Kenya on The Huffington Post

Susan Smalley, Ph.D.: The Susans I Met In The Slums Of Nairobi

2009-12-21T10:26:10Z

I visited Kibera last week - the largest slum in the world and the center of recent post-election violence in Kenya. We were guests of a not-for-profit organization called Comic Relief (our hosts out of the U.K.) that provide funds for multiple programs around the world to combat poverty with many centered in Africa. With local NGO leaders as our guide (and two soldiers carrying automatic rifles) we walked through a section of Kibera and an adjacent neighborhood slum of Nbuta to visit some families that live there.

I met three Susans on our travels amidst the winding dirt pathways cluttered with open sewage and mounds of garbage that weave among the million mud and tin structures of homes and businesses (tailors, barbers, stores, and toilets) that serve some 1.5 million inhabitants. Children were all around - as summer vacation is in full force - mostly playing (a few with marbles I noticed) or getting water from pumps (or waiting in lines to get water as it was sporadically on or off throughout the day). Women and men were going about their daily business and eyeing us with suspicion or a friendly hello.

The first Susan I met lives in Kibera and had been given a loan via Comic Relief to start a vegetable stand to raise money to buy one of the homes constructed by a local organization that are trying to upgrade the homes in the slums. The tin or mud huts could be replaced by concrete slab constructions at a cost anywhere from $700 U.S. to $5,000 U.S. The $5,000 bought a multistory concrete slab home with two bedrooms, a toilet, and cooking area. Since that cost was exorbitant to most, the lesser $700 purchase was more the norm (a foundation and four walls - no roof but potential to grow). The Susan I met had been one of the first 62 families to get a 'high end' home. She was awarded a home (one of the first 62) by a community council who determines which families are most eligible for homes. Awards are based on the person's capacity to save money and their contribution to the community through labor or leadership (digging sewer lines, construction, running community meetings) among other criteria. This Susan shared her home consisting of two rooms (each about eight by eight feet in size) with her husband and four children. And Susan was so proud of it, showing me her next design project - to be able to buy a piece of tin roofing to block the exposed hole in the ceiling of their bedroom to prevent the rain from flooding it all the time. I noticed her patch of dirt (about one foot by three) in front of her house which held some fresh vegetable plants and thought of my garden at home - just built last summer that spans 20 feet by 100 feet and might be considered small by U.S. standards.

The next Susan I met was part of a 'Grandmother' program by a local NGO and she lived in an adjacent illegal slum to Kibera. Research has shown that identifying a grandmother for youth who have lost their parents to HIV or violence is one of the more successful routes to their protection and future success. Since many children have no biological grandmother, the program trains grandmothers to care for multiple sets of kids. The next Susan I met was a grandmother to several families but one we had a chance to meet. Margaret (age 16) cares for her three siblings (11, nine, and seven) since her parents died when she was 13 years of age. Susan - a rotund woman probably about 60 with grey hair, bloodshot eyes due to the smoke from charcoal burners, and the kindest smile - took us into Margaret's mud hut. It was a single room, dark with an oil burner for light. Her three siblings sat on the floor while Margaret flipped through a small photo album. We asked her a few questions discovering that she loves math and biology and wishes to be a doctor some day. She said the only way she survived was because Susan helped her with food, water, and care when they were sick. I noticed a light bulb on the ceiling and said something about how great that she has electricity only to discover that it was merely a prop for 'decoration'. Her brother - little Kevin Minor was his name - flipped through the pages of a used and worn math workbook - the kind my kids grudgingly completed in kindergarten. We asked Margaret if she liked music but they had no radio or means of listening to it and the only reading material she had was a Christian handbook. I thought about all the books we have in our home leftover from the years of reading by our three now grown children....Harry Potter was definitely not part of Margaret's reading experiences.

The last Susan I met was an energetic leader in one of the Kibera communities. This time the Susan led us to a Muslim household in which a grandmother cared for eight or so grandchildren and great-grandchildren whose parents were killed or died of HIV. I don't remember the grandmother's name but I will never forget her face. At 89 she carried herself like the queen of a tribe or matriarch of a clan. Dressed in traditional garb and toothless, she smiled and talked with the authority and wisdom of someone who understands the value of love and family and humor. Her clan of some eight children stood nearby as she described their venture out of the slum when violence erupted after the election and homes were looted and burned. She had taken her brood of grandchildren back into the country-side to their tribal villages until the violence had settled down. With the support of the program we were viewing, she had returned to establish a vegetable vendor business and re-build her home. I thought of my grandmother who had died at 89 of Alzheimer's disease, alone in a nursing home, and how this grandmother would always be in the hub of her family when death arrived.

The poverty I saw was overwhelming and the Susans I met made it feel more personal in some way, bonded by the stamp of a name. But the experience just solidified my resolve to balance our resources better - to use less and share more. But I also realize that as we may export our resources to eradicate poverty around the world, we can't forget to import their 'technology' as well - a technology of human community - a reverence for family, a sense of pride in leadership and community involvement, and a shared vision to improve the lives of many not just one. Giving and Receiving always go hand-in-hand and meeting my fellow Susans living in Kenya helped me see that even more clearly.

Lori Pottinger: Climate Change and Water: Will a River Still Run Through It?

2009-12-14T17:03:56Z

Despite climate
deniers’ attempts to slow progress with the “Climategate” brouhaha, the rest
of us are hoping the negotiators in Copenhagen will come up with some kind of
road map that will lead to positive change. But even under the best outcomes,
the focus in Copenhagen will be on emissions, not on how to ensure our
life-giving water resources are protected. To ensure the majority of the world’s population can adapt to a changing
climate, we’ll need to focus as much attention on water as on the air.

For millions of
poor people, climate change is likely to be a death sentence. That’s not
hyperbole, it will actually kill them – by drying up their water supply,
increasing deadly diseases, wiping out their arable land, and flooding their
communities. A river runs through all of these scenarios, and it is that river of life
that will need our attention.

The latest
assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that densely populated
mega-deltas around the world, such as the Yangtze and Ganges-Brahmaputra, will
have more deadly flooding. Water-borne illnesses like cholera and malaria will
increase. Massive swathes of land will become unusable for agriculture in many
poor parts of the world, which will lead to huge increases in hunger and
starvation. The report estimates an additional 80 to 200 million people at risk
of hunger by 2080.

The IPCC says
that Africa is likely to be the worst-hit continent, with hundreds of millions
"very likely" to face severe shortfalls in food and drinkable water
by 2080, probably sooner. But many African
nations are facing a changing climate now. A report from East Africa in The
Guardian lays out a dire picture:

“Droughts have affected millions in a vast
area stretching across Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, and into
Burkina Faso and Mali, and tens of thousands of nomadic herders have had to
give up their animals.

“The scarcity of
water is becoming a nightmare. Rivers are drying up, and the way temperatures
are changing we are likely to get into more problems. Climate change is here,”
said Professor Richard Odingo, the Kenyan vice-chair of the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And in response, water conflict is
rising as competition for the basic elements of life grows more fierce.

Kenya is, admirably, trying
to reduce its dependence on drought-prone hydropower dams by building
geothermal plants and wind turbines.
These kinds of projects are expensive in Africa, which has little expertise and
no manufacturing to support such technologies. The success of international
climate negotiations will depend on the recognition by rich nations of
their historical responsibility for climate change, and the establishment of
programs for financing and capacity-building for clean energy technologies,
sustainable water management, and risk management for climate-related
disasters.

At the same time, Kenya is hoping to buy hydropower from its neighbor Ethiopia, which is building the huge Gibe 3 Dam on the Omo River. This dam will put hundreds of thousands of people living downstream at risk of increased water scarcity – all the way down to Kenya's own Lake Turkana. This project should be firmly opposed by Kenya, and the protection of key waterways like the Omo River made a regional priority.

We need to
refocus some of our attention from the air to the water, and an intensified effort to maintain healthy, sustainable water resources (and to understand what makes a river healthy and sustainable). A new special
climate change issue of World Rivers Review calls for a health insurance plan
for our water supply.

"As far as water goes, climate change changes
everything,” says International Rivers' Patrick McCully in the issue's commentary. “Past experience of rainfall,
snowfall, runoff and streamflow is no longer a reliable guide for the future.
We'll all be affected, but especially small farmers and the poor and
marginalized, who have the least ability to protect themselves against the
depredations of droughts, floods and food shortages."

He recommends, as a start, investing in green
infrastructure, protecting rivers from destructive development projects, investing
in safety measures for existing dams, and providing the means and technologies
to help the poorest.

Do we have what it takes to ensure a river still runs through it for our
grandchildren’s children? The global campaign for a healthy atmosphere has hit
on a number – 350, as in parts per million of atmospheric carbon we must strive
for – to encapsulate the urgency of this critical struggle. River and watershed
protection doesn’t lend itself to a numeric sense of urgency (no one even
knows exactly how many rivers there are in the world!). Perhaps a little
mathematical poetry is called for.
Here’s to “10,000 Rivers for Tomorrow!”

Yvonne R. Davis: A Holiday Focus on Inspirational Musician Tim Janis

2009-12-08T18:15:34Z

Last July I met Tim Janis. First by e-mail and then by phone, which is, besides Twitter and Facebook, the normal way to meet people today. One morning in his usual, "A pleasant morning to you," cheerful voice, my dear friend Lew Brown of Hartford, Connecticut called and began to tell me about this musician, song writer and conductor with legions of fans from here to China. Lew and his wife April just returned from a festival in New Hampshire where he had heard the melodies of Tim Janis for the umpteenth time. "Yvonne," Brown said, "You gotta to talk this guy Tim. He is a musical genius and everyone who hears his music falls in love with him and his work. Tim's music heals."

Never do I question anything Lew tells me, but instead of reaching out to Janis right away, I chose to wait a week before e-mailing him. I Googled and Yahooed him, finding various bits and pieces of information. The YouTube clip that captured my soul was his collaboration with R&B recording artists Tina Turner and Lisa Fischer. Janis wrote, scored and produced "Beneath the Wings of an Angel". All of the proceeds from his song were used to raise money for Public Television.

I e-mailed Janis. He replied and later we spoke. Humble, he sounds like a boy excited about returning to his beloved York, Maine. Home to the Nubble lighthouse, Janis invited me for the weekend to experience another piece of God's country and his music.

After, playing in New York's famous Carnegie Hall, to thousands in cities and towns across the heart of America and in places like the Czech Republic's Philharmonic in Prague, it appeared his greatest joy was just going back home to Maine to play at the First Parish Church Sunday morning.

A native of New York City, this tall, handsome square-jawed man sported a hint of Jim Morrison and was a complete throw back to the Archie comic book days when Jughead used words like "groovy" and more valley terms like "awesome," when he spoke. Everything just swell, Janis is a full-head-of-hair ageless 42.

He tells me his music is about healing and helping others become happy. He says he looks to find kindred spirits who want a better world; I suddenly feel I am in a "Heal the World" video by Michael Jackson.

As we talked, we found we had a mutual passion -- Africa. In 2006, Janis went to Nairobi, Kenya to record his song "Children of the World". With over 5000 of the poorest children singing, Janis teamed with NGO and Faith-based leader Church World Services (CWS) to bring awareness to the plight of children living in poverty. Giving everything from money to toys, books and his time, Janis spent sleepless nights traveling up and down Kenya meeting, greeting and even hanging out with the Masai Warriors. Janis wanted to stay with one of the families for an evening until CWS Director of Development Bill Wildey whispered to him that staying overnight meant the man of the home must offer his wife to Tim for a night of pleasure as his way of good Masai hospitality. Janis quickly changed his plan and managed to maneuver his way out of this. All of the proceeds from the song he recorded were donated to raise money for CWS efforts in Africa.

Back in Maine, The elderly ladies come early to the church on Sunday to get a glimpse of their brand of Jon Bon Jovi rehearsing with his trio before the services begin. Dressed in black and white or their Sunday best, each woman who came made sure Tim smiled at them. As if he were flirting with them, he beheld each of them as though they were the only girl in the room. For a moment, it seemed as though these women had flashbacks to their first loves. Known in York for her amazing photography, Willene, a short plump elderly woman with a cute Texan accent uttered, "Tim is my friend. He is so special." Later, Janis shares with me that he and Willene usually sit together in the back of the church and cut up.

When the concert begins, everyone sits attentively toward Janis. With his eyes closed, his head sways like a blind man. Feeling the rhythms, he strokes his keyboard like the body of a love-starved woman. Cinnamon, his faithful flutist of many years, is studying to be a "woman of the cloth." She sings the melodies of his songs with her instrument. An unsaid love affair of music between the two occurs when she and Tim's eyes meet dozens of times during the concert. Since it is in a church setting it must be a Song of Solomon thing.

In Maine, Janis is a rock star. Everywhere you go in his Honda Accord, people want to touch him, take photos, get an autograph or just be seen talking to him. He is beloved by the Bush family of Kennebunkport. Former First Lady Barbara Bush narrated a book he wrote for children under the age of five, called "Shine like a Light House". All of the proceeds from this book are being donated to The National Foundation for Cancer Research.

Nearly everything that Tim Janis does involves giving to others. His Celebrate America Tours with PBS includes tens of thousands of high school student choirs around the United States singing traditional songs and original ones by Janis. Money raised from the concert tours goes to PBS stations across the U.S. to help keep them on the air. Janis is a Top 10 Billboard artist multiple times over and has worked with the likes of James Earl Jones, Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, Maya Angelou and George Clooney, all in the name of giving to causes related the search for cures of cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, and poverty.

Janis' music has been widely reported by many throughout the world to have healing qualities. Played in dozens of hospitals with the children and adults in cancer wards such as the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, NY and Columbia Presbyterian in Manhattan, it is claimed by hundreds in letters and emails that Janis' music is a healer. Patients and families swear to witnessing various miracles. A few testimonies include:

Dear Tim,
Almost ten years ago, when I was being scheduled for surgery, I read an article in the Boston Globe about the calming and pain-reducing effects of your music. I bought your CD "Along the Shore of Acadia" and listened to it many times while I was recovering from surgery. In
the past few years I've had severe asthma, and there are days when it is frighteningly difficult for me to breathe. At those times (after I've taken all of my asthma meds at the maximum allowed doses) it truly helps me to sit quietly with my eyes closed and listen to your music.

I own five of your CDs now, and I listen to your music often. Recently a dear friend of mine was going through a very difficult and stressful time. I bought one of your CDs and sent it to her as a gift and she said it really helped her when things got especially rough for her.

Thank you for your wonderful music!
Amy M. Westwood, MA

Dear Tim,
My Mom and I enjoyed your music when we first saw your PBS special "Beautiful America".
After contacting you about getting more of your music, my Mom became seriously ill.

Your music videos have been a huge blessing. She watches them to help her deal with her health issues and finds them most helpful. (We listen to your music CDs in the car when we go to the doctor's appointments.)

I have told all my friends and their families about the positive influences you are making because of your music.

Please continue on your path of making great music. It helps so many people.

Thanks.
K. Wolf, Houston, Texas

Dear Tim,
I discovered your music years ago during my first full-time teaching job. I love kids and enjoyed my job, but in many ways it was a stressful first year.

There were countless days I would leave frazzled with a splitting headache, but on my ride home I would play your music (Flowers in October is still my favorite) and the stress would melt away. Once I was married, my husband quickly learned to read my stress signs and would simply turn on your music knowing it was the 'medicine' I needed. Now years later we have two beautiful adopted daughters from China. Our first daughter's transition home was very difficult and she would often have night terrors. We began playing your music softly each night to lull her to sleep and it not only was helpful to her, but relaxing for us as well.

Though she still had night terrors we were better able to ease her through them and she'd drift off again easily.
P. Foster, Stonington, CT

Dear Tim,
I remember first hearing your music in 2004, I believe on QVC. Our son had been in Iraq with the Army for just a few months. I had never dreamed of having a son at war and now was experiencing the most difficult year of my life. Our son lost many close friends that year and my faith was being tested every day, wondering if we would lose our son.

That year they were playing your CDs on QVC and one song in particular moved me to tears and strengthened my faith. At that very moment I knew our son would come home safe and sound. That song was "Coming Home." That year was still a difficult year but our faith was stronger and hope was more reassuring thanks to your music. Yes, I did buy a four CD set.

I remember sitting down and immediately sending you an e-mail, thanking you for such beautiful and reassuring music.

Our son has since served another tour in Iraq, was wounded in November of 2006, but again returned home safe and sound. He has just recently graduated from Officers Candidate School and continues to serve his country and make his parents proud.

Thank you again for making music that can touch the heart and soul and put you in God's hands at the moment you are listening to it.

And also Mr. Janis, thank you for your support of our troops with your music and video "Celebrate America".

Sincerely,
M. Smith,Bartlesville, Ok.
Evoice Team Leader
Soldiers' Angels
http://www.soldiersangels.org

This fall Janis went back to Kenya to work with Church World Services again. This time he planned to record 1,000 Kenyan school children -- many of whom were orphans and and living with HIV/AIDS. Kids with death sentences sing with so much joy on their faces. They crowded Janis; giving him very little space to move. He donated his personal keyboard to the Muranga School so that the students can continue to practice singing in their choir. Nothing else mattered to Janis but touching the lives of these children through his music. Kenyan CWS coordinator Sarah Turn and Bill Widley marveled on the trip at Janis' energy. They knew his childlike quality brings about the laughter and natural four-part harmony sung by the children. It took three days to get all of these children on tape; Janis got it done. All of the proceeds from his new song, "Move Mountains" will go to Church World Services to continue their work.

His dedication does not stop there. He feels completely at home with his sisters, the nuns. Although he's not a Catholic, he says he can't refuse nuns when they come to him from all over New England, and ask him to play a benefit concern for the needy. Last month, New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg got in on the act with Tim and the Nuns in the Bronx for the Little Sisters of the Poor benefit event. This Christmas, Janis and his ensemble will visit with Seven Orders for benefit concerts.

It's a wonder if or when Tim Janis gives to himself. He's nomadic. With very little on his back and his health bars serving as meals too much of the time, Janis is constantly in the studio creating original music that can be used for healing. Janis deflects when you get too personal. He plays a word game, kindly telling you that you are getting too close. He immediately switches back to the next time he can give to others. He knows some of the most famous and powerful people around. But his joy comes from having a simple breakfast with his mentor, lighthouse man Bill Thompson, or stopping by to see Bed & Breakfast owner Richard Leigh. He recently sent Editor-at-Large Gayle King of Oprah the O Magazine a beautiful gift basket with salt water taffy, chocolates and nearly all of his CDs because he is a fan of hers and thought she could get some relaxation and healing through his music. She wrote him back graciously thanking him.

Giving to others once again -- now to the Huffington Post and its readers, Janis set up a free download of one of his CDs at http://www.timjanis.com/gift/ type in the word "Peace" under the code and get the download.

He feels if he can't give to others, than what is his purpose? When asked about his future, his reply is to "play a small role in helping to heal others through beautiful music."

Saul Garlick: Today Is World AIDS Day

2009-12-01T17:02:06Z

On November 29,
1983, a New York Times article written by Lawrence K. Altman ran with the
headline “AIDS Now Seen As Worldwide Health Problem.” Mr. Altman reported
that AIDS cases were found in “33 countries and all inhabited continents.” In
2008, the number of worldwide AIDS cases was estimated at over 31 million. The
vast majority of people living with AIDS are in sub-Saharan Africa.

I was 6 weeks
old when Mr. Altman’s article appeared in the New York Times; most of my staff
and all of the college students involved with Think Impact weren’t even born.
For the past several years, my non-profit organization, ThinkImpact (formerly
Student Movement for Real Change) has focused its work on health and education
initiatives in Kenya and South Africa, specifically in rural villages. We have
witnessed the AIDS epidemic first hand. And what have we done about it?

We have held
numerous Health Days and HIV/AIDS workshops in South Africa to educate
community members about the causes, prevention and risks associated with the
disease.

AIDS education
is included in every community health workshop we provide in rural Kenyan
villages. We held a “Train the Trainers” program in Kenya for 130 community
members on HIV/AIDS and other health issues, so they can educate others in their
villages. We have petitioned for condoms that don’t break for our communities
in South Africa, and we have distributed thousands of condoms to the people of
Manyeleti, South Africa. And we have trained thousands of American college
students on issues associated with HIV/AIDS.

Two of our four
2010 Global Development Fellows who will return to Africa next summer to live
and work for a year have created original projects that recognize the HIV/AIDS
problems in Kenya and South Africa. Alexandra Crosson, a 22-year-old from Michigan,
will open a Women’s Action Center with several sexual health education
components. Mary Templeton, a 24-year-old from Ohio, will open a community
center with specific outreach to children who have been orphaned by the AIDS
epidemic.

Looking back
over the years and knowing that our work has positively affected the lives of
so many who are living at risk in African nations, I am proud of what we have done.
But have we done enough? Has anyone done enough?

Are enough
condoms being distributed in African nations? Have enough doctors offered to work in rural clinics to help prolong the life of the mothers, fathers and children who
are dying from this disease? Will the new initiatives announced by President Zuma reduce infant mortality and mother-to-child infection rates?

The battle has
been waged against HIV/AIDS. It is our personal and global responsibility to do
our part and work against HIV/AIDS in Africa and around the globe.

Read more: HIV/AIDS, Zuma, South Africa, Hiv, Charity, Aids, Kenya, World News

Nearly 2 Tons Of Ivory Seized In Eastern Africa

2009-11-30T07:26:40Z

NAIROBI, Kenya — African authorities raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768 kilograms) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said Monday.

During the three-month-long operation, authorities also seized leopard, crocodile and snake skins, among other illegal animal products, said Awad Dahia, Interpol's eastern Africa chief.

Andy Borowitz: Palin Issues Thankfulnesses List

2009-11-24T22:11:18Z

WASILLA (The Borowitz Report): One day before Thanksgiving, Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today issued the following "thankfulnesses list":

This being my list of the thankfulnesses I'm tapping into this year...

I have thankfulness that we have a President who is learning to celebrate our American holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas also, even though he didn't have either of those days when he was growing up in Kenya.

I have thankfulness that we live in a country where we have the freedom to speak, even though Todd has never done so actually.

I have thankfulness that little Falcon was found safe and sound in that box, being that I was worried sick about him flying around in that balloon.

I have thankfulness for all of those Jewish settlements on the West Bank, seeing that Jewish people will be flocking to the Holy Land to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I have thankfulness also for the new drapes I installed in my house to keep the Russians from peeping in.

I have thankfulness that Levi posed in Playgirl, and I'm sure all the gay men who read Playgirl have thankfulness for that also.

I have thankfulness also that Levi's mom has been put in prison so I don't have to worry about her selling drugs to Willow or Piper.

And finally, I have thankfulness for all of the good people who read my book, and for the person who wrote it also. More here.

Read more HuffPost Thanksgiving coverage and commentary

Bernard Pollack: In Kenya, Workers in the Tea and Flower Industries Find Strength in Solidarity

2009-11-20T10:11:44Z

This is a two-part series of our three day visit with the Solidarity Center in Kenya to meet with workers and look at the tea and flower industries.

Part I: Coming Up Roses for Union Members: Flower Workers Improve Workplace Conditions Through Solidarity

Lake Naivasha is known as a beautiful place to see wildlife, including thousands of pink flamingos. But just off the main road to the Naivasha national park, are hectares and hectares of greenhouses as far as the eye can see. They're not growing food inside the greenhouses--although Kenya, like other parts of Africa, is experiencing food shortages, malnutrition, and hunger because of prolonged drought--but flowers. The flower factory we visited -- the Sher Karuturi plant -- produces up to one million roses a day, which are sold at auction in Dubai and Holland and eventually make their way to the European Union and the United States.

Bella Rose, Red Calypso, Sunny Sher, Wild Thing, Ria, and Inca are all grown here--roses with enticing names that give little indication about how they are grown or how the workers are treated.

The week before we arrived, four women, according to Peter Otiend Ombude, the branch secertary for the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU), were hospitalized for chemical exposure. Apparently they were sent into the 35 degree Celsius greenhouses too soon after chemicals, mainly pesticides, were applied to the flowers. But for the most part, we're told, the conditions are better at this farm than some of the other farms--workers are provided a stipend for housing, there's a school located on site, and the salaries are higher than what employees of other farms make (on average $6200 Kenyan Shillings per month compared to $5000).

"The reason why conditions are better off is because of our union," said shop steward and mechanic at the plant, Ferdinand Jumo. The KPWU is currently in contract negotiations to negotiate higher wages, keep school costs down, and improve safety equipment. The Solidarity Center is working on helping them grow through ranks, as they've lost density in the industry due to heavy intimidation and pressure campaigns to keep workers from forming unions. In fact, ten additional flower factories abide by the collective bargaining agreement anyways just to keep workers from organizing.

But the union, with help from the Solidarity Center continues to make changes. "One of the most important things we've done is fight against gender discrimination," says union flower picker Samson Ouuda. "We've fought differences in wages, and won new policies to stop sexual harassment." An important win since many of the people working in the flower industry are young women.

Part II: Continuing to Grow: Tea Workers Come Together for a Better Workplace

We spent two days meeting with tea workers and their union in Kerecho and Naidu, Kenya -- working for multi-national tea manufacturers Unilever and Findley. As we drove through the tea region, it was like a never-ending labyrinth or a giant green maze of plants.

When we got to the union office in Kerecho, Kenya, union officials were elated to see the staff of the Solidarity Center. Over the last couple of months, more than 6,000 tea workers joined the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU). To help them win more members--and continue to grow--the Solidarity Center provides resources to hire organizers, conduct trainings, and offer communications and transportation support, according to KPAWU branch secretary Joshua Owuor Maywen.

The union, despite having more than 200,000 members in the agriculture sector and representing some of the most vulnerable workers, has still lost density over the last two decades. During this time, companies are trying whatever they can to cut costs, including implementing child labor, mechanizing the plucking industry--according to one of the workers: "the machines pluck everything including snakes and spiders, while the tea pluckers pluck tea"--and hiring casuals or "temporary" workers at lower wages and reduced benefits.

The union is actively fighting against child labor--they're playing a role in the implementation of international labor standards required under the Fair Trade rules, including monitoring of union plants. The trickiest part is that they are losing union density in the industry - with new plants and factories popping up outside of the main tea areas to provide stiff competition for the Kenyan tea market by undercutting costs using child labor and low wages.

Stay tuned for more stories of workers struggles as we visit Solidarity Centers all over Africa.

Follow Bernard and Danielle's travels throughout Africa by visiting www.BorderJumpers.org.

Saul Garlick: Gen Y: The Social Innovation Generation

2009-11-20T09:53:17Z

Cross Posted from Social Edge

Hosted by Saul Garlick (November 2009)

My generation doesn’t want to “paint a wall” or “pile bricks” in the developing world. Generation Y wants to do more.

Generation Y’s thirst is to create something lasting that works -- sustainable projects that will continue to affect the lives of those in rural communities for years to come. My generation is creating a daycare center in South Africa that will attract students by providing lunch that it grows in its own garden.

My generation wants to create something from conception to completion -- from design to implementation. My generation is creating a demonstration farm
complete with a solar drip irrigation system that connects rural Kenyan
farmers with modern farming technologies to replicate on their own land.

My generation wants to
incorporate what it learns from its experience abroad about leveraging
community resources to create sustainable development into its careers
-- as policymakers, as entrepreneurs, as eventual philanthropists.

The Associated Press
this month reported: “Parents in some of Africa's poorest countries
are cutting back on school, clothes and basic medical care just to give
their children a meal once a day.”

To address these issues,
funds abound, but social change does not. Young people provide an
untapped resource to redirect this ineffectual course. Their idealism
and open-mindedness to new solutions create opportunities to empower
communities to develop and own solutions to poverty. Generation Y is the generation of social innovation.

When I started ThinkImpact,
an organization that has connected American college students and recent
graduates from dozens of campuses nationwide with rural villages abroad
to help reduce poverty through designing and implementing innovative
projects, everyone had doubts that we’d be able to attract the best and
the brightest to leave home for a year, to live in what are sometimes
literal mud huts and to succeed in creating something sustainable. But there’s no shortage of young people -- members of Generation Y -- who want to alleviate poverty as a career.

How can the next generation of funders better meet the demand for funding long-term projects, instead of short-term experiences?

How can we provide real opportunities for career development for these recent graduates when
they are living in some of the most remote locations to help them go
from their experience abroad to a career in development and social
innovation?

How can we improve the “paint a wall programs” that currently exist and
integrate them into new programs that allow more ingenuity and a longer
term commitment, and thereby better suit Generation Y?

Join Saul Garlick, Founder and Executive Director of ThinkImpact, in the conversation.

Kenya Recruits Somali Refugees To Fight Islamists Back Home In Somalia

2009-11-10T08:36:00Z

by Letta Tayler and Chris Albin-Lackey, Human Rights Watch

Hagadera Refugee Camp, Kenya--For months, 18-year-old Ahmed Abdullahi had dodged the mortar shells that whizz daily through Mogadishu, the war-ravaged capital of Somalia. The one that finally drove him from Somalia tore though his family's house and ripped a cousin to bits, splattering Ahmed with blood and body parts.

Dodging bullets and bandits, Ahmed fled with his mother across Somalia's southern border to Hagadera, one of three refugee camps in the deserts of Dadaab, in northeast Kenya. Ahmed obediently fetched firewood and water for his mother but couldn't find a job. Then one day in early October, he vanished. Friends said a recruiter had lured him into a covert force of Somali refugees that the Kenyan government is training to help Somalia's internationally backed transitional government fight the extremist Islamist group Al-Shabaab.

In recent weeks hundreds of young men and boys from the Dadaab refugee camps have been secretly recruited for the force, lured with false promises of lavish pay and claims of backing from the United Nations and the United States. By the time the refugees learn their pay will be a fraction of what they were promised, and that they will be hastily trained for frontline combat, their cell phones and identity papers have been confiscated.

The recruitment drive is being organized by Kenyan government officials--who have issued numerous but contradictory denials about their role--as well as exiled Somalis living in Kenya. Many western and regional governments share the goal of routing Al-Shabaab, a group with some links to Al-Qaeda. But in addition to luring recruits through deception, the covert program directly contravenes principles of international law that bar military activity in refugee camps. Such camps are meant to be purely humanitarian spaces where refugees can escape the violence that drove them to flee. And some recruits said children under 15 appear to be among the ranks, which would be a war crime. The covert recruitment drive also targets Kenyans of Somali heritage in marginalized, northeast Kenyan Somali communities such as Dadaab town, located near the refugee camps.

Who is funding the secret force remains a mystery. What is clear is that some of the world's most vulnerable and traumatized refugees are being lured back to the very conflict they narrowly escaped.

"After all that we went through in Somalia, I never thought that that my son would come to a peaceful country like Kenya only to face the same dangers here," said Ahmed's mother, Miryama. (As with all refugees in this article, we have changed her name to protect her from possible reprisal). "This is the same as kidnapping our sons," said Miryama's friend Fatima, whose son also joined the force.

What is also clear is that the drive could backfire and broaden the already significant regional and international dimensions of the conflict in Somalia, where 18 years of conflict have killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions of others and left the country stateless and ravaged. Al-Shabaab has already threatened retaliation if Kenya recruits Somalis to fight against it. Meanwhile, al-Shabaab and other Islamist insurgent groups are also recruiting in refugee camps and in other Somali immigrant communities in Kenya.

Al-Shabaab, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization, is importing fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, and even young Somali-Americans from Minnesota and Washington State to bolster its forces. Along with other Islamist insurgent groups such as Hisbul Islam, it has trapped the country's UN- and US-backed Transitional Federal Government into a tiny sliver of Mogadishu. The Transitional Federal Government would probably lose even that scrap of turf within days if it weren't protected by a UN-sponsored force of African Union peacekeepers called AMISOM, which sometimes fires indiscriminately at opposition-controlled northern Mogadishu, killing civilians, when Al-Shabaab attacks it.

In recent years the US has stepped up involvement in Somalia, using drones and helicopters to conduct targeted killings of alleged terrorists, including a key Al-Qaeda suspect in September. In what it called a reprisal, Al-Shabaab days later staged a suicide bombing at the AMISOM base in Mogadishu, killing 21 people. The Obama administration also has shipped arms to the transitional government's beleaguered soldiers, obtaining a UN exemption from an international ban on weapons sales to Somalia, despite questions as to how the weapons are being used and evidence that many of them end up on the open market. Ethiopia, Somalia's most powerful neighbor, carried out a bloody, two-year military intervention in Somalia in a failed effort to entrench the Transitional Federal Government. Its forces withdrew from Somalia in late 2008 but still cross the border.

Kenya has been the victim of Al-Qaeda attacks in the past and its government has become increasingly fearful of Shabaab incursions across its porous northeast border. But as one worried UN official put it to Human Rights Watch, "Recruiting Somali refugees and sending them back to Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab is an open invitation for reprisal."

Recruiting for the Transitional Federal Government is difficult inside Somalia because its forces are poorly organized and rarely paid. But pickings are plentiful in the sand-swept desolation of the Dadaab refugee camps, which contain the largest single concentration of refugees in the world. Built to house 90,000 refugees in the early 1990s, the camps overflow with more than triple that number. Most are Somalis. More than two-thirds are younger than 35. The overwhelming majority are unemployed.

Children, restless teens, pregnant women, war wounded, the elderly and the mentally impaired spill from houses of mud, tin, and sticks that are ringed by fences of thorn. While many are fleeing indiscriminate bombardments by all sides, as well as drought, forced recruitment and lawlessness, large numbers say they left because of Al-Shabaab.

Bras, along with television, western music, unusual haircuts and Scrabble, are prohibited in many swaths of south-central Somalia that Shabaab has grabbed in the last few years. But those taboos, punishable by jail time and public floggings, are the least of Somalis' fears. In interviews at Dadaab, one mother said Shabaab forces had snatched her 12-year-old son and nephew from a madrasa and killed her brother when he tried to find them. A wife said Shabaab had murdered her husband because they suspected he supported the Ethiopian military intervention that ended in late 2008. A teenage girl said the group had shot dead an octogenarian grandmother as a transitional government sympathizer after she visited an ailing granddaughter in an AMISOM hospital.

Recruiters for the secret transitional government force capitalize on fears of al-Shabaab, along with many young Somalis' idealism about rebuilding their country.

"They said the fighting is meant for you to kill the dirt and the mess that is in the country right now, the Al-Shabaab," said Daud, an 18-year-old refugee who initially jumped at the offer but later changed his mind.

Speaking warily for fear he would be forced back into recruitment, Daud said a recruiter had approached him inside the Dadaab camps and promised him $400 a month--a fortune in his eyes--and said he would be a policeman, not a soldier. An hour later, Daud said, he boarded a private shuttle van that dumped recruits in a remote desert clearing where scores of other enlistees were already waiting. Late that night, the recruits were placed on Kenyan military and National Youth Service trucks headed for a remote government paramilitary training camp outside the eastern coastal city of Mombasa.

En route, Daud and other recruits heard a different story. They would only receive $200 a month, a portly man who identified himself as an exiled Somali general told them, adding that after just three weeks of training they would head to the front lines.

"At that point my wish to go to Mombasa totally disappeared," Daud said. "The message was totally different from what I first heard." But since recruiters had confiscated all the conscripts' cell phones, along with their identity cards or ration papers (often the only identification refugees possess), he had no way to call for help.

Finally, when the truck slowed at a town, Daud and three friends cut through the canvas siding with a razor and escaped. They walked through the night until Daud was able to borrow a cell phone to call his father, who hired a car to fetch him miles away in the desert.

"I found him lying under a tree. He was tired and starving and traumatized," the father, Ahmed, told Human Rights Watch. "These boys are vulnerable and it is easy for anyone to overcome them psychologically."

Ahmed is among the few refugees who have "movement passes" allowing them to leave the camps. Lacking such papers, most parents whose sons went missing in the recruitment drive can't even try search for them.

Some conscripts looked 15 or younger but recruiters encouraged them to lie about their age, according to several defectors and a driver. "If somebody said, 'I am 15,' they said, 'No, from now on you are 20 years old,'" one recruit said.

Several recruiters also told the refugees they would be joining a force that was backed by the United Nations, the United States or the European Commission. That supposed seal of approval proved highly persuasive among not only recruits but some parents. "My son is educated and he told me that the UN is recruiting an army, so I gave him my blessings and he has my total support," one ethnic Somali father in the town of Dadaab told us. "Please tell the world what he is doing."

Officials from the UN Political Office for Somalia, the US government and the European Commission have strongly denied any role in interviews or statements to Human Rights Watch.

Publicly, nearly all top Kenyan and Somali government officials, including Kenya's foreign minister and defense minister and Somalia's transitional president, have denied involvement in the program as well. "We are not involved in any such operation--it is propaganda," the Kenyan military spokesman, Bogita Ongeri claimed, saying that only Somali militia groups such as Al-Shabaab are recruiting in Kenya. But last week, Transitional Federal Government Gen. Yusuf Dhumal, the group's top military commander, held a press conference in Mogadishu to "confirm" that Kenya and Somalia "had agreed" to recruit 1,500 young soldiers from northeast Kenya, the heartland of ethnic Somali communities. and were training most of them outside of Mombasa. The Kenyan defense minister then admitted a training program existed but said it was actually for Somali police, contradicting what numerous recruits and one recruiter told Human Rights Watch.

No Kenyan or Somali official has admitted to recruiting in refugee camps, which contravenes fundamental principles of refugee law. Both UN Security Council resolutions and the UN refugee agency's governing body have repeatedly stated that refugee camps should be free from any military recruitment and "exclusively civilian and humanitarian in character," to avoid placing an already vulnerable population at increased risk. Refugees who join armed groups also risk losing their refugee status.

One Kenyan government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said both governments were not only scouting for recruits in Northeast Kenya but were telling conscripts to pretend they had been recruited from specific areas of Somalia.

Parents, deserters and community leaders in the refugee camps said the recruiters were operating brazenly from tea kiosks and public squares. "I was told that the Kenyan government was aware of this and I did not have any problem with the police," one recruiter told Human Rights Watch. "Our biggest problem was the parents of the recruits, not the police."

Many parents said both recruiters and police appeared unwilling to help find their sons. "I know who one of the recruiters is here. I went to him and I was wailing and crying; I could not stand the news," said Saadiya, the mother of a 20-year-old who went missing. "But he said, 'Your son is gone and he is not coming back.' "

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International Court To Begin Inquiry Into Kenya Violence

2009-11-05T09:04:01Z

NAIROBI, Kenya After months of political wrangling, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Thursday that he will initiate an inquiry into what he termed crimes against humanity during the post-election bloodletting that gripped Kenya in 2008.

Bernard Pollack: AGRA Sets the Record Straight

2009-11-04T14:53:32Z

This is the second of a three-part series about our visit to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and AGRA grantees in Kenya.

"Read our lips," said Joe DeVries, near the end of our conversation with him in his office at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). "We are not promoting or funding research for GMOs (genetically modified organisms)."

Dr. DeVries, the Director of AGRA's Program for Africa's Seed Systems (PASS), was responding to our question about how his organization deals with criticism from environmentalists. It was one of many questions we asked him during a lively discussion on the 5th floor of AGRA's headquarters.

DeVries has worked in Africa most of his professional life and has some pretty strong opinions on the future of agriculture on the continent. Part of his job, he says, is to demystify food insecurity as an "African problem." He noted that every continent has a food crisis over the last hundred years. And either they overcame the problem--or, in his words, "hit the wall."

He reminded us that Africa's food insecurity problem is not just a problem for Africa, but "worrisome for the whole world." DeVries said that Africa is now suffering the results--child malnutrition, maternal deaths, and famine--of not having a green revolution (the term used to describe the increase in food production in Asia in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of increased inputs, such as fertilizer, and hybrid crops.) "Somebody has to step forward and take Africa on that path." That "somebody," DeVries believes, is AGRA.

Seeds are likely the most important component of AGRA's mission. Why seeds? According to DeVries, seeds are not unlike computers--"they serve as the operating system for the whole farm, showing farmers what can be better on the farm." If farmers get their hands on "better," or hybrid, seed, he says, they're more likely to buy and use fertilizer to propagate those seed because they know they'll get "more bang for the buck."

While many food advocates are concerned about the encroachment of transnational agribusiness into Africa, DeVries stresses that AGRA is focusing on breeding hybrid seeds locally, a departure from the first green revolution. "They have to be bred here," he said, and noted that it's no more expensive to develop seeds "in house," or in country, than getting them from neighboring countries. Breeding "in house" also has the added benefit of being able to customize hybrids specifically to local growing conditions and climate. "Farmers are poor," says DeVries, "because they don't have hybrid seed."

Getting seed to the farmers is also something AGRA is taking on by building the private sector for inputs and outputs in Africa. AGRA is investing in three or four seed companies in every country where they are working and this helps to both increase competition and lower prices. And as we mentioned yesterday in our first blog about AGRA, the organization is building a network of small agro-dealers to help minimize the distance farmers travel to get seed or fertilizer, while also training the agro-dealers to act as extension officers, training the farmers they sell to. Again, this can be considered an improvement on what occurred during the first green revolution when things were more top-down.

DeVries, critics of AGRA might be surprised to hear, considers himself an environmentalist. And he agrees that mistakes were made during the Green Revolution in Asia: "We have seen the excesses of the Green Revolution and they haunt our memories," he confided. He says that there's no question that if AGRA is successful in creating a Green Revolution in Africa that agricultural biodiversity will be diminished and while AGRA is not currently investing in collecting and preserving biodiversity, it is something they hope to do in the future.

I left the meeting amazed, again, by AGRA's candor, but still skeptical regarding the completeness of their formula to save Africa from continued hunger and poverty. Are seeds, fertilizer, and the strengthening of the private market enough? I don't know, but I'll look forward to learning more about AGRA's work when we visit projects they're funding next week and later on in the trip. Stay tuned.

Bernard Pollack: Looking for a Greener Revolution: Visit to AGRA

2009-11-04T08:30:46Z

This is the first of a three-part series about our visit to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and AGRA grantees in Kenya.

We visited the headquarters of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in Nairobi, Kenya, this week. The organization, which began in 2006 with a $150 million grant from both the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which is one of the organizations supporting our Nourishing the Planet project), has some pretty ambitious--and controversial--goals for agriculture in Africa.

As we walked into the building, I couldn't help but think to myself that many of my friends and colleagues in the sustainable agriculture community would think that I was walking into the belly of the beast, so to speak. Try googling AGRA--and in addition to the organization's website, you'll find pages and pages of criticism about them from groups like GRAIN, Food First, and The Oakland Institute. But as part of our research for State of the World 2011, we thought we had to see--and hear--for ourselves what AGRA program representatives had to say about their work.

One thing that surprised me, but maybe it shouldn't have, is the candor and openness of everyone we talked to at AGRA.

We chatted first with Argent Chuula, a program officer in the Soil Health Program working on fertilizer business development. Mr. Chuula, who is from Zambia, joined AGRA from the fertilizer industry in September and had some interesting thoughts on fertilizer use--and misuse--in Africa. By trying to increase awareness about input markets for fertilizers, he's hoping to improve soil health. He compared the loss of nutrients from the soil all over Africa to a depleted bank account--"we've just been taking money out," he said, "and not depositing anything." In other words, soils have been mined of their nutrients without being replenished, causing 75 percent of the farmland in Africa to degrade.

While his job is to help increase fertilizer use in Eastern and Southern Africa, Mr. Chuula also stressed that "inorganic fertilizer alone can't improve soil health," and that a one-size-fits-all approach to fertilizer use can't work in Africa. Lots of "wrong" fertilizer is being used all across Africa, he noted, and what's needed is to use "the right fertilizer for the right crop at the right time."

By building up the private sector and creating a system of agro-dealers to distribute fertilizer, AGRA is hoping to reduce the gap between farmers and inputs. Over the past few years the distance farmers have had to travel to get seeds or fertilizer has gone from 17 kilometers to 3 kilometers in some countries, including Kenya. AGRA wants to ultimately reduce that distance to zero.

I have to admit, I'm more than a bit skeptical about this focus on free market, private enterprises because I don't think there's a guarantee it will help smallholders. Stay tuned for more about AGRA's work on that and other issues later this week.

PHOTOS: Usain Bolt -- The World's Fastest Man With The Fastest Land Animal

2009-11-03T12:08:38Z

From Getty: "World and Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt holds and pets cheetahs at the headquarters of the Kenyan Wildlife Service in Nairobi. The triple Olympic and world sprint champion in both the 100 and 200 metres events arrived in the land of long-distance running, ahead of the launch of an environmental charity campaign to preserve local ecosystems. The cub he's holding was named Lightning Bolt."

Check out these adorable photos of Usain Bolt with cheetahs.

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Usain Bolt, World's Fastest Man, Adopts World Fastest Feline

2009-11-02T11:53:17Z

NAIROBI, Kenya — The world's fastest man adopted the animal kingdom's fastest sprinter Monday, as Usain Bolt welcomed a new baby cheetah named Lightning Bolt into his life.

The Jamaican sprinter's sponsorship of the 3-month-old male cheetah is part of an effort to boost Kenyan conservation efforts of its famous wildlife, whose survival is threatened by trophy hunting, climate change and human encroachment.

Kenya: Corrupt Cops Caught In The Act (VIDEO)

2009-11-02T10:12:30Z

By NTV

Traffic police officers caught on camera collecting bribes from motorists have been interdicted.

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Anthony Edwards Runs NY Marathon For Kenyan Pediatric Hospital

2009-11-01T14:02:09Z

Anthony Edwards began supporting Shoe4Africa when the nonprofit's main mission was to give shoes to barefoot children in Kenya. Now that the organization has grown, they're looking to build a pediatric hospital at the request of the Kenyan government.

Anthony Edwards ran the New York marathon today to raise money for this effort.

WATCH:

Andy Borowitz: Fox News Reports: American Wins NY Marathon, Kenyan Wins US Presidency

2009-11-01T12:53:40Z

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - The Fox News Channel reported today that an American won the New York marathon and a Kenyan won the U.S. presidency.

But moments after Fox reported that Meb Keflezighi, an American runner, had placed first in the marathon, several conservative activists came forward to question Mr. Keflezighi's status as a U.S. citizen, which he became in 1998.

"Mr. Keflezighi claims that he is a U.S. citizen," said Orly Taitz, leader of the so-called Birthers movement. "However, I have information proving that his citizenship papers were forged by a witch-doctor in a mud-hut in Eritrea."

In a related story, Fox reminded its viewers to turn their clocks back 400 years. More here.

Reporters Uncensored: The Real Refugees of Kakuma County

2009-10-31T11:34:33Z

Imagine you and your family in Kenya's Kakuma camp, along with seventy thousand refugees. Dust storms darken the sky and dry out your skin and the few scraps of food that aren't sealed away. You do all you can to guard your children from malaria but can't keep them from malnourishment. Your life expectancy is less than 60 years and you won't spend one day of it free from hunger, disease and hopeless poverty. Your children have never left the camp, but then, for one day, you can take them to Oz. With the help of this week's social innovator, the hearts and imaginations of thousands of people around the world have a chance to be freed, if only for an hour or two, from the bleakness of life in a refugee camp.

This week we're profiling FilmAid International, a non-profit organization that aims to bring the healing and educating power of cinema to refugees in the most desperate situations. The organization was founded in 1999 by a group of film professionals to entertain refugees in Macedonia at the start of the war in Kosovo. They began screening movies in refugee camps to restore hope, educate and inspire those who were displaced by the war. In 2001, FilmAid expanded to support refugees from Sudan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Rwanda. In addition, they also had a program helping families in the United States left homeless after Hurricane Katrina.

FilmAid's programs consist of three components. First, the organization partners with other aid agencies to provide video-based educational workshops. Sessions are held in community centers and schools throughout the camps, and involve topics relating to health, gender-based violence, conflict resolution and family planning. They also offer outdoor screenings inside the refugee camps. The films screened are typically local African films related to social, health and environmental issues. They stress positive messages that are meant to provide the viewers with tools for coping with often taboo issues. Finally, FilmAid works directly with the refugees to produce short films on the issues that affect them most. In doing so, they keep a finger on the pulse of communities and provide a forum for public dialogue.

For more on FilmAid, check out our latest show ON DEMAND.

Patrick Makau: NYC Marathon Runner May Win Top Prize

2009-10-30T17:16:39Z

Patrick Makau is set to race in Sunday's New York City Marathon. Makau, who is from Kenya, has won 11 previous half-marathons and road races.

Makau made his marathon debut in 2009, at the Rotterdam Marathon, where he finished fourth -- just short of the fastest marathon debut.

James Kwambai: NYC Marathon Runner May Win Top Prize

2009-10-30T16:57:38Z

James Kwambai of Kenya is set to compete in this Sunday's New York City Marathon. Kwambai has competed in 7 previous marathons, 2 of which he won.

Kwambai prefers road running over track and cross country. In 2002, he won the Marseille-Cassis Classique Internationale, breaking the course record by over a minute.

Kenya To Launch Gay Census

2009-10-29T09:20:21Z

Kenya is to carry out a census of its gay population in an effort to bolster the fight against HIV/Aids - despite homosexuality being against the law.

Kenya: British Couple, Norman And Rita Joel, Stabbed To Death While On Vacation

2009-10-26T15:29:20Z

Nicky Trup | Independent

An elderly British couple were stabbed to death while on holiday in Kenya by two men they had been donating money to, police said yesterday.

The bodies of Norman and Rita Joel, of Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, were found dumped in the village of Mwakirunge, 16km from Mombasa. An autopsy revealed that both Mr Joel, 70, and his wife, 67, died from multiple stab wounds.

Both Mr and Mrs Joel had been frequent visitors to Kenya for nearly 20 years, owned a home in the country and were known to have given money to local communities.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the British High Commission was made aware of the deaths on 15 October, but could not confirm when the murders took place. According to Kenyan Police, the retired couple were killed a day after arriving in the country.

Two men were arrested prior to the discovery of the bodies, after a patrolling policeman spotted them driving a bloodstained car. Police believe the murders took place in the car, which had been rented for the couple by one of the suspects. The alleged murder weapons have also been recovered.

Kenyan police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said: "We have two suspects in custody. The suspects were known to the couple, as they had been receiving monetary assistance from them."

Continue reading at the Independent.

Climate Change Displacing Thousands

2009-10-25T04:19:47Z

Africa is already home to one-third of the 42 million people worldwide uprooted by ethnic slaughter, despots and war. But experts say climate change is quietly driving Africa's displacement crisis to new heights. Ibrahim is one of an estimated 10 million people worldwide who have been driven out of their homes by rising seas, failing rain, desertification or other climate-driven factors.

Kenya: Anglicans Reject Pope's Offer To Join Catholic Church

2009-10-23T12:03:34Z

The head of Kenya's Anglican Church, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, has rejected the Pope's offer to allow disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church.

Josh Ruxin: Famine and Plenty, Both in Times of Drought

2009-10-16T14:03:09Z

Rwanda: The first rains of the season are falling in this part of Africa. The rain is part of a weather cycle that can make or break life in this region of the world, depending on several factors. Prominent among these is health - not just people's health, but also the health of agricultural, governmental and economic systems.

Today is World Food Day. A couple of days ago, on October 14th, the UN released its annual report on global food security. Their figures confirm that more than one billion people - a sixth of the world - are undernourished, and that the number of hungry people had been growing even before the economic crisis hit, which has only made the situation worse. But the report also noted that while some poor nations are struggling to survive, other poor nations are helping to feed them. Despite their relative poverty, some countries, like Rwanda, are exporting food, while others are desperate consumers.

Rwanda's current growing season is shaping up to be better than the last. The past several years have seen drought and erratic rainfall, but tens of thousands of Rwandans have adapted with simple and effective techniques that deliver both nutritional, and economic, stability. Mayange, a community of 25,000 located one hour south of the Rwandan capital of Kigali, recently became a net exporter of food for the first time in decades. It may serve as a crucible for understanding the environmental and cultural challenges facing Sub-Saharan Africa, and provide insights into what can be done to combat the rising storm of food insecurity and economic instability in the region.

In contrast, right now an estimated 20 million Kenyans are at risk of severe malnutrition and starvation. Because their situation is so dire - and because droughts like the one Kenya is experiencing could happen to any nation in the region at any given time, it's critical to closely examine projects that are bearing fruit. These need scaling up to serve the hundreds of millions in Africa who desperately need them - and the food security they provide - right now, today.

Just four years ago, Mayange was synonymous with abject poverty. Located at the very epicenter of the 1994 genocide, its people were hardened, uncooperative, and when I began working there in October 2005, starving to death. Back in the 1960s, the government of Rwanda forcefully relocated mainly Tutsis to Mayange and its environs due to the unwelcoming rainforest conditions. The resourceful inhabitants chopped down nearly all the trees and provided Kigali with charcoal for decades. After the trees fell, they productively produced maize and beans until the soil fell down the hillsides into the valleys. The stage was set for the 1990s, which saw both murder and decreasing rainfall (a condition seen across East Africa). By 2005, Mayange was a backwater - a favorite for charity involvement given the food needs, but an apparently hopeless case.

The government of Rwanda recognized radical approaches were needed. They identified Mayange as the site of the Millennium Villages project for Rwanda and gave the team a tall order: prove your methods and we'll adopt them at national scale. Our initial work involved basics: distributing emergency food, improving health facilities, and working with local government on agriculture plans. We worked alongside the national government which was expanding its efforts to get basic services to people - roads, electricity, water, education and health.

During the first two years, the community banded together. They transformed the landscape with progressive terraces along the hillside, where tens of thousands of nitrogen-fixing trees and new, drought-resistant crops were planted. Field trials determined which crops would have the kind of staying power needed in dry, lean times. In the end, a diversified mix of beans, maize, cassava, home vegetables, and fast-growing fruit trees provided steady and dependable food sources, which led the way to real stability for the first time in decades.

The start of the rainy season is usually one of the hungriest times of the year. Yet in the formerly hopeless enclave of Mayange, there are 50-80 metric tons of maize and beans for every 5,000 people, stored by the local government. This surpasses the wildest estimates of local officials, who three years ago dreamt of splitting that same quantity among 25,000 people.

Across Africa, the Millennium Villages project has demonstrated that food scarcity can be all but vanquished if the required resource management, investment and political will are available. On this World Food Day, the lesson for Kenya and others is simple: get the basics right. Only in this way can agricultural communities attain the food stability and security that maintains people's health. Just as drought can destroy health, economic, and even political systems, an abundant amount of crops and accompanying wealth can take communities beyond mere subsistence, enabling them to build long-term prosperity.