Support a Children's Educational Activity Center!

As I dive headfirst into my second year of service, I realize that the months are flying by and my time left here is growing distressingly shorter with still so much to be done. Since there is obviously a lack of all resources time and money, I’ve narrowed my focus down to a project I think will be most worthwhile…a children’s educational activity center. My supervisor has dreamed of building a children’s educational activity center in Makindu for years – and this dream is inching closer and closer to becoming a reality. Now is the part where YOU have the opportunity to help us make this a reality in the next year!

The two acre educational activity center is envisioned as such…

• Three sets of playground equipment for various age groups, including swings, slides, merry-go-rounds, see-saws, money bars and trampolines.

• Educational materials posted throughout the center, including a world map wall mural, wildlife and cultural diversity placards, HIV prevention messages.

• A forest of indigenous trees, many of which have been eradicated from the region due to deforestation for income generation and fuel.

We have already mustered up the funds to dig a trench for the wall’s foundation and have planted trees, which I have watched grow from seedlings in plastic bags to now foot-high saplings. I am beginning to take pictures every few weeks to chart the progress of the center – which we hope will rapidly pick up speed in the upcoming months.



So now, for my humble request… Please help us fund the construction of the playground equipment for children ages five to fourteen. The equipment will not only provide a healthy outlet for exercise and socialization, but the pillars and equipment supports will have educational messages painted on for HIV awareness/prevention as well as to convey local knowledge of wildlife and culture.

Even if you’re only able to donate a few dollars, anything will make this vision a bit closer to realization and will be greatly appreciated! Please visit this site to learn more and make a tax-deductible donation if you are able…

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=615-175&

I would be most grateful if you pass this information along to any friends, family or people that would be interested in learning more or contributing.

I have two friends from the University of Oregon coming in April to work with my organization WACAL for three weeks to a month, and we are hoping to have the playground fully funded so as to start construction at that time! A million thanks to all of you for reading this and my deepest appreciation for any assistance you are able to offer.

Feel free to contact me with any questions. I have included a picture of the plot at this point in time and will continue posting updates as things progress!

A Much-Needed Breakthrough

Over one year and countless capacity building activities into my service, I couldn’t help but breathe a deep sigh of validation today when I felt like the farmers we are training had a breakthrough. One of the most challenging aspects of being a Peace Corps volunteer (or, I would guess, working in any sort of grassroots development) is the lack of tangible and noticeable positive results and changes. For the past year, I have been involved in a chicken project working with rural resource-poor farmers to develop indigenous chicken rearing as a business, and to improve the farmers’ involvement and realized benefits along the value chain.

The project started by equipping service providers with technical information to train farmer groups on raising chicken (vaccination/disease control, proper housing, feeding methods, etc). From there, we have trained the service providers on collective marketing so they can encourage groups to come together to sell their chicken, increasing bargaining power and market access. Currently, we are training group-selected traders on business and negotiation skills so they can better represent the farmer groups at the market – gather accurate market information, ensure quality control, arrange transport logistics, keep proper production and financial records, and source viable markets.

This morning marked the beginning of the second day of the 3 day training and I opened with a workshop on Identifying Markets and Gathering Information. The traders were given a hypothetical scenario, using real coastal towns but fabricating prices and transportation information to the markets. Given four potential markets at which to resale the chickens, the traders had small-group discussions to determine the most viable market. Upon calling up the first person to present what was discussed, I was pleasantly surprised and extremely relieved when the recap of the discussions went far above and beyond my expectations. Not only was the financial viability of the various markets calculated and discussed, but the advantages and disadvantages of each viable market were fleshed out… All without much prompting on the part of the workshop facilitators.

From there, we changed the workshop up a bit, fast-forwarding through issues that are apparently already well understood to the traders. This is the first time in my year on this project that I felt a strong sense of confidence in the proactive attitude of the training participants – and it instilled a hope in me that this project will not only find a sustainable footing in the next year, but also make a positive difference in the lives of those involved.

While it may seem hopeless or pessimistic that this is the first major breakthrough in my work over the past year and that something so simple can spark such confidence in me, I do not discount the weight of today’s events. As anyone who has worked in development can understand, it’s the little victories that mean the most because only they can add up to the larger successes. As one Kenyan so aptly put it, “Development is not a mass movement.” I am hopeful that this training reflects a small shift for the developmental aims of the project and individuals involved.