Masai, safari, and myself

After spending packed 6 hs from Nakuru in a car which is basically for 5 people but accommodated about 20 people (five of them are kids and 10 in the boot),

 I finally came to the place of Masai tribe.

Do Masai tribe really jump??

Yes, they do.

He is my host, Emmanuel.

hard to tell how high he jumps in the pic 

but actually he jumps so high.

  

According to him, it is really important for Masai soldiers to jump high.

Their heads have to reach at a height of full expansion of their arms.

They are trained to jump higher as grow up 

and It is true that Masai women chose men who can jump higher as a husband.

He joked like, “since Polygyny is still allowed, if I can jump higher I can get many wives haha But now that people settle in one place, few men are polygynous.”

This is their traditional house

This is their bed, which is made of a cow’s bone.

It was softer than I expected.

9 people live in this village, and they showed me traditional Masai cloth and jumping dance.

Emmanuel took me to a safari as well.

First of all, Masai people have incredible eye sights…

Can you find any animals here?

Emmanuel : “hey, there are giraffes. Can you see?”

 (from so much far)

Finally I found them through a binocular…

Did you find? 

... 

Now you can find them.

Actually it’s sometimes kinda hard to find animals who hide in nature.

How about this?

here is a Lion.

  

Anyway, It was totally the “Lion King” world.

Dozens of elephants like ants on the ground

That scale is overwhelming

And for me who is nuts about “Timon & Bumba” in Lion King,

It was so much exciting to meet Bumba. Haha

an official name is warthog(?)

The song ”Hakuna Matata” kept on repeating in my head throughout my safari.

I def will rent the DVD and watch Lion King for the first time in 5 yrs haha

Emmanuel is a president of a private school, which is built three years ago,

And I volunteered at the school for one week.

Nevertheless what I did is just helping teachers in some classes, mainly in small kids class.

Masai tribe has historical background of being deprived of the right of education.

When British colonized Kenya, British feared to educate Masai people because Masai tribe is a soldier tribe.

Not only about education, but they tried to keep the area undeveloped.

Therefore even after Kenya's independence in 1963, Masai people had so much difficulty of developing enough educational infrastructure.

and still now, Masai people have a lot of educational problems.

The number of elementary school is terribly small for its population,

I was told there were 100 students in one class at some public schools, and that many students walk to school for more than 2 hours on unpaved rough road.

Then it is impossible to receive appropriate education.

Therefore, Emmanuel decided to build a school and give children in his community the opportunity.

He has a dream

Starting eco-tourism business in safari

And using the money he would earn, building other three schools in his community.

So I told him about International Fellowship Program of iLEAP so that he is able to meet people who are interested in donating his plan.

The time I spent in Masai area was wonderful.

Literally the life that starts with sunrise and ends with sunset.

surrounded by natures and animals

sunrise

Wake up by the song of chickens and fall asleep under the stars in heaven of the south hemisphere sky.

It was incredibly beautiful.

Indeed sometimes I felt some inconveniences during my stay, like taking a shower with only a half bucket of water, countless numbers of flies over meals and so on.

The life totally without electricity and waterworks was more tough in various sense than the life I have experienced in Vietnam or India.  

However, at that kinda time, I found myself saying like ”Heck!!” and smiling.

I was enjoying with that inconveniences somehow.



"What a heck is this life!"






"but ...not bad at all"






it was rather comfortableness.

Even though there was no way to see my face in the life without mirror, 


the face slightly reflected in the side mirror of Emmanuel’s car was so fresh as children after soccer practice under a broiling sun.

Come to think of it, I had not thrown myself foolhardily into something since I entered university and stopped playing soccer seriously.

some like it hot!!

Anyway I think it was great to stay with two community leaders both in Nakuru and Masai area.

and except them, I think there are so many young leaders who try to develop their community.


I'd like to study more cases of community development.

also, love to talk with development consultants...






BTW, I found many of my friends had left Seattle during my absence.

especially since coming to the US, every parting makes me have an acute feeling that saying goodbye is such sweet sorrow...

It's indeed hard to see them again since we gathered and met from different countries,


but I truly believe our paths will cross again someday somewhere in the world.

Dinner. The Left one is Ugari, staple for Kenyan

Micro Finance and SACCOs in Kenya

During my stay in Nakuru, I happily had opportunities to visit several micro loan organizations/cooperatives.

My studying micro finance personally, It was so much meaningful for me to visit the place where Microfinance is put into practice and the people who are take advantage of it.

However, after I came here I found financial cooperatives called “Saving And Credit Co-Operative (SACCO)” is much more prevailing in Kenya than Micro finance. 

SACCOs offer banking and loaning service. 

They provide members with small amount of loans at affordable rate to create the opportunities such as starting their own business, building family homes, and educating children.

Vision Africa SACCO 

SACCOs require members to save certain amount of money in SACCO account in order to borrow money. 

Unlike Micro Finance, SACCOs finance to individuals so people do not have to make a group as long as they have guarantees. 

Their interest rate is relatively low (depending on each SACCO though), and pay back late is almost 100%.

Some SACCOs like Genesis arts creation start their loan at as low as 3,000 and mostly people can get three to five times as much amount of loan as their savings. 

SACCOs have been in Kenya (Africa) for more than 50 years and there exists Kenya Union of Saving and Credit Co-Operative (KUSCCO). 

KUSSCO function as an umbrella of SACCOs in Kenya and

1) pay money instead of SACCOs when they face financial problems (insurer), 

2) share know-hows of SACCO management (train), and 

3) loan to SACCO so that they can manage their business well (loan).   

Some SACCOs implement a group loan like micro finance.

However, according to a manager of Vision Africa SACCO Nakuru brunch, a group loan sometimes causes ineffectiveness and wasting time such as group meetings that are not needed for an individual loan.

On the other hand, micro finance is still easy to use for some informal sectors. 

“Historically, SACCOs had been more for formal sectors although many informal sectors like tuk tuk use SACCOs today”,

a owner of a street close shop says. 

He has been running his shop for over 10 years and states many of his friends use microfinance to start their own business. 

“Microfinance is easy to use because by making a small group and taking a responsibility together, just small amount of savings allow us to be loaned. ”

However, either SACCOs or microfinance still has challenges.

The following is from my personal report I presented to TEARS.

 Support for start-up business for youth

As far as I research, people who do not have certain savings cannot use a loan. Both SACCO and microfinance in Kenya are for those who have been employed, have savings, and want to start their own business. Therefore, no financial service exists for people without savings such as new graduates from university. They have to be employed first even if they want to start their own business. However, I have to mention the situation in Kenya where even if job opportunities exist, they are not enough since the number of youth who need a job exceeds them. It is not easy to find a job in this recession.

*First of all, the importance of saving has to be prevailed especially among youth. The amount of savings needed for a loan like SACCO and microfinance is not so large. If people make a conscious effort for saving money during school days, options of their future would spread. Therefore, education on saving is quite important. Since TEARS have such a great means as Magnet Theater to reach community, I suggest an implement of saving is also encouraged through it.
 
 

* Since It is risky to loan to those who do not have savings, I suggest new employ system in social enterprise unit in TEARS. (The rest is omitted)

Long-term loan service

Most of the loan service in Kenya seems short-term service. Of course short-term loan service is necessary, but to expand business we need both short and long term strategies. If a business leans only on a short-term loan, the business is always distracted by short-term profit and long-term profit cannot be achieved. This means the business fails to expand its scale and has to keep on running on the line.  Therefore, I suggest a need of long-term loan service in Kenya that enables small business to expand their scale. As the matter of fact, expanding business possibly generates job opportunities.

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Anyway,  I learned a lot here in Nakuru.

Tomorrow Im leaving for Masai area!

The reason why Masai tribe jump seems to attract women....

I will JUMP!! haha

Kenya TEARS ~Reach a Community Through Theater~

It’s been a week since I came to Kenya.

yea, the place people say that "Hakuna Matata"

(I love the Hakuna Matata song in the movie "Lion King")

Actually people here often say "Hakuna" in Swahiri which means "it's all right"

What I felt first after a few minutes of walking was …India.

The streets in Nairobi remind me of India very much.

If I give Nairobi a nickname, perfectly it is “Peaceful India”

The breezing sandy wind

The cows on the streets

The small shops packed into compartments along the streets

The degree to which the town is chaotic

The people passing through messed-up traffics

everyone is fluent at English

and they eat food with hands (people her use a left hand though)

But it’s not so much surprising because Indian people have settled here long before people from mid-east started staying.

Actually, many Indian seems to run their business in Kenya even today.

Leaving Nairobi soon, and I came to a city called Nakuru to visit TERAS Group, a NGO dedicated to empowerment of youth and behavior changes in local community.

Raphael, who is a founder of TEARS, visited Seattle as an international fellow of iLEAP, and iLEAP introduced me to him.

Wandering from TERAS, his child is super cute:)

This time I would like to write about this fabulous organization.

The more I know about TEARS, the more I’m attracted.

TEARS stands for:

Theater for

Empowerment and

Acceleration of

Researched

Solutions

They adopt theater-based approach.

You might think, why THEARTER?

but this is quite effective and amazing way of reaching people in a community in Kenya.

By performing at the theater,

they build connections with a community

mobilize community members

provide them with opportunities of facing issues in a community through a skit   

support them to change their behaviors

they help community members to solve issues and find solutions, for example, by introducing health care service.

they call their activity Magnet Theater to distinguish from a conventional theater.

Nevertheless, they actually don't have a something like theater. 

They create their own “theater” then and there.

*Mobilization

After a survey of a community, theater members of TEARS visit the community and start moving, singing, and dancing so that they can attract attention of crowd arouse people’s thoughts like 

“What in the world are they doing?”  

Then, they mobilize people and create their own stage and own audience.

They showed me their mobilization at their office.

(Due to the capacity of data, I can upload only this short and a little dark movie.)

*Skit

After Mobilization, they start a skit. Their skit is a short play on issues the community face, such as HIV/AIDS or family planning (they do not have a script!).

Then a facilitator asks audience what is the problem and how the problem can be solved, so that audience realize, ”oh this is what is happening in our community”.

They categorize the audience into three groups: early adaptor, late adaptor and laggard depending on their reactions to a skit. 

Early adaptor is people who can tell what is the issue in early phase. 

Late adaptor is people who can tell until the end of the skit. 

Laggard is those who cannot tell what is the issue, like “Why is prostitution is a problem?” “Why shouldn’t we use drugs?” and so on. 

They are trying to educate them and encourage to change their behaviors.

a poster for AIDS/HIV prevention

encourage people to use condoms

The great thing about Magnet Theater is this is not one-way activity but interactive one. 

At the end of their performance, they ask issues that the audience want them to play on next time.

 Thus, they realize the performance for that community and by continuing to do this, they build a strong relationship with the community.

This is briefly how they reach, mobilize and change a community. Through Magnet Theater they have reached more than 15,000 youth.

Magnet theater members (not all of them)

TEARS mainly consist of there units: Job training unit, Community outreach unit, which includes Magnet Theater, and Social enterprise unit.

Job training unit is literally operating Job training for youth and composed of four departments: Fashion & Design, Fine Arts & Graphics, Music (this is rather for fun) and HP Life Digital (Information&Technology).

Mainly, because it is hard to be employed in Kenya, TEARS encourage and help them to be an entrepreneur and to run their own business. Students can learn the fundamentals of business like management and finance as well.

The nuance of the word “entrepreneur” is a little bit different from what we associate in Japan. 

In Kenya (of course not only in Kenya), we can see many street shops and traders on streets and they are all entrepreneurs.  Few people associate a vegetable store with entrepreneurship in Japan.

 Anyway, many graduates of TEARS job training are now entrepreneurs and running their own business like clothing shop, grocery shop, or as a painter.

teaching how to use a sewing machine

Community outreach unit is the unit to reach a community and operating Magnet Theater.

Social enterprise unit is operating to generate expense for outreach unit by using their resources. They produce and sell clothes, school uniforms and interior items. 

This enterprise is aimed not only to make money for outreach unit but also to create job opportunities and employ graduates of job training unit. Social enterprise unit also manage some events to provide student with opportunities for students such as music concerts.

TEARS goal is fabulous, which is:

To be a catalyst in the process of change by sharing skills, knowledge, expertise, experience & linkage

I really like this. 

In addition,

Vision:

A future where all Kenyan youth live a healthy empowered and independent life

Mission:

TEARS is dedicated to stimulate awareness and involvement of all key stakeholders in creating sustainable solutions for youth challenges at both the individual and the institutional level through life skills training, using participatory approaches and behavior change communication

They are working quite well, but still face many challenges.

I made my personal report after a week of research on TEARS (and micro loan system in Kenya) and suggested some solutions.  If interested in browsing it, I can send you haha

Anyway, I was really happy to work with such an amazing organization.

During my stay, fortunately some donors(they are from SEATTLE! what a coincidence.) of TEARS visited and I could be present at the meeting. good experience to see how donation process is going on and what donors focus on. 

Next time I will write about Micro Loan Service in Kenya… 

To be continued

It’s been almost 6 months since I came to the US.

And finally I start blogging in English.

Actually I decided to blog in English when I started my study in the US and did it one time in Apr….

titled “The Rock Garden of Ryoan-ji”

but since then I have kept procrastinating haha

but no wonder since I am lazy to keep on blogging even in Japanese.

I really appreciate it if any of you corrects my English 

so that I can be motivated to keep on writing haha  

(hope this blog)

To be continued

P.S I’m now in Kenya and I will write soon about what I’m working with here!