK gave each of these students a gift towards that.

On the school feeding programme front, a donation to IDAK enabled them to start up a feeding programme at a primary school in rural Kenya that the team have links with. At this school there is no provision of food, and so the students either have to take food with them, or go home for food at lunchtime (if they live close enough to get there and back in time, and if there is someone at home who can make the food - sandwiches aren't an option here), or go hungry. For the little ones who just do half days at school it's almost bearable, but for the older ones, concentration definitely starts to suffer in the afternoons as the hunger sets in. So the setting up of a feeding programme has been very welcome. 

 

On the business start up and empowerment front, 5 ladies in Kibera have been given seed-corn money to start up their own small businesses. One of these is Sally (not her real name). Her background story is one of appalling abuse, forced involvement in family witchcraft rituals when she was a child, massive mental health problems (including more than one suicide attempt), and marital breakdown. But despite all that, she has clung on, and recently was supported through counselling and church-related support. She is now a changed woman, feeling hopeful for the future, taking positive steps to care for her children, and keen to become self-sufficient. Her small stall that she has set up in Kibera is helping her realise that dream. She sells eggs, cooking oil, g'nuts, charcoal, silver fish, kerosene and soap - everything you need to make a simple meal, and wash up afterwards!

The model for these ladies is that as well as the seedcorn money, a savings scheme has been set up, and the aim is that within 6 months sufficient money will have been paid back from their seedcorn grants that another lady can be brought into the circle. And then after another 6 months another lady will join etc.

On the environmental conservation front, 1,000 trees were recently planted at a school in Kisumu, with each student having responsibility for 2 or 3 trees. So the students must keep their trees watered, weed around the roots, generally tend to them  and keep them loved and alive! In so doing, there is a direct link between the students and caring for the environment, and this model will be used for all future tree planting projects.

 

The other pillar that has been started on is the mentoring pillar which had some input when a couple of the high school students gained acess to some work experience relevant to their dream jobs. As a result, they are even more determined to realise their dreams now.

The needs continue: next academic year there are 6 orphan students already identified who have just finished primary school and who will struggle to find the fees from within their own resources. Always there are so many families who have stopped dreaming, but could restart with just a small income of seedcorn money. And there will almost definitely be needs on the shelter and health pillars - that's the nature of life. 

But for now - it's so wonderful to hear how this new organisation is making such incredible differences already in the lives of so many. Well done Kenyanito and all the IDAK team - may God bless you going forwards as you help people dream again.