Feathered friends - a better breed of chicken for Christmas

Lots of people have been buying last minute Christmas gifts from the World Vision Community Gift Catalogue including this cockerel (€12) and 6 chickens (€10). Here actress and writer Pauline McLynn talks to a Youth Group in Gakungu in Kenya about how this particular breed of cockerel, when bred with local chickens, leads to a better quality and quantity of meat and eggs being produced. Chickens are a great income generator for women and vulnerable families because they can be managed at low cost and their ‘waste’ makes great organic fertiliser too. Peeoowh!

Visiting Uganda: People rebuilding their lives after the war

“This is where the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) used to take all the abducted children” my colleague Santos tells me, pointing at the vast bamboo and grass forests around us. “They would abduct 300 to 500 people and hide them here for a few months before marching them south for an assault.” I’m visiting an Irish Aid funded World Vision Ireland project for Internally Displaced People in Uganda. Between 1987 and 2006 in Northern Uganda, 25 000 children were abducted by the Lords Resistance Army - a brutal guerilla insurgency, led by Joseph Kony. Creeping into villages at night, Kony and his men captured large groups of children and forced them to fight for him. Peace Restored “Four years ago it would have been impossible to drive along this road; even with a fully armed escort, we would have been very much risking our lives.” Since peace has been established, over 10 000 children have returned home, but this has also brought new problems as a lot of the children and their families are traumatized by what they went through. Returning Home When we get back to Pader town, Santos points at the large field in front of our hotel, where there is a large gathering of people celebrating an anti gender-based violence campaign. “You could not even stand where those people are. You would be abducted. It was so dangerous.” Thankfully, those days are over now. The massive camps are emptying and thousands of people have already returned to their homes. But when they got home they found all the infrastructure in ruins: schools, water points and health centres had been destroyed by the LRA’s brutal campaign. Rebuilding Infrastructure While there are still doubts about the sustainability of the peace, particularly with trouble brewing in Southern Sudan with the upcoming elections, people are delighted to be home. With the support of Irish Aid, World Vision Ireland has been able to dig 22 wells and train the community on how to maintain them. This means that the community can access safe water for their homes and schools, preventing the outbreak of diseases and simultaneously encouraging people to move home and begin the journey to sustainable development. Long may it last!

Victoria's Secrets

Written by Guest Blogger Tressan McCambridge I was really disappointed to hear that the RTE Drama The Clinic has been axed. The fact that TV3 is looking into picking it up is good news though. It’s a really good show. I met with Victoria Smurfit yesterday, who has been staring in the show for the past 5 or 6 episodes and she was saying what a shame it is for all the fans, cast and crew. It had over 400,000 viewers they say. Victoria was around to go on The Afternoon Show on RTE 1 to talk about sponsoring a child with World Vision Ireland and our Community Gift Catalogue. I have to say she did a fantastic job. Looking as beautiful as ever and full of energy as always, she talked about her trip to meet her sponsored child in Tanzania and how important it is for her to teach her children the real meaning of Christmas. That's why she's buying charity gifts this year. You can watch it here - the interview starts about 3.15 minutes into the show.

Life's a beach

There’s an old Swahili saying “Mambo ya pwani si mchezo”, which means that life at the coast isn’t a game. On the surface, this is hard to believe – the Kenyan coastline is beautiful and life moves at a sumptuous, leisurely pace. Drive a few kilometres inland though and life is anything but a game. This is one of the poorest and most disenfranchised areas of Kenya. Three years of consecutive drought have left tens of thousands on relief food and the rations are never quite enough. There are hundreds of moderately and severely malnourished children. Before the rains arrived this season, the closest water points were a 60km cycle away. And the place is so full of poisonous snakes that Steve Irwin filmed an episode of Crocodile Hunter out here. No Complaints But people aren’t sitting around moping or complaining about their misfortunes. Anything but. Despite six consecutive crop failures, they have prepared and planted their land. This is back breaking work under an unforgiving sun, which seems to promise yet another drought. 'Poverty tourism' I was there for three days this week visiting an Irish Aid funded food security recovery project and it is one of my favourite projects in the country. I’ve even brought friends to visit it while they were over in Kenya. They were reluctant at first, fearing that it would be a depressing and somewhat invasive “poverty tourism” trip. They actually found the opposite. Heart warming hospitality When we stepped out of the car, we were met by large crowds of women and men singing our welcome. Despite barely having two beans to rub together, they rolled out the red carpet for us. They sang us songs with our names woven in and gave us an array of gifts including chickens, a handmade bag with my name woven into it, and an assortment of spoons, as a thank you for our support. When they saw me melting under the jua kali (fierce sun) they lent me a kanga to cover my head with. I can’t begin to explain how humbling and heart-warming their hospitality and generosity is. It’s also astute on their part – charming visitors encourages them to be generous in return. I always leave wishing there was more we could do. Food and Water World Vision Ireland has achieved a lot in the past three years in this area. In partnership with the community, we constructed rain water harvesting tanks and reservoirs (as shown in the photos) which can store water for the next few months – some even until the next rainy season. When the drought was at its worst, the government trucked in water and filled the tanks, which meant an end to the 60km cycles. We’ve also trained farmers on improved agricultural methods, which helped them to capitalise on what little rain there is. A major success it the super goats that were given from the world vision gift catalogue – many kids have been produced, which means more milk, meat and money for families. I just pray that the rains come back.

Growing food when the odds are stacked against you.

I just got this great story in today from Muranga where Irish Aid and World Vision Ireland have been running a food security recovery project in Muranga in Central Kenya. The goats and seeds that people buy from the World Vision Ireland gift catalogue have also been helping make this project the success that it is. It’s been running for over 2 years now and I visited it again last week. The farmers I met told me that they have been able to quadruple the amount of food they produce! Jane Wanjiru Mwaura is one the best examples. Jane is a retired nursery school teacher and mother of five children. She owns just a quarter acre of land and depends on this for her livelihood. She joined Kamaka Self Help Group in 2007. Through the project, Jane and her fellow group members received training on improved farming practices and water conservation techniques. After the training, Jane dug 450 zay pits, which are 2x2x2 foot holes that promote soil fertility and water conservation. Zay pits are hard work to dig, but the results are well worth the effort - she harvested some 800kgs of maize last season. This was more than enough to feed her family and to sell for hard cash. Jane has become a model to others in her community. She trained her six neighbours and they too have started reaping the benefits of zay-pits. Jane said “From the training, I have been able to revolutionise my farming. I even get crops when the rains are poor, while other farmers using traditional methods are not harvesting anything.” On World Food Day, Jane was awarded a certificate by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture for being one of the best farmers in the district. But she won’t stop there: She says “My intention now is to train more farmers in my are to be self-sufficient in food production”. Happy days.

Pauline McLynn and her Super Goat

If you’ve ever wondered why the goats in the World Vision Community Gift Catalogue are called ‘Super Goats’ watch this ..

It’s Pauline McLynn, who played Mrs Doyle in Fr Ted, milking Lucy the Super Goat in Kenya. Everybody in Kenya loves this breed of goat because they provide double the meat, milk and offspring of local goats. They are very cool goats!

So Relieved Sharon & Hilda Are Safe

I received the text at 4am on Sunday that Sharon Commins and her Ugandan colleague Hilda Kawuki had been released from being held captive in Sudan. I haven’t met Sharon, but she used to go out with a close friend of mine and throughout the whole ordeal, I was really worried about them.

Sharon and Hilda were both snatched from a Goal compound in Darfur and held captive for 107 days. I am so relieved that this story had a happy ending and that they are both now safe at home with the people they love.

Kidnapped There are few experiences that could be more harrowing than being kidnapped. As an aid worker in Nairobi- which in the past year has experienced over 100 kidnappings – I am all too aware that this is a major risk that I face in going about my daily life. See article in the New York times last week - Kenya’s Criminals Tap a Growth Industry: Kidnapping.

Ireland: The Somalia of Europe ?

Travelling to Somaliland in North West Somalia, is another painfully early start. You may have guessed it already, but I am not a morning person. It’s a 5.30am check in for the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS). The flight took about 5 hours. UNHAS offers a genuine no-frills service, with not even the option of purchasing food, so by the time I reached Hargeisa I was starving. On paying the $22 on arrival for visa and airport security tax, I am handed my change in Somaliland shillings. A dollar equates to 6,500 shillings and the standard bill is 500, so I can barely close my wallet now. Waiting for Godot I head outside to look for my pick-up, but the driver is nowhere to be seen. It’s a baking 36 degrees so I settle under the shade of a tree and chat with some old Somali men, while I wait for Godot. When they hear that I am from Ireland, they tell me that “Ireland is the Somalia of Europe”. This is not the first time I have heard this, but I am still a bit mystified by that statement. Female Genital Mutilation The reason for my trip is an evaluation of an Irish Government funded Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting eradication project. We met with a group of women who used to carry out Female Genital Mutilation on girls, but have since publicly announced that they have completely stopped practising. They had each cut hundreds of girls in their careers, but since learning from the World Vision project that it is not a religious requirement and that it does major damage, they made a public announcement that they would abandon the practise. They told me how they really regretted what they had done and would never go back to it, even though it meant a significant drop in their income. “The girls are so happy now. They used to fear being circumcised so much that before the season started they’d be crying. Now when the circumcising season begins they all go out together and play.” Why do they do it? Which begs the question- if your daughters are terrified and it hurts them so much, why would you do this to them? I’m not making apologies for this practice, but people aren’t doing it to be cruel. Most of the community genuinely believed FGM is a religious requirement and that women can not pray or marry without undergoing it. They would be stigmatised and ridiculed. Many would rather go through the pain than be a social outcast. Life is tough enough out here and there is nowhere for an outcast woman to turn to. There are no safety nets or social welfare. But attitudes towards FGM are gradually changing. World Vision has been working closely with religious leaders to highlight that the Prophet Mohammed never practised FGM on his daughters and that it goes Against core Islamic principles and gradually we are seeing a change.

There are still people in the community that practice FGM on their daughters, but from all I heard today the numbers are reducing. What a relief.

I'm in the Irish Independent today

It’s so weird seeing yourself in the paper. Today’s Irish Independent has an article in it that I wrote to highlight the difficulties faced by those who wish to "make a difference" in people's lives.

The headline is ‘Don’t be a mug when you’re trying to help…’ and talks about how it takes more than good intentions to make a difference.

Many NGOs, like World Vision Ireland, have gotten past a lot of the hurdles I mention in the article and have gained a lot of experience about what it takes make a genuine impact on people's lives and deliver effective aid effectively.

Aid really does work - when it's done right. You can read it here >

Aid Success in Kenya

Yesterday I was back in Eastern Kenya visiting one of our development projects in Mutonguni, with Helen Keogh, World Vision Ireland Chief Executive and my boss. It was baking hot and very dusty. The last three rainy seasons have failed and there’s not a blade of grass for miles. The key focus of our work here is water and sanitation and we’ve already brought clean, safe water to hundreds of households. This saves women and girls from walking for miles to fill up a 20 litre jerry can of water and then lugging it back (collecting water is typically considered women’s work) . Marriage Proposal The community like to tease me, asking me to marry one of their sons. I tell them, with all honesty, I would make a useless wife. I doubt I could make the 10km roundtrip with 20 litres of water weighing me down for half of it. Not to mention the farming and childrearing. Irish Accent The other thing I get teased for is my accent – the school health club at Mutonguni Primary School find it hilarious. As I’m chatting with them some of them start imitating my accent by holding their noses. Apparently us wazungu (white people) sound nasal, like – and I quote – “we are picking our noses”. Charming. Health and Hygiene I manage to get over this though as the chairman of the school health club, 14 year old Gitari Kagendo, tells me how they have been promoting health and hygiene (e.g. handwashing) to their peers and the community. World Vision Ireland, with the help of Irish Aid, has supported the construction of pit latrines, hand washing facilities and 2 rainwater harvesting tanks in the school. This has helped reduce school absenteeism caused by diarrhoea and other water borne diseases. They’ve also established a vegetable patch with some seeds we gave them and vegetables are a regular part of the school lunches now. At the end of the visit, I’m sorry to leave but glad to be able to report that there’s some fantastic work going on in Mutonguni.

Food for Thought

I read an interesting article today in the East African Standard called 'Oasis of hope in the middle of nowhere'. It's about a school supported by World Vision Kenya and it's a national paper so it’s great coverage for the organisation. World Vision Kenya helped built the school in a very drought prone area called Pokot East but it wasn’t enough. They needed to introduce a ‘feeding programme’ to encourage the children to come to school. The lure of one solid meal a day really boosts school attendance. After all, if you haven’t eaten all day and have no food waiting for you when you get home, how can you possibly concentrate on learning? Satisfying your hunger is all you can think about. Providing the children with one guaranteed hot meal in the day makes a lot of sense to me.

Packing for Somalia

I’m off to Somaliland in two weeks time to participate in an Irish Aid funded project evaluation (Somaliland is an autonomous region in North West Somalia). I’m looking forward to it; it’s a fascinating part of the world. It sounds far more adventurous than it is though - where we’re going it’s relatively peaceful and stable.

What to wear

I need to find appropriate clothes for the trip. The hejab (a long dress) and the headscarf aren’t wardrobe staples of mine. I’m a fan of both: The headscarf means bad hair days can be forgotten about and the hejab is super comfy and stops me from getting burnt to a crisp. Fortunately for me, my friend Sofie has a good supply of both and is happy to lend them out.

FGM

The project that we’re evaluating is funded by Irish Aid and aims to reduce the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the area. The practice is widespread in Somalia, as most people believe that it is an Islamic requirement.

In fact, it is not and Muhammad never subjected his wife or his daughters to it. But saying "no" to FGM is not easy, as you are likely to face ridicule from your peers and may find it very difficult to get a husband.

From preliminary reports, the three year project has helped reduce the practice of FGM in the area. I’m looking forward to finding out more, particularly what encouraged people who have stopped to do so. I'll keep you posted on my experiences out there!

Dancing Kenyan Style

Most Irish people, but particularly Irish men, will only dance after several pints. In Kenya, they dance any time of day. No drink or drugs needed - just a modicum of rythm and a willingness to let yourself go.

This time two weeks ago, I was dancing under the midday sun with 200 boys and girls from all over Northern Kenya. Yes - I kid you not. This was broad daylight.

We were celebrating the "Children's Voices" conference, which brought together children from the many different tribes here and gave them a chance to voice their concerns to the Government.

Drama

Through dramas, poems and testimonies we heard how their lives were affected by the food crisis, insecurity and crime, water shortages, poor health care and early marriage.

They then presented their recommendations and requests to the Government of Kenya in a formal document. The Government was represented by the Ministry of Health and the Department of Children's Services.

Tough Questions

The children asked their government many tough questions, which represented a real break with the tradition of silence and not challenging ones elders.

"Why do we only have 2 doctors in our hospital and the only time they are punctual is for lunchtime?" "Why do we not have any tarmac roads or police in our area? Many people are being attacked".

Dancing

And afterwards we boogeyed. The popstar (Jimmy Gate anyone?) informed the audience that I was the first mzungu (Swahili word for white person) he'd met who had any rhythm. I was chuffed.

Working with Kenyan Farmers

Part of my job as Programmes Officer for World Vision Ireland is visiting the development projects to see how things are progressing. The other day I made a long bumpy journey in the back of a pick up truck to a place called Mutonguni in Eastern Kenya – an area which has not received a drop of rain for almost a year. Supporting Farmers I met Lucy Ndemange and her husband Sammy. Lucy is a member of the Kauwi Farmer’s Group, one of twenty groups that received training in new farming methods from World Vision and the European Commission . The new methods should help Lucy and Sammy grow enough food to eat even in times of drought. "We planted kale and tomatoes and we harvest once a week, which earns us 3,000 bob (€28) per week. We are using the money to pay for our daughter’s secondary school fees and we have plans to expand this technology across our farm. Our neighbours have even started copying these methods" explained Sammy. Water Luckily, Lucy and her neighbours have access to a well, which they can water the crops from, but it’s not easy work: She let me have a go at pulling the 20 litre bucket up the 18m well shaft and laughed when I broke into a sweat before it was half way up. You need to be made of strong stuff to survive out here.

World Vision supports Cadbury Fairtrade advert

Cadbury in Britain is certifying its Dairy Milk bar with fair trade cocoa from Ghana. This means farmers in Africa will earn a guaranteed minimum price for their harvest which is good news. World Vision worked with Cadbury to help create their latest advert for this new Fairtrade Dairy Milk bar . The ad features renowned Ghanaian hip-hop artist, Tinny. Read more about the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership here.

Sending the Rain from Ireland

It can be a killer early morning flight from Dublin to Nairobi - this time it was a 4.30 am start.

Fourteen hours later, I arrived home in the dark. Yet again there’s no power. This is nothing new to me – on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I have no electricity.

No Electricity The ongoing drought has dried up the rivers serving Kenya’s hydroelectric power stations and the Government is imposing strict power rations to ensure that the manufacturing and business areas continue to be served. Weather forecast

I fumble the key into the lock. From the darkness, my delighted dog comes barrelling out at me. He’s covered in mud. At long last, it’s been raining! As an Irish person, it almost goes against my nature to hope that the forecast for “good rains” will be correct, but the livelihoods and lives of people here depend on it. There’s been little to no rain here for the past year. While we complain about our seemingly perma-rain in Ireland, we would definitely miss it if we went without it for a year. Sunburn and half-naked builders Our grievances would be small at first – sunburn, half-naked builders – but they would quickly grow as water and electricity were rationed. Agriculture and industry would take a major hit, undermining an already struggling economy. In Kenya, this is the reality now. If only we could send some of the rain from Ireland over here.