A few weeks ago, I got a chance to meet with Megan White, a social entrepreneur originally from Connecticut who now lives in Kenya, where she established ZanaAfrica, a terrific organization making a big difference for girls in the region. She’ll be checking in periodically to tell us about what she’s seeing on the ground through her great work in Africa:
What one thing in this world, being given, would make you feel the whole world loved you? What one thing in this world would be important enough for you to have to prostitute yourself to get if that was the only recourse? For girls in Kibera slum in Nairobi, and likely across the developing world, the answer is disarmingly simple: sanitary pads.
Over 150 million girls drop out of school every year across the globe; an untold number of these may be due in large part to the social injustice of the high cost of sanitary pads: the cost of 2 days of labor to buy one month’s supply. I can’t imagine this number of girls; however, I know Muthoni, who in 2008 sadly and resignedly stated, “When a boy approaches you [for sex] you cannot refuse because you need pads, you need them, you need them.” As her voice trailed off, and a tear trailed off my cheek, I knew I was on the right path for my life: solving this challenge by providing low-cost, eco-friendly sanitary pads for girls in school, and their mothers, in a way that celebrates the intellectual and environmental resources within Africa, and that can be rolled out across nations. Providing dignity, protecting dreams, promoting working solutions within Africa: what could be more worthwhile?
What’s so important about educating girls anyway? Why not tampons? What do girls use otherwise? What is so bad to the environment about sanitary pads? What solutions are out there? What’s it really like to live in Kenya? How can someone not in Kenya help to make difference? Find these answers and as you follow me here, on ONE, and see a window to another world. I hope as I share my journey it will help you take the right risks on yours.
About the author: Megan White, a social entrepreneur, was raised in Connecticut, attended Harvard College, and dabbled in internet start-ups before buying a one-way ticket to Nairobi in 2001. She has served in several grass-roots organizations across Kenya in various capacities. The result of living among and learning from Africans resulted in her founding ZanaAfrica, whose mission is to identify and scale up African-led innovations for national, sustainable, and replicable solutions to poverty. Learn more on www.zanaafrica.org.
Earlier today Vice President Joe Biden met with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga in Nairobi. This marks the second leg of the Vice President’s 7 day trip to Africa, with his final stop set for South Africa and the World Cup opening ceremonies.
During his remarks, the Vice President noted the importance of good governance—and the critical impact it can have on the economy. Governance is a key issue in Kenya, where in late 2007, a disputed election between Kibaki and Odinga set off widespread bloodshed in Kenya. The violence finally ended when President Kibaki agreed to share power with Prime Minister Odinga.
“Better governance is just not an end in itself—it is a path to job creation and to a better economy. Two-thirds of your citizens are under the age of 25, and they are an incredible source of strength. But they also represent a challenge to create positive, creative, and productive outlets for their energy and enthusiasm in a prospering economy.
And as Kenya moves forward, so too will the United States in strengthening our relationships with you, both economically and politically. Kenya is already the largest recipient of U.S. support in sub-Saharan Africa. Putting in place a new constitution and strengthening your democratic institutions with the rule of law will further open the door to major American development programs such as the Millennium Challenge and will, I predict, bring about reinvestment by American corporations and international organizations in Kenya that could provide millions of dollars in assistance in grants through the Millennium Challenge, as well as begin to further build the economy of this great country.
Check out the video below to see Vice President Biden’s full remarks (along with President Kibaki’s introduction).
Yet another reminder of how small our world really is. AP reports:
Some 5,000 day laborers in Kenya who have been without work since the ash cloud from Iceland shut down air traffic across Europe, showing how one event can have drastic consequences in distant lands in today’s global economy.
“If this goes on for a week it will be really bad for us,” said Oyier, 23, who sat against a fence most of Monday near Nairobi’s international airport, hoping his employer would call him in. “I don’t know how I will make rent.”
Kenya has thrown away 10 million flowers — mostly roses — since the volcano eruption. Asparagus, broccoli and green beans meant for European dinner tables are being fed to Kenyan cattle because storage facilities are filled to capacity.
The horticulture industry is Kenya’s top foreign exchange earner, making $922 million last year. Kenya exports 1,000 tons a day of produce and flowers — including roses, carnations and lilies, said Philip Mbithi, chief executive of the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya.
Mbithi warned of a cascading series of losses if the travel ban lasts much longer. Small-scale farmers who fund their operations through bank loans will begin defaulting on payments and won’t be able to get funding for next season if exports don’t resume, he said.
Some businesses in Europe will be increasingly affected by a lack of imports, but as long as the disruption is not too lengthy it shouldn’t be a major issue, according to analysis firm IHS Global Insight.
“The main problem concerns goods that are perishable. Imports of items such as exotic fruit and flowers are being affected and this could lead to a marked spike in prices for these goods,” IHS Global Insight said.
CNN has an interesting report today about a new project underway in Kenya to help alleviate hunger:
For centuries Africa has been a rural continent, but there is a steady stream of people heading into the crowded cities — where many find their new home is in a slum.
In Nairobi’s densely populated slums people have hard lives and some are going back to their agricultural roots to get ahead.
The “farm-in-a-sack” project provides poor families with more than 40 seedlings, which can be grown into food in just a few weeks.
Nairobi’s Mathare slum is not a paradise for green-fingered ambitions — the streets are narrow and garbage is strewn everywhere.
But mini-farms are cropping up on spare land.
The project was started by the Italian organization Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), which brought in rural agriculturists to teach community groups how to create vegetable farms in the slums.
COOPI provided each participating household in the project with one sack containing soil mix and 43 seedlings to cultivate: 25 spinach, 15 kale, 2 capsicum and 1 spring onion. COOPI also provides the expertise.
The vegetables can be harvested many times for at least one year. The capsicum and spring onions are used for passive pest control instead of chemicals. The spinach sometimes even grows out of the side of the sack.
Nairobi’s urban centers are increasingly cramped, so what they try to do is use the minimum amount of space to get the maximum amount of output.
ONE is embarking on a listening and learning trip to Senegal, Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya with members of our board and other supporters. Below is a video by ONE advisory board member John Githongo.
We wanted to share this video taken in Kenya this week of anti-corruption campaign and ONE advisor John Githongo. I found his words moving, and tried my best to transcribe them below.
“Hi, I’m John Githongo. I’m Chief Executive of Inuka Kenya. Also head of
Twaweza Kenya.
When people ask me what we’re doing, at the end of day, I mean there’s lots of stuff we’re doing, but at the end of the day what we’re creating is a social movement of people, especially young people, who believe in the concept of “ni sissy.”
Ni sisi is the Swahili words for “it is us.”
It is us who owns our problems and it is us who will come up with the solutions.
There are many ways of doing that. We have culture platforms. We partner with the private sector. We use media, information technology. There are a whole range of ways this can be applied.
But at the end of the day the critical element is people. That is the most valuable asset that we have in a country like Kenya. Despite the difficulties that we had in 2007 2008 after the elections.
A network that brings people together for themselves to improve their own conditions and their own relationships with each other.
Dignity comes before development — and that’s about relationships.
Therefor you may find a situation where people seem to be poor, who are living under challenging circumstances, but they are comfortable in their own skin.
And it is in that kind of context that development, in the traditional sense, happens most easily.”
More about John Githongo, written by my colleague Morgana, below:
In 2002 the newly appointed President Kibaki appointed John Githongo as Permanent Secretary for Ethics and Governance in the Office of the President, where he was known as the “anti-corruption czar.” Eighteen months after Githongo entered office, he began to discover considerable instances of corruption. As Githongo tried to probe further, government ministers prevented his investigations. Without support from the President and his administration, Githongo resigned from his post in 2005. He then went into self-imposed exile in the UK, without any explanation for his abrupt departure. When he left, he took with him potentially explosive documents that revealed the corruption schemes in the government. Githongo compiled the documents into a dossier which was leaked to the press in early 2006. This dossier contained evidence of a series of government procurement deals with non-existent companies, which effectively robbed Kenya of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Michela Wrong, a British author and former foreign correspondent who housed Githongo during part of his exile, chronicled Githongo’s fight against corruption in her book, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower. Githongo, who is on ONE’s Advisory Board, has since returned from exile, but travels extensively to continue to monitor, investigate, and spread awareness about government corruption.
Mr. Githongo’s new organization, Inuka (“get up” in Swahili) Trust, aims to recapture the powerful moment of hope felt by all Kenyans in 2003 and convert it into lasting change created by and for Kenyans. Inuka works to affirm individuals as African and global citizens and empower Kenyans to use information, express their views and – importantly – take initiative aimed at improving their lives and holding governments accountable.
On Wednesday, March 17th, Githongo took us to visit Nyawira Kazi — a self-organized local community group of 20 people who have come together to help the vulnerable in their community. Led by charismatic leadership with no external help, Nyawira Kazi finds the gaps that exist in their local community and work towards closing them. Right now this means their focus is on caring for the orphans left behind by the political violence by providing a nursery and feeding program for children who would otherwise go without meals.
In tea production, that is! According to AllAfrica.com, Kenya has officially overtaken Sri Lanka to become the world’s top tea exporter:
“We did dislodge Sri Lanka as the leading tea exporter last year and hope we will continue maintaining the same position,” said Ms Sicily Kariuki at the Kenya – United Arab Emirates Trade and Symposium at Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi on Monday.
The Asian country, formerly number one tea exporter, sold 280 million kilogrammes, representing a shortfall of 29 million.
The news is a boost to Kenya and the tea sector in particular, which has in the recent past suffered from vagaries of weather and low export earnings due to a glut in the international market.
The managing director attributed the success to the efforts made in research and development.
“We have about 50 tea varieties suitable to the seven growing regions,” she added.
The two-day symposium which was organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was officially opened by Minister Moses Wetangula.
Ms Kariuki said that out of the 40 per cent of all global tea bags used in making the popular beverage, at least 10 per cent of its content are Kenyan.
The Associated Press reports this morning on an intense and public feud growing in Kenya between the president and prime minister. This comes two years after the two men agreed to share power, ending a string of violence.
Relations between the two leaders – never strong to begin with – broke down this week over the attempted dismissals of two Cabinet ministers accused of corruption. In the streets of Kenya’s capital, dozens of protesters marched in front of Parliament on Wednesday, demanding an end to corruption and expressing worry about the friction between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
“It’s definitely going to lead to violence because they are not working toward consensus,” Polycarp Gordon Odhiambo, 37, the chief executive of a development group that works in a Nairobi slum, said as he walked among other protesters who held up signs saying “Kibaki Stop Protecting Thieves” and “The Issue is Corruption, Not Politics.”
“From now on, anything can happen,” added Laban Kanyanya Nyongesa, 29, a taxi driver who watched the rally from the edge of a park.
U.S. officials are working behind the scenes to get the two leaders to talk face-to-face and bring down tensions that could rupture the coalition.
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
