Generation Kenya» GenerationKenya Profiles

Denis Nzioka – A Man Of The People

Generation Kenya — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:06:38 +0000

Denis Nzioka by Jerry Riley

As the debate about sexuality and sexual rights in Kenya heats up, one personality is taking the discussion a step further as he vies for the country’s top position in the 2012 General election. Denis Nzioka is the PR and Media Communications officer for Gay Kenya as well as an avid blogger, writer and social commentator, and now Kenya’s first openly gay presidential candidate.

He started his career studying for the priesthood in a large Nairobi seminary, but while exploring questions within himself about his sexuality through his writing, blogging under the pen name Caritas Diablo, he found that he had a vocation within a vocation. Today he is one of the most vocal agitators for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersexed (LGBTI) rights in Kenya. Only a few months after the UNHRC adopted a resolution on violence and discrimination against LGBTI people for the first time in its history, Denis has chosen to stand for those same rights in the most public office of a region that is not known for its tolerance of alternative sexuality. “Running for political office is a matter of pushing the boundaries; it’s a litmus test for Kenyan society. Can we overlook the fact that he doesn’t have a wife and family and look at his agenda … elect someone who does not fit the stereotype of what a politician should be? Can we move from petty politics to look at the person and what they bring to the table?”

Denis Nzioka by Jerry Riley

From his humble beginnings at Martin Luther Primary School in Hamza Estate and later Aquinas Boy’s Secondary School, Denis, once touted as a high achiever, has continued to rise and today is being referred to as the most powerful gay man in Kenya. When asked why now, Denis responds in simple terms; “The gay community feels it’s time its issues were put on the forefront, and they’re keen to have representation, being openly gay is already a significant political statement.” The new Constitution enables all Kenyans access healthcare and ensures that they are free from discrimination violence. This includes people from the gay community. Denis’ platform in the next general election while presented on a unique platter seeks to serve the benefit of all Kenyans. His main election points are poverty eradication, access to education, and human rights. The new constitution will need to filter down to the common people and, if implemented in full, Kenya will change.

Denis Nzioka by Jerry Riley

Denis has no trouble reconciling religious views with sexuality: “Sexuality is an inborn trait – it’s God given. Discriminating against someone for it is like chopping off the hand of a left handed person. It’s not something that can be helped. I am not a gay who’s Kenyan, I am a Kenyan who’s gay – I do believe God works in weird and mysterious ways and if he can make a donkey talk he can make a man gay. “Why would anyone choose a lifestyle that is so discriminated against? We have to be open to diversity. We have to be open to the possibility that people will not always fit the social constraints and it’s not for us to judge them or to discriminate against them. The reason why our society has so many issues with homosexuals is not because our sexual activity directly affects them but because women are still considered to be inferior. For a man to take on the role of a woman is so degrading so humiliating – because women are still seen as second rate. The gay rights movement will only be successful if the women’s movement is successful because then people won’t equate femininity with something negative.”

Denis Nzioka by Jerry Riley

Speaking to a diverse youth, Denis advises that it’s time for the youth to take control of their society and that the only way to do that is by being proactive. “It is important that the youth make inroads in all these channels and take advantage of the opportunities that are afforded to them. By making a political block the you can come together and realize that they are the next people who will lead this county and that there is nothing they cannot do”. Denis states that for Kenya to progress the country needs to move away from all stereotypes as the stereotype becomes the quality by which you’re judged as a leader. We must own up to our mistakes. As a politician you must modify your behavior to up your credibility. “Be a visionary, don’t look at short term goals. Meet the people and sell your idea to them. Ask the people what it is they need. Changing peoples’ mentality and attitude takes years. Be that breath of fresh air! We can sell a different type of leader, one that is committed to this country.”

Rachael Mutindi Maithya: Fashion Designer

Renee Mboya — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:37:53 +0000

Rachael Mutindi Maithya

In a country that is fast developing an obsession with the idea of celebrity, Rachael Mutindi Maithya has set her heart on making a product that epitomises homegrown talent. Using the kanga, long known as a traditional type of dress amongst women in East and Central Africa, she has built a fashion brand that has toured the globe as an authentic benchmark of the progress that Kenyan fashion has made in the last couple of years and how tradition is influencing contemporary art and culture.

In a most unlikely setting, two small rooms in a charming little village just outside Kitui town in rural Kenya, Rachael has built an international fashion brand that has stood it’s ground against the challenge of designs from across the world, on the trendiest of catwalks in Paris, Rome and as far as Las Vegas. With raw talent and a delicate perception of fashion she has strived to emphasize comfort, simplicity and subtle feminine elegance in her work, quickly establishing her as a key innovator in the ethnic fashion scene. From chic vintage inspired, kanga lined trench coats to formal cut skirts and everyday wear-to-the-office gear, Ki2 Fashions caters for all tastes and all situations. “Kanga was used as a work cloth and we’re not going to change it or try to make it haute couture. I want to make the Kanga like denim and have it worn everywhere in the world and until everyone has a piece of Kanga in their wardrobe I will not rest.”

Rachael Mutindi Maithya by Jerry Riley

Growing up in Ukambani, literally two minutes from where she now lives and has her workshop, Rachael says was awe inspiring for a budding creative. “Kanga only came into use recently here, but growing up I was surrounded by stone carvers, basket weavers … all sorts of artists working with such incredible skill! I didn’t sit down and think ‘I want to be a fashion designer’. Making clothes was always going to be a big part of my life.” After high school at St. Mary’s Girls School, Igogi and a brief stint studying information technology at the former SPS, she joined Kenyatta University for a degree in Textile Science & Design. Despite being an unconventional student, often incorporating unorthodox elements in her projects, she graduated with an upper class second. At the time, many major textile factories in Kenya were shutting down and the prospects for someone with a qualification in textile design seemed slim. After trying her luck working at an EPZ and later in resettlement work, Rachael resigned herself to the idyllic life of a homemaker.

Renee Mboya (right), Project Manager at Generation Kenya, admires colourful Kanga items designed by Rachael Mutindi Maithya (left), Head Designer for Ki2 Fashions.

This path set her up in her current domain as Head Designer for Ki2 Fashions. On a trip to Zanzibar with her sister, she bought some kanga fabric, made some clothes for herself and her daughter and was surprised at the response. “Everybody loved them. On the next trip we made, to visit family in Italy, I threw together some pieces and carried a couple of kanga extra and the morning after my mother in law wore one of my skirts to the office, there was a flock of girls on our doorstep, ready to buy what I saw as regular everyday stuff.”

Rachael’s aim with Ki2 Fashion is to bring the kanga back to the forefront of African fashion and design. Starting with her daughter, she has begun a critical process to reconceptualise the use of kanga in daily life and bring it into the 21st Century. “Traditions are getting lost and our generation needs to step up and preserve what’s important. As youth we need to ask ourselves, ‘what are you doing for your country and what are you doing to take your culture to the next generation?’”

Hard at work at Ki2 Fashions

Rachael’s path has not been without challenges however. Finding the degree of skill among tailors in the region to make quality handmade garments at a high enough production rate has been a particularly trying. Costs must translate to affordable prices for the customer. Furthermore, finding a sustainable market here remains an almost impossible task. Rachael is not discouraged all the same and she takes every challenge in her stride. For the youth she has these simple words of advice; “Dreaming is great because it’s where everything starts – you learn through trial and error so don’t be afraid to make mistakes.”

Rogers Otieno – The Main Act

Renee Mboya — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:25:34 +0000

Rogers Otieno by Jerry Riley

The film credits list him as Angry Man. An apt description, because as the scene erupts into a frenzy of activity through narrow slum corridors he is the man you see, his apparent wrath blazing in his eyes, clear above the irate mob. The film is the award winning ‘Soul Boy‘; the actor Rogers Otieno.

They say no artist should be confused too closely with his creations, but Rogers Otieno is as intense in person as he is on screen or on stage. His ineffable smile and brimming charisma makes any interaction with him memorable. From his modest beginnings in rural Kenya, Rogers, known to his friends as ‘Rojeh’, has risen to become one of the brightest young faces of Kenya’s emerging performance arts scene. Gracing stage and screen with equal enthusiasm he is fast on his way to becoming a household name.

Rogers Otieno by Jerry Riley

Rogers Otieno’s greatest desire however, has always been to express different backgrounds and to explore the conflict between them, be it race or ethnicity; class or creed. An avid performer as far back as primary school, his first stage was the top of his school room desk where he would mimic his teachers in fits of helpless exaggeration which landed him a permanent place on the noise-makers list. After school he joined a church performance group and had his first real taste of theatre which pushed him to explore further possibilities at the Kenya National Theatre. There he learnt the ropes of professional theatre and his pathological curiosity found a focus. “When I was a kid I really wanted to be someone else. It was just amazing to watch people. I was shocked by society and how it behaves and how people interact. That has always been my influence and my inspiration; in everything I do.”

Moving Home Poster

Today he is the Associate Director of The Theatre Company, a performing arts group registered in Kenya in the year 2000 with the aim of providing and creating space for dramatic expression. The Theatre Company provides workshops and courses for children and performers in various drama techniques as well as designing workshops for individuals and groups. Rogers first play “My Moving Home” is scheduled to go on tour of the region this year, after a successful circuit of Kenya in the year 2010. It tells the poignant story of a young man’s success, notwithstanding life’s many challenges. Inspired by his own upbringing, it tells of the life of Rojeh who, as a boy growing up in Nairobi’s Dandora Estate, has to make a speedy transition from his former, much easier, life in rural Kenya; and the critical choice between protecting his best friend and his first love, a girl at his high school. The play is performed in Kiswahili, Sheng and English using dramatic music, narration and largely improvised dialogue to imitate to interactive style of street theatre which Rogers feels is closest to the East African traditional method. “It includes drama, dialogue and poetry allowing for interaction with the audience. By the time they know it, they are on stage!”

Rogers Otieno by Jerry Riley

Despite the abundance of comedy that is “My Moving Home”, it is obvious that Rogers journey has not always been easy, nor his successes so evident. From uncertain prospects at the end of his secondary school education, he has turned what many would have deemed misfortune into his greatest asset. “Challenges are there in whatever career you choose. I try to look at the other side of things. I’ve always enjoyed and welcomed the challenges because they push me to think of solutions. In most of my failures I have found a success – an opportunity to come up with something better.” The quality of Rogers work is evident as he finds that there is great demand for his skill on screen. He starred as Drogba, the street-smart matatu driver in the pilot run of M-Net’s ‘The Agency’, which was the first Kenyan TV series to air on M-Net TV. He also plays a wife-beating drunk, who gets born again on season one of KBC’s ‘Block D’ and Sanjiv the campus drug lord in the upcoming series, ‘Higher Learning’.

Rogers encourages the youth to see art in every experience and to find a way to use their individual talents to make a difference in their communities and use them to perpetuate the fact that we must recognise our differences as assets. “What is that one talent that you can save life with? Mine is creating! Art has to speak to the intellect, it has to speak to the heart. It’s the mirror of society and without a mirror who are we? It allows a society to be critical of itself. Art has a purpose – it’s not only for fun. In fact fun is what comes out of the art.”

Clip from My Moving Home

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou – Friend to Mother Earth

Generation Kenya — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:05:11 +0000

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou by Jerry Riley

‘Passion’ would not be an unlikely suggestion as an additional title for Su Kahumbu-Stephanou. She lives it on the five-acre farm that is her home in Karen, half an hour’s drive from Nairobi’s CBD. Passion is what drives Su in her work as a social entrepreneur and in her life as an organic farmer. It’s illustrated in her body language, which is probably the reason why even the animals on her farm, get excited around her. Su has been an enthusiastic champion of organic agriculture for the last 14 years, as well as a producer and retailer of organically grown products through her company, Green Dreams Ltd.

Su’s unique attribute is her generosity. Instead of using her innovations to promote her own business, she shares them with other farmers. Why? Her response is deep, and ropes in her brother Dominic, who makes bio digesters for small scale farmers, and her sister Paula, a wildlife conservationist. “I think it has to do with our mother,” says Su. “She raised us to be people who are so prepared to give and happy to do so. That’s what drives us … I suppose it’s much more valuable when you are getting feedback from people you are interacting with, who are unable to do it themselves, actually appreciating and saying that it’s great how you can unlock doors and bottlenecks to make things happen. It still beats me how some people figure it should always be about money.” That is what Su believes the youth should emulate. “It helps if you have money because it is a lot more difficult if you don’t. But if you are passionate about what you are doing; if you are dedicated to what you are doing, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have money because you can still succeed by networking with people who have the same passion.”

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou by Jerry Riley

Many of Su’s ideas, implemented exclusively by networking aggressively with like minded people, including former Safaricom CEO, Michael Joseph, are anchored on using mobile phone technology to broadcast information to small-scale farmers in Kenya. Among her innovations is the highly commended mobile phone application iCow, which is still under development. The application helps livestock farmers track the estrous cycles of their cowsand was awarded first prize in the inaugural Apps4Africa Competition 2010. It reminds farmers of important periods in their animals’ gestation by triggering a voice prompt detailing required steps, based on given insemination dates. Su came up with the idea after noting that farmers often forgot to stop milking pregnant cows as is appropriate to safeguard the health of the animals. iCow was developed as a dairy farmer’s companion. Su explains: “I have been talking to farmers and veterinary officers and other stakeholders in the industry. They want a lot more features. Large scale farmers want us to put in more about feed management and AI services for cows. Small scale farmers want more information on calves and how to deal with diseases affecting them. The veterinary department wants us to put in vaccination programmes and the ministry wants to send alerts to farmers.” Apps4Africa seeks to “leverage the power of digital technology to make a better world.” In particular, it promotes innovations that address community challenges. Her work as a social entrepreneur has earned Su a place as a TED Fellow. Recently, she was one of the 12 TED fellows worldwide, invited to attend a conference in New Orleans, USA.

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou by Jerry Riley

Su’s journey into organics however, started coincidentally in 1997. After a trip to South Africa she came back to Kenya with an idea to invest in hydroponics – technology which enables the growing of crops without soil and achieves high yields in small spaces. She thought the idea would be beneficial for high density areas and decided to experiment. It failed “abysmally” because Su had no training in agriculture. Su thought she’d be better off planting the seedlings she had left over using drip irrigation. The lettuce they planted did so well that she had to find a market. “My passion then had more to do with how to get people to buy things. So we introduced a little brand and a little label, and took them to the market and people started buying these things very quickly.” Soon there was need to grow more crops, and one day, as she sprayed a pesticide called DimethoateTM over tomatoes her mother, standing downwind, became “very violently ill”. That opened her eyes to the dangers of chemicals in food. “I made a 180 degree turn in my mind as to what we had to do then. I started learning how to do the opposite, which was organic production.”

Su has since been involved in work aimed at promoting organic farming. This includes the distribution of information to farmers nationally through print and radio, as well as on the Internet; in a programme funded by the Biovision Foundation (www.infonet-biovision.org) who have also have recently launched an initiative called the Farmer Communication Program. The ultimate goal is to so the same with mobile phone technology. Su has ridden on passion to sustain her energy in promoting organic agriculture. It has driven her to use every available opportunity to understand organic farming. Her advice to young people is pegged on the value of first discovering one’s interest, and thereafter going out to understand it. “Seek information and learn.”

Kamau Gachigi – The Engineer

Renee Mboya — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:22:35 +0000

Dr. Kamau Gachigi by Jerry Riley

Dr. Kamau Gachigi’s desk is littered with little objects that light up, bounce away or chirp loudly when you touch them, but rather than a scene from Animal Planet this is the Nairobi FabLab base on the ground floor of the University of Nairobi’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Gachigi is the Chairman and Coordinator of the University of Nairobi’s Science and Technology Park. Since 1999 he has been a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the University of Nairobi, where he teaches Materials Science, an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering, to both mechanical and electrical engineering students.

FabLab Nairobi by Jerry Riley

Like many good things, Dr. Gachigi’s interest in matter and all things scientific started in childhood. Helping his father cast moulds of conventional hot combs he found the white hot liquid coming out of the furnace excited him and thus his interest metals was ignited.

They then went on to extract silver from x-ray films. By the time he graduated the sixth form he was sure he wanted to do Chemical Engineering but looking through university catalogues he stumbled across Material Science which seemed, and it evidently is, a perfect fit. In 1996 Dr. Gachigi was awarded a Ph.D. in Solid State Science from Penn State. His doctoral thesis was on antiferroelectric ceramics for electrical energy storage and delivery for capacitor applications, which were subsequently used in the manufacture of a cardiac defibrillator for which he obtained a US patent. His current research interests include: the production of activated carbon from agricultural wastes for use in affordable portable-water filtration systems; the processing of titanium bearing heavy mineral sands; the recycling of waste plastics (in collaboration with the University of Kassel, Germany); and ferroelectric and antiferroelectric materials (in collaboration with Penn State researchers).

FabLab Nairobi by Jerry Riley

FabLabs are a global network of local labs. The Nairobi FabLab serves as a rapid prototyping centre within the Science and Technology Park. A FabLab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make ‘almost anything’. After ‘almost anything’ has been made, the FabLab provides the tools and skills to ‘make the machines that make almost anything’. Dr. Gachigi hopes that the Nairobi FabLab will serve as “an infrastructure of high-tech business incubators can provide localized manufacturing capacity. . . (with) the potential to release technology-based economic growth for any developing nation or region.” He is optimistic that the FabLab will promote the creation of an atmosphere and culture of innovation and encourage venture incubation in the region. From his base at the University of Nairobi he has founded a student group which is designed to encourage entrepreneurship based on engineering and scientific knowledge among scholars of science and other innovators alike, and to serve as an outreach to high schools and the community, which he intends to develop into a business incubator. Of this he says “new vistas for the future require that taught curricula at schools and universities cease to remain in silos and become far more integrated, in order that future generations are equipped for the type of world we all desire. After all, everything about pedagogy points at people having fun in order to learn.”

Dr. Kamau Gachigi by Daudi Were

Dr. Gachigi’s path however, notwithstanding his broad portfolio of achievements, was not always smooth. His first experience of Kenya upon returning from over ten years living and studying abroad is something he describes as a ‘crash landing’. After waiting a year and a half for a teaching position at JKUAT, which he had been promised, he was then refused the job due to the fact that Materials Science is not considered a distinct discipline among institutions in the region. This let down contributed to the unfortunate breakup of his marriage. The FabLab itself, though blossoming now, was birthed in a process eight years long. All the same Dr. Gachigi considers success to be spiritual and spiritual fulfilment to be the primary indicator of individual accomplishment despite the fact that for a lot of people, money is the apex of success. His commitment to spirituality is evident in his work, especially through his particular interest in the linkages between science and spirituality which he says are evident in our daily experience of matter and its properties. He says, “Matters of spirituality will need to be addressed more boldly by academia, so as to meet the deep yearning evident especially amongst today’s youth everywhere. Materialism does not lead to fulfilment.”

Dr. Kamau Gachigi by Daudi Were

An individual of growing esteem, in 2002 Dr. Gachigi was selected to represent Civil Society as technical expert on national investigative team on titanium mining in South Africa, led by Assistant Minister for Environment and Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai. In the same year he was appointed to Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee a position which he maintains. He is also the patron of the Students Association of Mechanical Engineers (SAME). When asked what he considered to the key markers of a successful life he said,‘It’s like the frogs in the little pond who cannot believe there is a world beyond them . . . what we are created to be, what we are in terms of our total anatomy, and I don’t mean our physical anatomy alone, but especially our spiritual anatomy depending on how we might define that is so phenomenally higher than what we see. That to me is the pinnacle of success.’

Winnie Guchu’s Formula: Focus, Discipline and Determination Equals Success

Tembezi Awuoth — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 06:07:56 +0000

Winnie Guchu by Jerry Riley

Winnie Guchu radiates the kind of inspiration that makes one feel energised enough to wrestle all manner of challenges to the ground. Without bias or exaggeration, she is an influential person with big ideas. This attribute arises from two things: her personal experiences, which she shares with a tangible sense of honesty, and her ability to sprinkle humour into discussions with ease.

She commands attention.

She shares the life experiences that ultimately led her to the Sixth Floor office at Anniversary Towers in Nairobi to take up a job as a commissioner with the Interim Independent Electoral Commission, the IIEC. The commission was formed in 2008 to reform Kenya’s electoral process and institutionalise free and fair elections following the controversial 2007 general polls that momentarily disrupted the stability of the state. Winnie Guchu’s key responsibility in the commission is to train and prepare teams for elections. She also oversees human resource management at the commission’s secretariat.

Chuckling and laughing heartily at several points, she describes a long journey marked by a number of pitfalls and hurdles. It turns out she has succeeded out of sheer determination and setting her mind to disregard the word impossible. How many girls drop out of school because of a pregnancy and resign to economic hopelessness? Winnie didn’t. She returned to her classes after having been away for two years. Already a young mother, she then proceeded to university. In 1990, she graduated from Kenyatta University with a degree in Education.

Winnie Guchu by Jerry Riley

What followed was a series of false starts. She declined a teaching position in Taita Taveta, feeling it was too rural for her ambitions given that she had a baby to consider. She then moved into an administration position for an engineering firm, then onto freelance assignments. She often took on new challenges in areas unfamiliar to her, but her determination to survive made her bold enough to take on new responsibilities. From sheer confidence and readiness to read and learn, she was able to deliver to expectation. These experiences gave her valuable insights into a variety of important public issues such as civic education, gender inequalities, good governance, and best democratic practices. Her natural ability to teach led her to training others, which she found interesting and rewarding.

That journey took her through the Institute for Education in Democracy (IED) as a consultant and FIDA on contractual arrangements that totalled of three years. These two experiences in particular sharpened her skills and knowledge on democracy and women’s participation in political leadership. Her network expanded, and she moved into regional assignments thereafter, working to promote women and youth participation in leadership.
She recalls: “Prior to 2002 elections, I had been engaged in preparing women for political participation. The GGP (Gender and Governance Programme) project had been started in 2000, dealing primarily with promoting women in political participation for parliamentary positions. I worked with about 26 women continuously, training their teams and preparing them for elections. Six of them were successful after the whole process, and some made it to the cabinet”.

During this time she also became involved in electoral processes in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and other countries in the Eastern Africa region. “I did mixed projects,” she says. Part of that involved leadership training for young people from the countries in the region. They would come to Nairobi, get trained by people like Winnie Guchu, and go back to implement leadership projects.

Winnie Guchu by Jerry Riley

Then came the 2007 disputed elections, and the chaos that erupted jolted her mind into thinking differently.
She remembers, “It became very dangerous where I was living, so I had to move out. I was an IDP for about three months. That’s the time I asked myself, could I make any difference? I thought it was time to stop training people on governance and democracy and go do it.”

When jobs were later advertised for various commissions that were to be set up, among them the IIEC to institutionalise good election management, she figured she would try her luck there. She had broad experience in electoral matters, and she thought she had something to contribute.

“I must say it’s a privilege to sit somewhere and make decisions that you can see are making a change in the country. It’s very fulfilling. I am in charge of training and HR. I do a lot of preparing teams for elections, and developing them.”

Focus, discipline and determination, she says, are the main attributes that have got her to the level she is now. The advice she has for young women and men who are aspiring to gain respectable achievement in society does not deviate from those principles:

“Keep your eye on the ball. Don’t lose focus. The way to go is to take small steps, you know, like a baby. When babies are learning to walk, they take a step at a time and you see the determination. When they fall, they get up. That’s the way life is. So, making mistakes is not the problem. Mistakes are very good. It is how long you take to stand up and dust off the dirt. Anybody can fall, but don’t stay down. Get up and continue.”

Gilda Odera – Truly a Kenyan Star

Generation Kenya — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:28:07 +0000

School Children at Kiwi Arts and Crafts Competition awards ceremony. PHOTO: JERRY RILEY

The noise level is rising in Kasarani Gymnasium at the Moi International Sports Center. Almost 3000 school children and their teachers are filling the stadium for the Kiwi Arts and Crafts Competition awards ceremony, the competition attracting entries from all over Kenya. The arts and crafts project is run by Gilda Odera, a GenerationKenya nominee. Gilda is pleased that in 2009, the competitions’ 14th year, over 70,000 entries have been received. It is a fantastic opportunity for children to express their creativity and skills, explore careers in art in the future as well as being an incentive for them from a young age to believe that hard work and effort pay off. Initially started as just an art competition, it now includes crafts as well, enabling all children in Kenya to take part and be creative using different types of media and material even if they can’t afford conventional art supplies. The attendance today is a tribute to her success.

Gilda Odera. PHOTO: Jerry Riley

Gilda Odera was born and raised in Nairobi. She started her education at the Kilimani Primary School followed by State House Secondary School and then the University of Nairobi. She started her career by working with Marketing and Support Services Limited for a number of years where she was involved in branding and brand management. At this point she came up with the idea for the Kiwi Art Competition for primary school children throughout Kenya. She currently works in the I.T sector, having made the move from marketing. She claims “It wasn’t easy penetrating the market; you just need to have an open mind, be willing learn and work extremely hard.” What helped her was her vision, people skills and an amazing team of technical staff who work well together. “Nothing is impossible; just believe you can do it,” is one of Gilda’s mottos.

Gilda Odera presents an award at the Kiwi Arts and Crafts Competition. PHOTO: Jerry Riley

Gilda Odera wants the youth to believe that they are capable of achieving their goals no matter how big or small. She especially encourages young people to become entrepreneurs and help solve the youth unemployment problem. “Kenyan youth need to start thinking about change and creating a better future for themselves. Realize that they are capable and that there are limitless possibilities for them. They can make a difference.” The strongest positive influences she had growing up were her parents, instilling strong work ethics as well as religious values in Gilda and her siblings from a very young age, pushing them to work hard and believe that they could achieve anything. “Start something, follow it through and believe in it…” she adds. In addition to her role as C.E.O. of her own IT firm and director of the art competition, she raises a family and mentors University of Nairobi students who seek her out for advice and support.

Winners on display at the National Museum. PHOTO: Jerry Riley.

Gilda’s final advice: “Follow your passion. Do what you love, see it through, and be true to your heart.” Gilda Odera is truly a GenerationKenya star.

Story by Nilofer Elias and Jerry Riley

AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital – Replenishing Life & Hope to All

Generation Kenya — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:31:46 +0000

Driving down the escarpment on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway past Limuru, the road opened up to the great escarpment view point. Curio shops eager for tourist stopovers are set up by the cliff displaying bright coloured kikoys all set against the substantial drop of the valley with Mt Longonot at the horizon. Specks of iron sheet roofs shimmer in the dull noon sun and there are several squares and rectangles of browns and greens of people’s shambas spread across the bottom of the valley. In all the years plying to and fro this highway this scene still takes one’s breath away.

We were headed to Kijabe town an hour’s drive from Nairobi, our destination was a small mission station set up by the African Inland Church Missionaries in the late 1800′s. The town’s name is derived from the Maa language meaning “the windy place” proof of this evident in every person we passed swathed in some kind of warm woolly apparel.

AIC Kijabe Hospital is nestled at the edge of the Great Rift Valley escarpment in Lari division of Kiambu district. It is a frontier of sorts of Central and Rift Valley province. Turning off the highway the thin windy road spiraled down through thick forest into the Kijabe Mission Station about 2km from the town.

For the longest time Kijabe Hospital has been a landmark for those seeking affordable treatment from far and wide. It started when a group of missionaries began a medical unit in 1915. It has grown since then and now has inpatient, outpatient, maternity and paediatric sections. The total bed capacity is 249. The hospital sees an average of 300 people daily with a large percentage of the people coming from as far as North Eastern, Somali and Ethiopia.

The mission hospital has hit the headlines over the decades mostly under rather tragic circumstances; some well-known ones date as far back as the pre-colonial days. In March 1953, the few survivors of The Lari Massacre sought treatment at the hospital after the brutal attack by the Mau Mau who accused them and their Chief Luka of being British collaborators. Black and white haunting images of those who survived, eyes full of fear and with bandaged broken and slashed bodies at the hospital beds sent shockwaves the world over of the growing rebellion of the Mau Mau and their plight for freedom. The 80′s and 90′s were notorious times for traffic accidents along Kenyan roads and this brought them thousands of casualties. In more recent times, they received the injured from the Nairobi bomb blast tragedy in 1998 and their care and compassion brought them recognition from the then Head of State.

During the post electoral crisis earlier this year, Kijabe Hospital sent medical teams to various camps including Naivasha, Kirathimo and Nakuru. While in attendance they were able to attend to not less than 800 people in each camp. About 60 of them each month since then still need clinic checks and the hospital accommodates their medical needs. This kind of help has strained the hospital financially having incurred costs of about Kshs. 1.6M. The surgery and treatment of the 4 children from the Kiambaa church burn is over Kshs.900,000 and growing.

“At Kijabe, we do not just mend or fix ailments; we also preach and provide hope and compassion to the patients. We do not turn anyone away; our priority is not money but their welfare physical and spiritual. Our compassion must be the reason we have patients coming from far and wide.” said Mr. Julius Marete the hospital’s Executive Director.

Walking past the full waiting room the sick sat calmly each bearing their pain and waiting for their turn to be attended.

Bethany Kids, the pediatrics ward of the hospital deals with the more common pathological diseases but are also equipped to deal with complicated procedures or conditions.

Some of the special conditions they deal with include:

spina bifida – a birth defect where an incomplete closure of the nureul tube results in an incompletely formed spinal cord.
hydrocephalus – where the child has an accumulation of fluid in the brain causing an enlargement of the head.
cleft lip
burns
club feet
hypospadias – a birth defect of the urethra in male children involving an abnormally placed urinary tract opening
ambiguous genetalia – a condition where one has more than one sex organ

Specialists from all over the world give their time to perform these operations mostly at no cost to give these children a new lease of life. They limit the pain and rehabilitate children.

While at the children’s ward we stopped by to see some special patients Mercy 14, Mary 16, Jedidah 4 and Anthony 11. The children were victims of the recent post electoral violence barely surviving a church fire in Kiambaa a small village in Eldoret at the height of the violence. They had fled from their homes after they were attacked and property gutted following the announcement of the presidential poll results.

Strangers to each other before the fire, a friendship forged amid the twist of tragic fate. A Good Samaritan risked driving them through the then dangerous Eldoret- Nairobi highway after spending sometime without much medical attention at an Eldoret hospital.

“These children are very special to us and are such a success story. We are so proud of them. When they first came their burns were festered due to lack of proper medical attention. Even after skin grafting and several reconstructive surgeries they hardly suffered any infection. They were so positive and brave and now you see them around the hospital smiling and looking much better. Some of these things have nothing to do with us but more to do with the hand of God.” says Joshua Omolo an anesthetist at the hospital.

We found some young volunteers going through school-work with the children from books donated by well wishers.

“When nobody visits them, sometimes we walk into their room to find them all quiet thinking most likely of their dark future. The constant question on their lips is where to go from here.” said Sister Brenda Gathenya the Nurse-in-Charge, Pediatrics.

Mercy’s mother, Margaret Nyambura was a nursery school teacher before and had to leave work to raise her children; her husband was a farmer and the breadwinner. The children are terrified at the thought of returning to where they once knew as home and their harvest and home was all set ablaze.

Mary’s and Jedidah’s (the little one was in the local Kijabe mission nursery school at the time we visited as she has recovered) mother, Serah Wanjiku Kariuki was a farmer before the post electoral violence. Her children are too traumatized to go back and she is looking for a way to resettle elsewhere with a duka perhaps so as to support the young ones.

Anthony’s mother, Peninah Wangui Mbuthia is a skilled tailor and is wondering how to start her life again. They lost everything in the attacks. She is mostly sad because she lost her cherahani which earned them their daily bread”.

In the meantime, they are all thankful for at the very least they escaped with their lives. Just barely.

The hospital also has HIV clinic that cares for just under 5,000 patients. In the height of the violence the operations were disrupted but they were able to reach a large number of their patients who required life-saving ART medication by using their community health workers, volunteers and staff members.

“Among our patients we can take you to the doorsteps of 98% of them. We have regular follow up programs from the hospital and have 27 sites throughout the country for people to receive care and viral management.” said Fredrik Kimemia, Senior Programme Officer in the HIV/AIDS clinic programme.

For many, Kijabe hospital is an oasis of compassion and as we walk away, our hearts are warmed by the hope we see in the eyes of the people walking up and down the corridors of the hospital.

As so says Mahatma Gandhi, “be the change you want to see in the world.” Indeed AIC Kijabe hospital is living up to this by standing out as a Kenyan Shujaa at hand when needed most to replenish drained life and hope of our nation, generation after generation.

Mohinder S. Dhillon – Kenyan photographer

Yvonne Owuor — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:44:59 +0000

Mohinder Dhillon (Founder and CEO of Africapix Media Ltd.) has been in photography since 1953 under the business name of Halle Studios and in 1961 formed Africapix, shooting both stills and TV pictures. Mohinder’s still pictures have been circulated round the world to newspapers and magazines especially prestigious European magazines like Quick, Stern, Paris Match etc.

Mohinder loves nature and in particular shooting wildlife with very wide panoramic shots and would disappear into the bush with his family for weeks. These pictures have been used in calendars, picture books and magazines. As a TV news cameraman Mohinder has roamed round the world always carrying his Leica stills camera round his neck to capture some rare shots. He was the first photo and TV journalist to capture the plight of Iranian Kurds behind Khomeini’s lines and his extraordinary first pictures shocked the world generating a lot for sympathy of Kurdish sufferance.

(editor’s note: For this photo essay I have chosen pictures of Mohinder in the field as an appreciation of the hard work involved in collecting stories, especially prior to the digital age.)

Additional reporting by Nick Ysenberg

Anselm Croze: Glassmaker and Dream Merchant

Wambui Mwangi — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:12:29 +0000

Anselm Croze presides over an enchanted kingdom: the hot glass division of Kitengela Glassworks. At Kitengela, Anselm combines his passion for the environment with his passion for glass art; he places his art in his environment with the same creative joy with which he weaves the environment into his art. Many Kenyan homes have some of Kitengela’s luminous hand-crafted glasses, vases, platters, and bowls in shades ranging from deepest blue and emerald green to delicate pastels the colour of illuminated water from the sea. All are created from 100% recycled, reclaimed, and salvaged materials. A lucky few are able to make the trek out to the busy hive of activity that is the source of the art.

Today Anselm holds up a rod of glass and moves it from side to side, looking at the play of refraction and radiance. “Look,” he says. “It’s light standing still. Frozen fire.” He can not see that his blue eyes too glow with pulsing luminosity, that they are alive with the glittering dreaming light common to prophets, visionaries and madmen. His fascination with making glass stems from its alchemical production: the magical fusion of science, art, engineering and form, of heat and light, water and fantasy. “Bush Glass,” he calls it.

Anselm speaks with fierce pride of the “Kenyan Jua Kali ethos,” and its force is strong within him. He likes “making things from stuff around”; he gets his inspiration for his art from more “stuff around”— planetary bodies and motions, and molecules, and mountains and hills and flowing landscapes. Indeed, he specifically likes old objects: things that are able to hold their use-value through many lives and many incarnations, things with history and innovation embedded into them. His recycled and heartbreakingly beautiful glass is like that: redolent with other lives, other contexts, past forms and future uses.

Anselm is planning no less than a revolution: an African hot-glass movement in which handcrafted glass from every region across the continent, complete with regional specializations and signature colours, will present itself to the world as another indicator of Africa’s global-level creativity, another way in which African cultural production continues to innovate, re-imagining and renewing itself.

The way to the workshop is over rutted roads with more craters than the moon and through wafting billows of dust. That certain features of the landscape are not geological formations takes a while to notice. The visitor’s eye wanders over the seductively wide horizons of the Kitengela plains and then zooms back to a strange mound in the middle of the openness. This large, deep-red brick dome surrounded by hardy scrubland and herds of incurious cattle and cavorting baboons is, improbably, Anselm Croze’s workshop. Around this mound, which looks like nothing so much as a fantastical out-sized egg mysteriously parked on the savannah, Anselm has created a mythical landscape populated by beguilingly oversized and unexpected forms. His sometimes disturbing artwork is out in the open, harmonizing surprisingly with the grass and rocky outgrowths and trees. His is not the only artwork on display, because he believes in artistic collaboration and engages in many joint projects with other artists. But his is certainly the animating spirit behind the exuberance and the rigour of the art.

There is, for instance, the corpse of a car upended on its bonnet. A few seconds after processing the improbability of an accident (there’s nothing to hit) that would cause a car to stand on its nose like that, the viewer notices a curiously immobile elephant rendered in wire and a fifteen- foot moran gazing imperturbably over the dusty grasslands. There are camels too—real ones, and others done in metal and shards of glass—along with suns and cacti constructed in glittering, glimmering shards of light and ensorcelled stone. Behind the cluster of buildings that houses the glassworks, astonished visitors will discover the Necklace Bridge—an absurdly fragile-looking contraption of wire and beads swaying precariously over the muddy brown waters at the bottom of a very deep gorge. The idea that this intensely beautiful weaving of beaded metal strands is sturdy enough to support a person’s weight above all of that deep nothingness is alarming.

Inside the dome, groups of men in protective overalls with old socks on their hands toil and sweat surrounded by roaring furnaces and bubbling glass. The men wield curious long-handled metal pipes with dexterity and controlled haste. These they sometimes plunge, twisting, into the hearts of the fires roaring around them before sitting to twirl and pad the glass into shape ,or dunking them in the buckets of cold water next to their workstations. The workshop sounds like a living thing, with water hissing, fires crackling, and the footsteps of the glassworkers syncopating as they wield their long pipes, tipped with glowing bulbs of molten glass, like fiery dreams waiting to be imagined into life. Work proceeds like a strange and dangerous ballet: The fires are very hot, the space is not very big, and the glass must be shaped before it cools—which happens very quickly with recycled glass. The men move with an eerie awareness of each other—their metal rods swinging through the dark interior like fireflies bobbing in the evening light. Anselm Croze weaves through this space uttering sharp “Now!” directives, stooping to take up a tool and correct a shape himself, murmuring, encouraging, experimenting, and innovating along with his skilled team. Every now and then, they break into resigned laughter when a technique goes horribly wrong. And then they try it again. And again, until they get it right and effortless, until they are almost dancing through their work.

Anselm Croze was born in Cumbria in northern England. He came to Kenya with his father, Harvey Croze, an environmental zoologist who worked in the Serengeti. Anselm remembers home-schooling in a tent in Tanzania; later, he was the one little mzungu kid amongst many black urchins in a small, one-room rural school, running around, getting into dirt and trouble. Later still, he drove a taxi around Ann Arbor, Michigan, because he had run out of money to pay his university fees in the U.S.A. He understands hardship quite well, and he understands the value of practical methods of showing solidarity. Kitengela Glassworks supports the Bosco Boys Home (where Anselm recruits many of his glassmaking trainees), as well as the local high school, with material and financial support. More importantly, Anselm Croze is intent on passing on his skills and his love of glass and making beauty to as many Kenyans as possible; given the abundant evidence in his Kitengela Hot Glass retail outlets, this is a skill that is economically beneficial as well as soul satisfying. For his environmental passion and his rigorous and joyful aesthetic production, for his capacity to make dreams tangible and touchable (and useful), for his relentless creativity and innovation in found objects and Kenyan material culture, GenerationKenya is proud to claim Anselm Croze amongst our panel of jurors.

Anselm Croze: glassmaster, dreamweaver and GenerationKenya juror.