Improving lives, one child at a time
ONE is taking a group of bipartisan politicos on a trip to Kenya and Tanzania to show them just how much has been accomplished in health and development in Africa –- and the challenges that still lie ahead. Republican strategist Rich Galen recounts his first day at a SIDAREC center in Nairobi.
After a working lunch — which included a briefing on what we would be doing and seeing over the next couple of days — and some housekeeping items (don’t forget, we’re leaving the hotel at 0700 Monday morning!), we loaded up the bus and headed off to Kibera, which has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the largest slums on the African Continent. Some estimates have as many as a million people living in the tin huts and worn canvas tents of Kibera.
The visit was to an NGO called the Slums Information and Resource Centers (SIDAREC). While the acronym might be somewhat awkward, the work they are doing is most certainly not. SIDAREC, which operates in three Nairobi slums, was the recipient of the 2009 ONE Award, which has allowed them to expand their operations.
We got a background talk on the work SIDAREC is doing, largely with children:
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- They collect trash in the 13 villages in Kibera and run a recycling center at which young people can work and earn money to help fund Zulu projects.
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- They run a youth football (soccer) team to help maintain a sense of fun and community
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- They run a car wash which, on a nice day, will see 15 to 18 cars at 200 Kenyan Shillings (about $2.50 USD). The young men who do the work split the money, except for 160 kshs ($2) goes to SIDAREC to help build the organization.
When I first heard we were visiting a car wash, I pictured in my mind an American car wash with those waving pieces of cloth, and different colored soaps being delivered by high-pressure streams of water.
Suffice to say, this was all hand washing, and the high-pressure water delivery was a large yellow bucket dipped into a well dug just off the side of the roadway.
What was amazing to me was that this was a group of people who were willing to devote their lives to improving the lives of others –- not by building huge infrastructures, but by sending 30 children at a time to kindergarten; bringing in the Internet to eight teenagers at a time; having six or seven older teenagers at a time wash cars; and eleven children at a time on a soccer pitch.
We were all moved by the dedication and devotion of SIDAREC.
-Rich Galen, Republican strategist
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