Paralympic flame to shine light on kenyan disability discrimination

My boss out in Kenya, Fredrick Ouko, and our colleague Alfred Simiyo, have been selected to carry the paralympic torch on its relay through London this week. They will join Team GB wheelchair sprint star Anne Wafula Strike and other representatives of ANDY's UK partner organisation, AbleChildAfrica, in recognition of the success of one of our joint programmes getting young disabled people into work. Like Kenyan-born Anne, both Fredrick and Alfred lost the use of their legs to childhood polio. Here, Fred says what it means to him, and how it will help ANDY get even better results for young Kenyans with disabilities.

This week we will be carrying the Paralympic torch through the heart of London. It is a fantastic honour, and wonderful recognition of some of the work we are doing to help people like us – youth with disabilities in Kenya – to take control of our own lives and escape lives of poverty and dependence.

To be even, a small part of London 2012 is a dream. With 2 million tickets sold, and the UK’s national television stations all covering the event, the eyes of the country and much of the globe will be on London, celebrating the achievements and talents of people with disabilities.

It only goes to show how different a World we will be flying into. In Kenya most people would never even consider that we have any potential, aspirations or talents.
The employer interviewing us for jobs, the teachers in schools, the bank manager considering whether to give us a loan for business, the Government department planning healthcare, even the parents deciding whether to spend money sending their disabled child to school – very few see us as equal or deserving. And our place in society is destined to be the dark alleys where people think we belong.

Many see us a burden or something to be ashamed of, or if we’re lucky someone to pity. Many don’t see a person at all, but Viwete or Kiguru - Swahilli words for ‘thing’.
When families fled serious political violence after our elections in 2007, some even took the opportunity to leave their children with disabilities behind. Our former president this month denounced the appointment of a highly educated, experienced human rights defender and public servant to an important government commission because he ‘cannot see’ the issues – he is blind. Unfortunately, many agree with him

It is this prejudice that denies the millions of disabled Kenyans living in poverty the tools they need to escape. I was lucky; as I had what every child needs - parents who have always believed in me. They believed in my talents and pushed me to gain the education I needed, and then supported me when I decided to start my own community organisation at 20 years old. But lets not think it came easy, my Dad has told me of the many questions he was asked on his decision to support my education. He could have invested all his time and money on my siblings, as they thought I was not a good enough investment venture due to my disability. It is people like my parents who are responsible for getting me to where I am today. They chose to look at me as a child like any other who deserved everything needed to succeed in life.

But less than 20% of children with disabilities make secondary school, and just 2% make university. ANDY’s programmes are designed to give people with disabilities the opportunities which society often denies us; the chance to take part in sports, learn how to write a business plan and access credit, gain an internship, get HIV and health information in a format they can understand, or build the skills to seek election. Every one of us who takes on a role in our community; from running a business to running for election, becomes more than their disability and asks questions of the old attitudes. It is the only way we challenge the stereotypes that have existed in our society because this is when we are viewed as contributors to the overall efforts of national development

And that’s why it is so important that we try to take some of this Paralympic magic back to East Africa, to inspire and support even more youth with disabilities in Kenya and change society’s attitudes on a much bigger scale. We are telling our story in schools, offices, government departments, in newspapers and across social media – challenging myths and changing minds.

Cheer them on from London Zoo at 10am on Wednesday.

To find out more about AbleChildAfrica’s life-changing work in East Africa, got to http://ablechildafrica.org, and follow us on facebook and Twitter. To donate Text 'Able11' followed by £5, £10 or £20 to 70070

Banging heads against brick walls

A block of flats in Leeds has now been without running water for six days. Before anyone stops reading; this isn’t going to be a preachy post about how we don’t know we’re born because thousands of Kenyans survive without basic services every day.

The starkest difference between the two countries lies in the response it has prompted from  the flats' residents, and the fact that any of the institutions and companies involved are doing anything in return.  In the UK – especially among the middle classes who live in this block of flats – we use every trick in the book to shame and embarrass companies into correcting their mistakes, and demand that the organisations that represent us fight our corner. So this lack of water has been making headlines across all media, the local council has intervened to provide local showers and toilets, and health inspectors have even been to check it’s still safe to live there.

But before any inspired Kenyans pick themselves off the floor and decide to follow their lead and take the fight to Kenya Power and Lighting (nkt!), I have a cautionary tale from my time in Nairobi. When we arrived inwe moved into a relatively new block of flats which were apparently built without anyone checking they could be supplied with water. We tried not to think about what other short-cuts were taken. When the water pressure isn’t there, Nairobi Water Company (nktest!) just doesn’t refill the tanks which supply each of the households. On the sixth floor, this affected us more often than most. To make matters worse, after we'd introuced some simple rationing, the water supply was inexplicably cut off. After a couple of days queuing, a lot of emails and phone calls we found that this was down to the unpaid bills of previous tenants. After we’d paid the bill twice, they promised to put it back. But the pipe was never reconnected. Now I am a pushy, educated complainer. If I reach retirement, I will spend it sending angry, pompous versions of whatever has substituted the letter to whatever has substituted local councillors. I am a customer service nightmare; I expect everything I pay for to work. If it doesn’t, I complain. The more a company tries to ignore me, the deeper I dig my heels in. So armed with the email trail showing the broken promises and Nairobi Water admitting liability, I asked how I could claim the compensation for the supply of water I’d had to purchase privately. The reply was sent with the typed equivalent of a straight face:

We have no system for reimbursing you for this cost incurred. Thank you and we hope to be able to have the honour of serving you again in the future.

I searched in vain for the paragraph which began ‘If you are unhappy with this response you can choose to escalate the complaint or write to the ombudsman . . .’

Our neighbours just shrugged their shoulders and got on with it. These were the middle classes. Voters. People who actually paid for their water supply. It was very difficult to accept this level of nonchalance in a country where people carry round two or three different SIM cards and switch between them to get the absolute best deal. This was the beginning of my deflation. My first experience of powerlessness as a consumer (unrelated to supporting Leeds United, anyway).  After farcical trips to the post office, involving seven separate transactions and some unexplained taxes on parcels, and hours queuing in Electricity House querying our bills to be told ‘just pay it’, I was beaten. Usually, white skin and the power/wealth it insinuates in Kenya guarantees a different response. But I can happily report that most institutions’ bureaucracy, unaccountability and poor service sees no colour. I can easily understand why people don’t sacrifice hours of income to try and make sense of it all. Kenyans simply seem to be used to having no power when dealing with their institutions.

As Allys Williams, our flatmate in that often waterless flat in Nairobi ,wrote in the penultimate post of her (and fiancé eddie’s) very readable blog :

(Seeing Kenyans) Growing up without loads of “stuff” isn’t the worst thing; the sad part is when you see people who can’t reach beyond the present moment because they have been let down so badly by their world that they have no sense of agency. Believing that one day you will be able to take charge, even just a little, is worth a parking lot full of Ferraris.

That’s why in many countries VSO’s focus is on strenthening civil society; empowering people and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and skills to hold power to account, to exercise their rights and take control of their own future. I worked with the brilliant Action Network for the Disabled on its human rights and advocacy programme, which was giving Kenyans with disabilities the knowledge, skills and confidence to make the rights they have gained on paper in the new Kenyan constitution work as a positive force for their lives. It’s a great example of how well the VSO process can work; I supported the programme team to help create a clear and distinctive guide to the rights of persons with disabilities, to refine workshops to train and support human rights activists in Kenya’s three main cities, and create the partnerships and connections to extend the impact of the campaign. By marrying my expertise with their knowledge we expanded the impact of the programme, and created materials which are now being used within the disability mainstreaming work of the Kenyan government, and by an international charity’s huge Kenya-wide advocacy programme supporting over 10,000 people. I visited the places where the people ANDY had trained were helping people with disabilities in their communities into school, registering to vote, accessing buildings and challenging the negative perceptions Kenyan society still holds about disability.

It was stunning to see, in the space of those twelve months, the change that could be achieved by a fairly small organisation led by an inspirational man who has overcome enough barriers to know that he and his fellow Kenyans can get over a few more.

Go on, sponsor me to run the Leeds half marathon for ANDY.   Just give them £3 and they'll change someone's life. Good deal.

If I finish the Leeds half will you buy ANDY a pint?

The Leeds half marathon is a humble challenge compared to many of my friends' fundraising endeavours; walking through the sahara, running actual marathons across the globe and the like. But I think you'd probably buy me a pint or a coffee at the finish line if you were there, so why not give that money to Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY) - the charity I spent last year working for in Kenya - instead?

Take a look at this slide show if you are considering sponsoring me. It goes a bit quickly, so use the pause button. Or just sponsor me here 




If the slideshow is as frsutrating to use as it was to create (alternatives to picassa will be happily considered), here are the words::

I’m running the Leeds half marathon - mostly to help my old colleagues to carry on transforming the lives of Kenyans with disabilites, and a little bit to sort out my belly.
Life is tough enough for Kenyans, and its even tougher if you're disabled. Most of Kenya's 6m disabled people live in poverty and lack the basic tools anoyone needs to escape a life of dependency. Stigma and abuse is rife, few get an education, employers and banks reflect society's negative attitudes towards disability, and just getting around on uneven, mud paths  and slums can be a long and undignified daily challenge.
But as big as the challenge is, the price of your daily coffee or (hopefully not daily) beer can make a real difference to people with no access to school, healthcare or income.
£3 (or more if you like) could provide ANDY with the cash to help one of the millions of Kenyans with disabilities living in slums like Kibera.
It could pay for qualified but often overlooked disabled candidates to attend one of the life-changing internships which ANDY arranges or for ANDY to offer entrepreneurs a loan to start their own business.
It can help put on an advocacy training session to help disabled people in rural communities to understand the country's new constitution and hwo to make the msot of their rights, or it could help to maintain new equipment for ANDY's internet cafe, which churns all its profits back into its programmes.

ANDY is helping thousands of disabled Kenyans to shape their own lives. It is a unique organisation led by disabled Kenyans like Ouko, who climbed Mt Kilimanjaro in 2010 just to prove that losing the use of both legs as a child shouldn’t stop anyone.

So to sponsor me please make a donation directly to ANDY’s justgiving page, putting some reference to me or the leeds half marathon in the message: http://www.justgiving.com/actionnetworkforthedisabled

Thanks!

GW