Kenya
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London Family Planning Summit – Global Bloggers Report
At the London Family Planning Summit, I joined a group of bloggers from around the world. They were from activist blogs, charity blogs and blogging fora. Before and after the summit their work was added to by those who could not attend, but who observed the Summit from afar. It is interesting to read the other blogger’s work, and to see what their impressions of the Summit were. Bloggers who attended the summit: Maeve Shearlaw was blogging for the White Ribbon Alliance Zoora Moosa was blogging for the Fword Owen Barder blogged for the Centre for Global Development Rachel Silverman and Amanda Glassmann also blogged for the Centre for…
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Saving Kenyan Lives
Gordon Okal Owera is a 26 year old teacher from a small village in Kenya. We visited him last week with the woman who saved his life. It is not an exaggeration; Pamela cajoled, bullied and persuaded him that life is worth fighting for. When Gordon started feeling unwell in Autumn 2011, he thought he had just been working too hard. A school teacher, he worked left home at 6am and didn’t return until 6.30pm. He put the fatigue that he was feeling down to the long hours, particularly during the harvest in December. He would work in the fields from early morning till midday then go home…
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Pumwani Maternity Hospital, Kenya – People Not Numbers
One million. Can you visualize one million people? The Kenyan population is growing at a rate of 1m people a year, and is in danger of slowing the positive development of the country. The effects of this population explosion is often told, but too often we concentrate on numbers and graphs, instead of on the human cost of this issue. To put a face to the statistics, we travelled to the Pumwani Maternity Hospital in the East of Nairobi. Dr Omondi Kumba told us a bit about the place. It was founded in 1926 and after Kenyan independence was turned over to the City of Nairobi. The hospital is a…
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Kenya – A Country of Contrasts – Wealth, Poverty and Slums of Nairobi
Any visitor to the city of Nairobi will testify to the contrasts to be found within the city. Poverty and wealth are but a few streets apart. Kenya is a city of contrasts, that impressed me. Despite the challenges faced by the poorest inhabitants, the wealth of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit was inspiring. We arrived at Joma airport late last night. It was dark so my first impressions of Nairobi were that it seemed like any other large city. The first sign that things were different here was the airport style security checks on entering the hotel. This morning we met the other bloggers and the organisers of the trip…
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Africa Without Pity – Stereotypes and Slum Tourism
How do you report from Africa without being patronising? It is a topic that has been going through my mind for several days now. Do the people in the slums really feel that Angelina Jolie cares about them, when she arrives in her private jet, stays at the best hotel in the country (if she stays there at all) then jets right out again. Is there a danger that it can be seen as “do-gooder tourism”. How do you leave the slums without feeling helpless, hopeless, daunted by the task ahead? And how do you cope with the stories you hear? I watched Sian from Geek Is The New Chic…
