Coker SIFE Working on project for/in Muhuru Bay, Kenya

Children like to get in the picture nearly everywhere and these two arein what is called the CUSTOMS area of Muhuru Bay, what we might call downtown. The village is on the border of Kenya and Tanzania.





Coker College is sending a trio of students and two advisors to Muhuru Bay, Kenya, for some on-the-ground work to help establish a library in this Kenyan village on the shore of Lake Victoria. Neil Sickendick, who directs the Coker SIFE program has been working with a community activist in Muhuru Bay, Dickens Ochiel, and they have the project moving forward with tremendous momentum. Neil used the SIFE contacts to team up with a SIFE program at Maseno University in Nairobi, Kenya, to develop a partnership that is going to make a difference. During the last academic year I was able to use part of my sabbatical to visit Muhuru Bay to observe a research project that was being conducted by Eve Puffer (daughter) as part of the Duke Global Health Initiative and their WISER School for Girls and Research in Muhuru Bay. It is exciting to see more connections being made from Coker.

The Coker contingent (Students are Kaitlynn Jessup, Lindsey Allen and Cody Ellison and advisor is Neil Sickendick and videographer/photographer is Harrison Waters) will travel the first week of January and meet up with the Maseno contingent and head to Muhuru Bay. Here is a short summary of what is happening that was provided by Neil in a recent email:

Coker SIFE

We are working with SIFE Maseno from Maseno University in Nairobi. They have 4 students working on the project with us. They have already traveled to Muhuru Bay last week to begin work on transforming the facility. They have also played a crucial role in finalizing many of our in-country details including hotel and transportation. Additionally, our work with them has allowed secure funding transfers and the ability to acquire books and computers for the facility, which we are calling a Learning Resource Center (LRC).

The LRC will be part library and part classroom space to be used for vocational training initiatives. The project started as a desire to construct a facility to be used for these purposes however, upon Dickens's further research, we located a facility that could be purchased and rehabilitated to fit our purposes: a more reliable and accommodating arrangement.

This preexisting facility will be renovated to better fit our intended use. While in-country, SIFE students will work to accomplish the remaining tasks for the building to become functional. Bookshelves will be constructed, the facility cleaned where needed, and other general maintenance issues will be resolved. With any luck, there will be a grand opening of the facility at the end of Coker's trip.

In addition to working on the facility, Coker SIFE plans on meeting with community members to gain a sense of life in Muhuru Bay. They will also spend time working with local teachers and establishing ways to improve educational programming. Perhaps most importantly, Coker SIFE will explore ways in which they can continue to work with Muhuru Bay in the future.

This project is truly a great first step for Coker and Coker SIFE. By partnering with the local SIFE team in Nairobi, we can ensure that the project continues to be sustainable and successful. Our partnership with Dickens ensures this as well, and lends to our credibility with the people of Muhuru Bay. The SIFE network is massive, and though teams compete against one another, our central mission is to benefit communities in the most direct and needed ways. By partnering with other SIFE teams like the one at Maseno University, we have a much higher chance of satisfying our core mission.

UPDATES TO COME
This is a project that will pay dividends in many ways for the student of both colleges, for the people of Muhuru Bay, for Dickens Ochiel and his efforts of building community in Muhuru Bay and for SIFE, which will have a great example of the difference the organization is making.

Discussion about SIFE program ongoing

Photo caption -- This was a barazza(sp) or community gathering called by the local government in Muhuru Bay, Kenya to help people being affected by a severe drought in Eastern Africa.

One of the many facets of the Students Involved in Free Enterprise is an international component. Neil Sickendick is the director of Coker's SIFE program and we had a discussion over lunch today about the potential for a SIFE-type program in a place I visited in Kenya during my sabbatical. We had an interesting discussion.

The SIFE students will be the ones implementing a program. The village of Muhuru Bay, Kenya, is a place that could use a variety of programs to help the residents. The question we are discussing is if there is a fit for SIFE into the needs of Muhuru Bay. One of the SIFE members stopped by my office right after I got back from Kenya and initiated the question of a SIFE program in this part of Kenya. He thought there was strong potential interest from SIFE members. Neil, who was very active in SIFE during his undergrad days at Drury University thinks there is a good possibility of interest. So, our next step is to check with some of the contacts I made during the trip to see if there is a way to bring interests together. I hope so because that would be a major benefit resulting from this part of the sabbatical.

Getting an idea of how to help a community that is poor to begin with and suffering from a natural disaster through the lens of the lens of the principles of free enterprise could be a major educational experience. Hope we will be able to find a way to make something work.

Quck overview of Kenya's collision with Modernization and Social Change with Mal Hyman's Coker Class

(caption -- Thatched roofs and mud walls are common sights in the villages of Kenya while cities look like cities everywhere.)

Mal Hyman is in the waning days of the 2011 Modernization and Social Change class at Coker College. These are key moments in a class and I really appreciated his invitation to do a quick overview of some of the issues of social change that are facing Kenya. The truth is, my 11 days in the country just began to open my eyes to the situation of our modern world and the third world. I think the students also appreciate that fact. I also believe these Coker students will enjoy a bit of discussion about my quick observations frohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifm Kenya and the wealth of opportunities that country presents for added discussion of the social-change topic.

I am working on contrasts for this short discussion -- the capital city of Nairobi with the small, spread-out village of Muhuru Bay. The contrast of the mud hut with the multi-story Nairobi Baptist Church complex and the contrast between the classroom in which we will be working and the classes I talked with while in Kenya. The physical contrast can be stark but the social side is more the same than different -- especially when it comes to hopes, dreams and desires. Our quick class will focus on some images and then issues built arount "T" -- TIME, TECHNOLOGY, TURMOIL AND TRIBALISM.

Coker College Prof's Sabbatical Trip - Kenya

(caption)Cha-Cha is a motor bike driver in Muhuru Bay, Kenya. Motorbikes are the major form of transportation and I am believing that Motorbike drivers are the major source of communication in that area.


"You never know a place until you have been to that place." Now, I know for certain that is true but I am a bit more convinced that when you know a little you discover how little you know. As I continue on my sabbatical journey in this Spring Term of 2011, I am beginning to believe that this idea may end up as the overall thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifheme. As I have a little bit more time to reflect on things like community thinking and building; classroom teaching and living life in this second half, I am becoming increasingly aware of how much I don't know but would still love to learn.

As I was flying from Charlotte to New York to Amsterdam to Kenya I finished listening to the new book by David Brooks, THE SOCIAL ANIMAL: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement. (It is a solid read but not really the subject of this post.) David Brooks used the line in the book that was something like, "You can never know a place until you have been to that place." As I landed in Nairobi, Kenya and then headed out to Muhuru Bay, Kenya that short passage began to take on real meaning. And, as I rode the motorbike from the WISER compound to the center of Muhuru Bay that they call Customs or took the turn to the church in sight of the Tanzania/Kenya border or went in the other direction toward the Winjo area of Muhuru Bay it became apparent that there was so much to learn.

In future posts, I hope to expand on this idea. It is becoming apparent to me in this time of research and reflection that such different events as teaching Inga's middle school students about speech introductions and watching Eve's enumerators interview under trees in Kenya, and participating in public affairs training with the Red Cross, and working on community innovation in Hartsville all begin to demonstrate for me that the more you begin to know, the more you really need to learn.

Want to know what's happening? Go to the barber shop

One of the areas I am hoping to build some insight on through this sabbatical trip from Coker College to Muhuru Bay, Kenya is community thinking and community building.


So, if you want to know what is going on in a community, where do you start. My first inquiries were to the motor bike drivers (Muhuru Bay's main form of transportation) who have been helping me get around Muhuru Bay. Not always easy to hear or concentrate as we negotiate down the dirt-packed highway that gives you the feeling of a bumper car ride but it has provided some good background.

As I wandered around the center of the village retail area, called Customs, I glanced into a shop where a barber was cutting hair on two little children and there were some others sitting in chairs around his shop. And, that was at least a double and maybe a triple in beginning to learn even more about the problems and opportunities of this lake-side community. I also learned that after age 60 you find it very difficult to work in Kenya. The 60-year-old telling me that said the computer rejects him when he goes for a job so, "I am self employed."

As I was walking down the road a man yelled from his shop, "Welcome..." That is a common call to an obvious visitor - I do stick out in this community. I think I may be the only gray-haired person in the town. I answered his welcome and went up to offer or accept a greeting. This was a small retail tailor shop with three tailors hoping more business would come in because times are tough in Muhuru retail. That was another great discussion and helped me get additional community thinking perspectives.

One major observation, the community could be Hartsville, SC or Muhuru Bay, Kenya, or 'name the place' but people are quickly able to list some of the major things needing improvement in their community -- and for Hartsville and Muhuru Bay -- MORE JOBS would be at or near the top of both lists. (lots more thinking on this but the post is getting a bit long.) These are a couple of ways of beginning to gather community information in Muhuru Bay.

Kennedy wants to be a journalist

Kennedy Adera of Muhuru Bay, Kenya is a hard working student who really hopes some day to become a journalist. He knows he has his work cut out for him because he has what seem like insurmountable challenges.

He is a good student with top grades from his primary school but in Kenya, you have to pay to attending secondary school -- even the government schools. The costs are not cheap and his family was not able to afford one of the good schools. He is now staying with a family friend who is helping him attend a secondary school called Nyaykondo School that is new, not yet accredited and is using other secondary students as teachers. So, he knows getting into a college program will be difficult.

But, "I really want to be a journalist," says this budding Anderson Cooper. "I want to be a journalist because there are a lot of stories that we need to tell people. I have a lot of stories on my chest and I want to let the people know them," said Kennedy as we talked while conducting a quick lesson in writing a Summary Lead for a news story.

Kennedy 18, says he is struggling to make it and should have two years left for secondary school if he can continue to find the funding. Then he would love to go to university or college but he knows there is another challenge -- because right now he has no idea where those funds would come from.

But, he continues this dream because he would love to be a role model for others in Muhuru Bay and be recognized as the well-respected international journalist who was born in Muhuru Bay, Kenya.

Kennedy is sitting next to me as I tell his story and we have discussed his next step. He is going to control that which he can control and become the recognized school journalist from Nyakondo, attempting to get the story of his school to others in the school and the rest of Kenya. I did get to visit Kennedy at his one-room school house that is divided into classes with some screening material. It is obviously not one of the better secondary schools in Kenya -- according to the Principal, barely even adequate. School fees for the Secondary School are between 20,000 and 40,000 Kenya Shillings at about 80 shillings to the dollar. Most people in Muhuru Bay do not have that much extra around. And, even when they do there are the extra expenses like clothes, medical care, travel to and from the school if it is away. We take a lot for granted here in the States with our relatively free public school system.

I got to meet Kennedy because he met my daughter Eve when she began her research and intervention program at the WISER Girl's School for Education and Research back in 2008. She has kept up with his progress and thinks he has great potential. So, we just had a conversation about journalism for about an hour on a Saturday afternoon (March 26, 2011. In that conversation I was able to introduce him to the internet and he is amazed as I am that you can find 2,240,000 Google hits on Kenya Newspapers in less than one second. He does not have regular access to a computer and had never seen that before. He then wanted to see to the DAILY NATION, Kenya's leading independent news paper and the the Kenya Broadcasting System and when we were both interested in the story about the 1953 destruction of a village by colonial authorities that was in the Nation or the Standard or was on All Africa.com.

I know I was totally taken with Kennedy and his passion for becoming a journalist. Hope he has as much fun talking with me as I did talking with him. What an unexpected pleasure for this sabbatical trip -- and he sat still for my first lecture in Writing for the Media, how to write a summary lead.