Communicating with the people - the Kenyan government masterclass

Never have I felt prouder and more appreciative of the efforts and commitment to good communications of my colleagues back in the UK than yesterday. In all the VSO training we’re told to expect meetings to be delayed, for people to care less about things, to be unprofessional but so far I have not encountered too much frustration.

But yesterday I was led a merry dance across Kibera by the Kenyan government, and all as it attempted to engage the community in meaningful dialogue about the soon-to-be-implemented devolved government structures.

The early signs had not been too encouraging. The task force for devolved government’s public meetings had been heavily advertised, but only in the media. Not many people living on less than a dollar a day buy the national papers on a daily basis, and despite rhetoric and reference to marginalised groups there was no special attempt to engage them through the plethora of organisations which support them.

But organisations like ANDY have been attempting to mobilise persons with disabilities, holding focus groups to gather opinions and publicising the meetings. The task force is visiting every county, which stands in its favour, as does the fact it held yesterday's meeting entirely in kiswahili. The language of government is usually English, which can often exclude or confuse the many Kenyans who did not benefit from a full education. English is not the language spoken in shops, pubs, matatus or the home.

But it seemed the Kenyan government had tried hard to limit the numbers who could access it. The press notice and advert had stated that the meeting was to take place at the district office, Kibera, a very well-established and central point to the community and a sensible choice. But when we arrived there was no sign of any meeting. When we asked in the district office they suggested we looked around the compound, so we walked around it for a while asking more and more people. Eventually, a colleague ascertained that it had been moved. Yet no-one had thought to put a sign up telling people about the change of plan, let alone where the new venue was.

When we arrived where we'd been sent by the officer in the compound, we were confronted by an empty, open field. Again, many more questions for passers-by, with no results. No-one had seen the massive public meeting we had somehow missed. One of our colleagues arrived separately at the DO's office and asked them where it was, only to be directed to a different venue. Rather frustratingly, the correct location was only five minutes walk from our office, yet we arrived over an hour after leaving. If this long walk didn’t stop persons with physical disabilities attending, then the steep, uneven path to the seating area would. It was totally inaccessible to wheelchairs.  This theme continued from there. There was no sign language interpreter and the speakers made constant references to material which had been handed out; but no versions were available in braille or large print.

The task force representatives, in a position equivalent to
behind the old score board at the Gelderd End, Elland Road

 Remarkably, a couple of hundred other people had also managed to locate this key consultation, and we joined them to be talked at for the next 90 minutes. In an odd move, the organisers inverted the functions of the sports ground; the speakers were placed at the back of a stand (which had sufficient seats to hold the gathered throng) and the audience were in housed in presumably hired marquees on the pitch.  The result was a gaping and symbolic distance between the government and the audience

The government wanted to be close to the people,
but not that close!

Just as I thought I'd wasted an entire morning the microphone was opened up to the public to offer their views on the 46 questions which the task force is posing to people all over the country. This being Kenya, the opening few contributions were dominated by a certain category of ‘Mzee’ (a respectful term meaning a male ‘elder’), who have an awful lot to say - often about themselves and not necessarily connected to the topic in hand - and an inexhaustible craving for the sound of their own voice. The first was heckled roundly as he attempted to return to the microphone to respond to the second contributor’s comments, while many were ushered away by the chair after many complaints from the crowd, which was quickly beginning to realise that we were probably going to have to carry on through lunch (the possibility of this happening has been enough to cause outbreaks of panic at some meetings I have attended in Kenya).

But the chair was very conscious to close the gender gap from the outset, and began to invite more and more women to the floor. Some of them proved that a woman can do anything a man can do, launching into their speeches like the would-be county seat candidates they probably are; one of them addressed the TV camera throughout rather than the task force or audience.



Lilian makes the government listen

And then our hero entered; my colleague Lilian took to the floor and used all the skills she has honed as a preacher to give a passionate and insightful (so she tells me, it was in kiSwahili) contribution on behalf of the often excluded persons with disabilities. Typically, a few heads dropped in disinterest but more nodded along than I expected, and the round of applause at the end was more than respectful.

Two of the key questions asked by the task force is 'how should the government communicate with you?' and 'how can we encourage you to participate?'.

The answer on behalf of persons with disabilities was simple:

• communicate with people through the channels we like to receive information, including our support organisations,
• don't change the venue of public meetings at the last minute necessitating a long walk to an inaccessible field
• if you're holding a public meeting it might be an idea to have a sign language interpreter on hand, and literature in braille, large print and other formats so that everyone can join in.

The new constitution prohibits discrimination and brings into law all manner of regulations which should guarantee that persons with disabilities are able to take a full part in mainstream meetings, not just have their own meeting in the one disability-friendly room in town.  

But only months after the constitution was voted in by referendum, some of these key victories are far from being realised. The fact that a government organisation can hold a meeting which actively discriminates against persons with disabilities only serves to show Kenya’s disability community that the constitution is a victory on paper alone, and we have entered the key phase of the balttle to make it a reality. ANDY is trying to deliver this message to as many of our beneficiaries and partners as possible, and to give them the advocacy and political skills to spearhead change and make the pwers that be deliver on their promises.

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Rights to a better future

I have not managed to blog much about my work yet, but last week I took part in an event which demonstrates exactly what the organisation I am working for does and why it needs to do it. I am working as a communications and partnerships adviser to Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working to support young people with disabilities across Kenya. We are based in Kibera, possibly Africa's most famous slum.

I will detail the specific challenges and some case studies about the lives of persons with disabilities in Kenya in later entries, but the best way to describe their position is to say that they are at the very back of a very long queue to access their basic human rights and services.

The vast majority of the world's people with disabilities live in poverty, and Kenya is no exception. There's a variety of reasons why they are unable to access the basic services and support which are the platform for the success of anyone in the world, and the only realistic avenues out of a life of poverty and dependency. Hearing some of the group discussions across our workshop demonstrates the challenges they face. For example, infrastructure, the inaccessibility of school buildings, the cost of transport, food and uniforms mean many children with disabilities are not able to attend even the ‘free’ primary school provision. Parents often prioritise other financial considerations, including the education of their siblings, ahead of the education of a child who has a disability. Discrimination by communities and employers and a general lack of political will to support them reflect the prevailing view within Kenyan society that people with disabilities are somehow incapable of achieving. Their needs are placed low on a very long priority list.

A medical assessment to prove you have a disability provides a barrier to accessing the government support. For a start, it costs ksh500 (equivalent to a month’s rent in some of Nairobi’s informal settlements and a lot more in rural areas) and they are often carried out by doctors who have no real understanding of the nature of disabilities. There’s no standardised assessment; a blind participant reported that one doctor’s way of checking whether his patient was really blind was to leave the room in the middle of the assessment and see if the patient carried on talking. If he hadn’t noticed, he was really blind!

ANDY's role is three-fold. First we fill the gaps; we work with young people with disabilities to develop programmes which give them the opportunities which society and a lack of government action currently denies them.  We also act as advocates at the government level; reporting real experiences, providing evidence of challenges and offering solutions to government, We're well positioned to do this, as we’re the only disability organisation sitting on the Prime Minister's round table on youth issues. Third, we change perceptions of persons with disabilities because well over half the team, from the executive director down, have disabilities themselves.

Last week’s workshop was part of our human rights and advocacy programme. Kenya has ratified the UN convention on human rights and passed what on paper was quite progressive legislation in 2003 granting person with disabilities rights and pledging many changes regarding accessibility, education and other key pillars to provide opportunities. However, major change has not materialised. Many persons with disabilities remain unaware of the tax breaks they and their employers are entitled to, the fact that 5% of contract employment is reserved for suitably qualified persons with disabilities and that 5% of representative seats in government should be filled by persons from the most disadvantaged groups in society. The arrival of the new Kenyan constitution, with its bill of rights which specifically states that person with disabilities are equal in Kenyan law and cannot be discriminated against, provides an amazing opportunity for our beneficiaries to use these rights to take control of their own lives and place their needs on the political agenda. Kenya needs this generation of persons with disabilities to provide highly visible and effective advocates and leaders to take this opportunity and make sure that accessibility is a factor in the planning and delivery of all services.

Our programme, funded by Open Society Foundations, aims to inform persons with disabilities of their rights, where they come from and how to use them. We are running three two-day workshops for 20 persons with disabilities each in Nairobi, Mombasa and Nyanza Province. Workshops are slowly getting a bad name in development, with many donors now stating that they won’t fund programmes which simply contain ‘workshops’ as activities. Too many of them focus on delivering information to a small group of people who are not subsequently challenged to do anything with their new knowledge. That’s why ANDY’s workshops focus on dialogue with beneficiaries, and achieving an end result. We are not just reaching the 20 participants, we are using the workshops to motivate and empower them to become those advocates and leaders. One of the key parts of the workshop is dedicated to participants developing and committing to their personal action plans detailing how they will engage in civil society and become pioneers within their communities, changing perceptions, providing leadership and supporting other young persons with disabilities to use their rights to build better futures. Click here to see pictures.

The bit for those interested in the VSO process

In terms of my role, I have tried to balance giving colleagues the support they need with keeping true to the VSO philosophy of not simply doing the job myself but working collaboratively to build the capacity of the organisation so that my skills stay here when I return to local authority life in Leeds.

I’ve worked with the programme manager, Joshua, to produce a handbook which simplifies the domestic and international human rights legislation for persons with disabilities. Achieving the correct balance between doing/collaborating is the toughest challenge, especially when the task in hand is something which is considered your specialist skill (after all, who wants to believe that their years of experience can be transferred to a ‘layman’ in a matter of weeks or months?). But the easiest trap for any volunteer to fall into is to simply do the work and not take anyone on the journey with you, especially when faced with a tight deadline on a project which in your former job was your bread and butter. There’s also the additional contributory factor that by the time the first big piece of work comes along, the volunteer is like a coiled spring eager to be useful in the office and prove their worth. Some volunteers (not me, thankfully) report three or four months of sitting around waiting to be involved, and when you do get the chance the pace and intensity of the work is not nearly what you are used to. So it can be really difficult to take that step back and remember you’re here to build an organisation’s capacity and not satisfy your old task-oriented, productivity-based self-evaluation. A VSO volunteer simply has to get used to the fact that the results of the placement may not be easily seen by the end of it, but in the years that follow. I could write and produce a dozen booklets and films in the next couple of months, but they’ll date quickly and I won’t be around to write the new ones.

I like to see the booklet as a starting point and learning experience. I supported colleagues through every stage of the process, from identifying the audience’s needs to testing the product with the same target audience. We now have a case study to share with the rest of the team to demonstrate a model we can build on for future publications. I only have limited experience of Kenyan workshops, so I simply offered suggestions about what I do know about; how to meet our desire to make the sessions as interactive as possible, gather effective feedback and to make sure the participants commit to some measurable actions at the end of it. There’s never been more pressure on NGOs to demonstrate impact; to show donors (especially my own government in the UK, as I am sure anyone from VSO will testify) that your programmes are changing lives and delivering long-term results. Programmes have to evolve, respond to feedback, use new and more cost-effective ways to reach beneficiaries and deliver sustainable change.

ANDY is perfectly positioned to do this and I know I am lucky among volunteers not to have met resistance to my ideas or input. What is important for me now is to keep paying attention to what really matters here (for example, not to get precious about the use of ‘US English’ spelling), to expect surprises, to have the ‘truth’ as I know it challenged, and to understand and accept all the differences about working life in Nairobi.

I also have to make sure that I am being as flexible and receptive to feedback as my colleagues.