Final Week (Week 6)

This week I am working to complete a report on child trafficking. The report seeks to expose the role that mismanaged and unregulated children’s homes play in the spread of child trafficking. It seeks to identify the loopholes in the legal framework which enable unregulated children’s homes to operate without interference or oversight by the government childcare agencies. It will also seek to identify some of the challenges to detecting and prosecuting these cases.

This is the final week of my placement in Kenya. It has been a great opportunity and learning experience for me and I hope that I have contributed in a positive way to the work that the Cradle does to support children in Kenya. Some of my most memorable experiences will have been an exciting trip to western Kenya and speaking with high school students about the challenges they face in pursuing their education, attending the Legal Aid Clinic at the Children’s Court in Nairobi, and working with some very dedicated and motivated people at the Cradle’s offices.

I’m confident that my time in Kenya has been time well spent and I am grateful to my colleagues at the Cradle for making my time with them such a great experience.

Referendum week (Week 5)

Monday

With less than two weeks left on my placement (!) I’m continuing to work on my child trafficking article. This week is also partly disrupted by the Referendum which falls mid-way through the week. The office is closing early on Tuesday to allow staff to travel home to vote and it will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday. But it will be open as usual on Friday provided the voting goes ahead peacefully.

Wednesday

As we had the day of from work we hosted a Referendum BBQ. We followed coverage of the voting on TV which went ahead without incident and ended in a convincing victory in favour of the new constitution.  

Thursday

I visited the David Sheldrick elephant orphanage which, as the name suggests, is a sanctuary and rescue centre for orphaned elephants. They were easily the sweetest things I’ve seen since landing in Kenya.

School visits in the Suba District (Week 4)

During the second half of the week I took a trip to the Suba District for some school visits with the Cradle. The Suba District is part of the Nyanza Province on Lake Victoria. The scenery is beautiful although despite rich natural resources in this region, there is still a high rate of poverty. The Suba District has the lowest life expectancy in Kenya of 42 years, it has the highest HIV /Aids prevalence in Kenya of 38%, and 64% of its people live on less than 57 cents per day.

The school visits were part of the Safe Horizons programme through which the Cradle works with girls in secondary school to provide mentorship and leadership building. The talks focused on some of the challenges that these girls face including early pregnancies, STDs, HIV/Aids, and other barriers to completing education. The students were very open and were full of questions. I spoke to the girls about how their experiences compare with those of students in the UK and answered their many, many questions about life in the UK including studies, jobs, scholarship programmes, boys, English food and fashion sense…The experience was quite eye-opening and it allowed me to see a side of Kenya that I would not otherwise have seen.

“Technical issues” (Week 4)

I’ve been working on another article regarding child trafficking. I managed to make some progress but every now and then there are “technical issues” such as power cuts, disrupted internet access and problems with my own laptop. But these things happen and I’ve been able to work from a nearby internet café from time to time.

Out and around town…(Week 3)

I got an introduction to Kenyan theatre on Thursday evening which was quite entertaining. We went to see “The Kenyan 10 Commandments”. It was very funny although unfortunately the punch lines were often in Swahili so some of the humour was lost in translation.

At the weekend I climbed Mt Longonot (a dormant volcano in the Rift Valley). When we got to the summit we took some photos next to a sign which we assumed read “Mt Longonot” in Swahili – turns out it reads “Do not litter” in Swahili. Still its evidence that we made it to the top!

I also went to the Nairobi National Park and after a bit of a slow start we stumbled across a family of four lions out for an afternoon stroll. We also had a close encounter with a group of baboons…

Working at the Cradle (Week 3)

At the start of the week I finalised my draft of the discussion paper on violence against children in the home setting. The paper is based on a UN study and offers a series of recommendations based on the findings of the UN study and on cases attended to by the Cradle.

I have also been helping to document criminal and trafficking case handled by the Cradle.  I spent most of Tuesday through to Thursday updating the Cradle’s records of these cases including the status of prosecution, psychological support provided, and follow up tasks that need to be addressed.

On Friday morning the Cradle held its monthly monitoring meeting which was attended by staff from all departments. The purpose of these meetings is to monitor progress towards implementing the Cradle’s work plan. Each department reports on whether it is meeting its targets and, if not, why.

The Cradle essentially has six departments (Legal Aid; Counseling; Child Rights Awareness; Policy & Legislative Advocacy; Research, Monitoring & Documentation (RMD); and Finance) and it’s interesting to see how all of these departments fit together. The documentation of cases that the RMD department handles feeds into the requests for donor funding, which affects all other departments. Likewise the priorities that the Finance department sets can dictate the resources that the other departments have at their disposal. And the Counseling and Legal Aid departments work closely together on most cases involving children.

The monthly monitoring meetings seem to be an effective way of ensuring that each of the departments is performing as it should and allows the staff to raise any concerns, suggest solutions and agree on appropriate action to address the issue.

Safari time in the Massai Mara

I managed to tag along on a trip to the Mara this weekend which was great. The drive through the Rift Valley was gorgeous although the last 2 hours of the drive on dirty roads with potholes the size of small craters made for a bumpy ride…

We stayed in a conservancy just outside the boundaries of the National Park. The conservancy project is in its early stages but the vision is that they will develop luxury lodges within the conservancy that are eco-friendly, sustainable and put minimal infringements on the local environment and population.

There were eight of us in total camping in tents with no fencing between us and the animals – actually technically I was sleeping in a pop up igloo tent – which made the experience all the more interesting. The sounds of lions calling out to one another on the second night kept me on my toes.

It was a great trip though – we were very well taken care of and we spotted giraffe, zebras, an elephant, hippos, impala and wildebeast.