Watering Hope

I am back at Ndabibi for the first time in around 3 months and attending the regular monthly meeting of the NDAMAMO Economic Empowerment Group. I have now known most of these thirteen members for about two years. I have seen several leave and others join, but they have been very stable and focused. One member recently resigned when elected as the local member of parliament , I learned just a few minutes ago that Bernard who is the president lost his wife last month. I am proud they have stayed together during the post election clashes even when there was killing in the ADP and many residents had to flee for their lives because of their birth tribe. The ADP had to close for over 3 months because of serious safety concerns for the staff and several staff have been permanently relocated because of their tribe.
They call me the father of their committee, not because I have provided any money, in fact far from it, I have only ever been a mentor and watered the hope that they already have. And so far, this small crumb, has been enough for real changes to take place.
Now, as President Bernard is giving me a verbal report on the committees activities. He is frequently interrupted by other committee members when he overlooks some fact that someone thinks is important.
Bernard is telling me about the first Annual General Meeting of the committee. Apparently there was supposed to be someone there from World Vision Kenya to help them with the meeting but they didn’t come, so that committee was there on its own along with 130 of their 151 members. There are a lot more people who want to join Ndamamo as members, but the committee has frozen membership for now, as it scared of growing too quickly or not being able to meet community expectations for economic development initiatives. Members pay 50 shillings, around Aus $0.80 per month to belong and for many that is around a day’s pay so it is a significant commitment and provides accountability expectations on the committee much stronger than any NGO performance contract.
So, Bernard Continues “ Jock it was really scary” and someone else echoes this, “Yes, vary vary scary” and says Bernard “They asked us very challenging questions” adn the echo repeats “yes vary vary challenging” .
And gradually the story from last week’s AGM was told. The membership had come accusing the committee of receiving money from World Vision, and they were asking why should the committee be asking them for support when they could access funds from the very wealth World Vision office.
The committee rightly denied that they had received any money, they were able to explain that they had not benefited personally from an overnight exposure trip to visit another economic development committee, that World Vision had arranged for them, and that the World Vision Tent that the meeting was being held in, was just borrowed.
Well, it turned out that the Committee was successful in gaining the trust and support of their members, the constitution was ratified, it was agreed that free and fair elections would be held according to the constitution and the treasurer committed to keeping books of account in such a way that every income and expenditure was noted and could be viewed by any of the members.
As a result the committee now has a stable income of its own and has rented its own temporary office for 3000 of the 7500 shillings they receive from members each month, And, they have received an undertaking from the local authorities for a one hectare a grant of land, and the power company KenGen looks like giving them a further grant to build a small business centre.
But the one thing the committee are now all very sure of, is that if they receive any assistance from World Vision without proper accounting and community participation, they will loose the support of their community along with the chance of a sustainable and independent future.

A Peace of Economic Development

There are twenty five of us in the earth floored corrugated iron church. We arranged the rough timber pews into a kind of semi-circle. Leah one of the economic empowerment group members from Mbogoini leads the group in a couple of welcoming songs, we sing loud, we clap loud in unison and I am trying to imitate the graceful swaying of the men. We have gathered for two days to continue to work on a community lead economic development strategy. The members have made great progress since I was last here 6 weeks ago. This is my fourth visit over the last 12 months, we are like old friends now and I can almost remember everyone’s names.
Wema ADP is about four hours from Nairobi by car, first to Nakuru then a hour and a half to two hours on a track that is often more like a dry rocky river bed than a road. Real bush Africa,; passing small settlements of round walled mud huts with grass thatched rooves. Lots of life on the road, big horned African cattle, herds of goats and children goat herders, people walking with loads, with walking sticks, kids going to school in tattered uniforms, bicycles laden with bags of corn or firewood,, the occasional Matatu (local passenger mini bus).
Wema ADP is really in two parts, split down the centre by a rough rocky ridge, joined by one almost impassable track. There is no regular public motorised transport between the two halves of the ADP and there has been little contact between the two groups. They are from different tribal groups and there was trouble between them during the violent post election clashes earlier in the year.
Before the clashes I was facilitating each group separately but since then, I decided to do joint facilitation with the two groups meeting together.
That is why this is now such a big group. But together they decided on which priorities to tackle; Microfinance, access to markets, and what we are loosely calling infrastructure, in the form of roads water and forestry. The groups now have three very active subcommittees of six people each , three from each side and they have been meeting regularly. At one point we talked about the challenges faced by the committee. The two biggest, were getting to a meeting because some members have to walk for over two hours.............each way. The second was hunger, if they miss their late morning millet porridge then they may go hungry for the day and that they said made it hard to concentrate during their meetings.
I was very humbled when I learned the group members rejected an offer from World Vision to provide lunch and instead, today had contributed their own money to provide a lunch of Ugali (thick corn flour porridge) bitter green vegetables and meat ,as a demonstration of the self determination that we have been focusing on in our strategy discussions and workshops.
So the singing is over, the pastor of the church has decided to sit in on our workshop for today and he leads us in a prayer, and I being my asking for reports on what is new and whether being part of this group changed anything for them.
I heard that one of the committee members who had joined since I was there last had died. Jack reported that he had gone to visit the government officials responsible for providing water and wells in the area and had learned of the government’s plans and what the area was entitled to. Jack said it was only being the leader of the water committee that had given him the courage to go and ask questions and voice the community’s needs.
Then Peter, who has no front teeth, told how being part of the subcommittee to work with reforestation had made a difference to him.
He said that people from his side of the ADP ask him, “is there peace over there? Are you safe? “ And Peter said he answers, “there is peace, and I am safe and I am working with my brothers on the other side, so that we all have more water and more trees.”
And he went on to say “ when our group was travelling together on our way here this morning, we passed a school where there were no trees for shade, and we all said, we must plant trees around that school and we didn’t think this is their land or it is not. We said this is OUR land that school needs trees. And we will do it.”