BLOG
Our latest accomplishments, progress reports, & musings.
Life in the Desert
Shade is sparse on the edge of the desert, so isolated trees become important places for congregating. During our recent site survey to Kalacha, on the edge of the Chalbi Desert in Northern Kenya, Acacia (Vachellia) Tortilis trees provided what was required as we met three incredible communities that we now look forward to working with. Years of experience has taught us to look beyond initial impressions to discover the remarkable resilience that is so often a feature of people who live at the margins of existence. Certainly that is the case with these Gabra pastoralist communities that have endured recent historic drought, followed this year by unprecedented rains. Despite loosing 80% of their goat and camel herds to a climate in destress, remarkably they press forward.
Signs of life and initiative are very evident as each of these communities strive to facilitate the development of children under six in preparation for their eventual matriculation to primary schools that are some distance away. Whether under the shade of a tree or a temporary classroom built with assistance from the local Catholic mission or County administration, these three communities are moving forward with what is available to them. Hearing of our interest in joining together with them in partnership in this endeavor, we were welcomed with copious amounts of camel-milk tea and even a little dancing!
We sat and listened to the challenges articulated by each community:
“The camels keep eating the palm fronds from the roof of the classroom!”
“Hyenas endanger those (women and children) who walk long distances to collect water in the very early morning”
“A single 12x12 classroom cannot accommodate the numbers of children we have, now that we are forced by circumstances to settle closer together.”
Interacting with the community to understand and respond to concerns
Over the next two years, we plan to construct three modified Integrated Child Development Centers in the region surrounding Kalacha. We will also endeavor to pipe water from nearby wells to store at each location, enhance the capacity of available teachers and work with local partners to ensure the adequate provision of nutritional supplements, education materials and tree shade.
2024 begins with a bang!
ACK Baragoi ICDC officially open!
On January 8, 2024, we opened our 14th Integrated Child Development Center in Baragoi in partnership with the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK). Baragoi has seen it’s share of instability and this effort is key to the continuation of peace building efforts between the Samburu and Turkana communities who often find themselves at odds over territory and grazing rites in this semi-arid region of Northern Kenya.
On the day of the opening, close to 60 children were enrolled! A staff of two teachers and a cook together with the ICDC committee of the local parish will maintain operations. We are so very grateful to the Gary Moser Fund for Africa for their support of this project.
Lochoresekon Gets a Dining Pavilion
Our Northernmost ICDC to date is in Turkana, an extremely arid region where trees and shade are very sparse. Mid January saw us engaged in the construction of our first dedicated dining pavilion which will offer shade for meals as well as for community meetings.
A Permanent Water Supply in Sisit!
Drilling boreholes, installing solar powered submersible pumps, and providing simple water filters and handwashing stations are all part of the infrastructure of our ICDC hubs. After years of experimenting with various methods of water delivery to our Sisit project, and after our most recent effort was destroyed by catastrophic flooding of the WeiWei river, through the help of many friends and the Heritage Mission Fund we were finally able to drill a borehole and equip a solar pumping unit to transport water up the mountain some 2 km away for use at our school and the surrounding community! The water is also used to irrigate the kitchen garden and the tree nursery that our unit uses to feed children and supply seedlings to surrounding homesteads.
Water is life!
〰️
Water is life! 〰️
supplies all around!
The year begins with supply rounds and visits to each center by our Kenya Programs Manager, Mark Okello. This year he was accompanied by Simon Lokurchana, our new Change for Children Coordinator. Mark and Simon were kept busy delivering treated mosquito nets, uji (porridge) and other food and general school supplies. This year we were thrilled to add our newly published book called “Let’s Plant a Happy Tree” to the portfolio of supplies.
We're So Close!
25th Anniversary Challenge
In October of last year we celebrated 25 years of Africa Exchange! As part of our celebration, we launched a 25th Anniversary Challenge which included the inauguration of a Change for Children Scholarship Endowment fund. Our Challenge goal of $250,000 is comprised of a target of $150,000 in new or “over and above” contributions and $100,000 toward the scholarship endowment. Very generous friends of Africa Exchange pledged to seed the endowment with matching funds of up to $100,000 donated toward the Challenge. We’re thrilled to report that in June we reached our first target that translates into fully matched funds, and now with a little over two months to go, we’re almost at our goal with just over $30,000 remaining!
The Change for Children Scholarship Endowment funds will ensure that bright, motivated students with roots in our Integrated Child Development Centers will have what they need to secure secondary and tertiary education as a launching pad to their future. Currently 24 students are fully supported through our Scholars Project.
The balance of Challenge funds ensures that we are able to initiate critical development projects in partner communities, build the capacity of local committees, strengthen the skills of teachers and staff at our ICDC units and expand our efforts to new communities just beyond the current horizon of help.
Can we count on you to stand with us in all these efforts? THANK YOU in advance for helping us meet our goal with just two months remaining!
PAMOJA!
In 12 locations across Kenya, we seek to meet the most pressing needs of children aged 4-6 in marginalized communities, many beyond the reach of even basic services. So it is with much joy that we launch our first education curriculum for American children to learn about and support this work of Africa Exchange!
The Swahili word “pamoja” means “together”, which is what we hope sticks with kids as they work together with one another and for the mutual benefit of their counterparts across the globe. The lessons of this series are organized according to the basic needs confronting vulnerable children under the umbrella of the theme verse, John 13:34
A new commandment I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
– John 13:34
Complete with activities and digital resources, even a theme song , this six lesson curriculum is perfect for K - 6 missions education or can even be adapted for VBS! And it’s FREE!
Contact us to receive access instructions.
Remembering Our Why (Part 1)
The marking of 25 years of the work of Africa Exchange in Kenya has been cause for some celebrating! We have counted numbers, looked at impact, and not least, been proud that a relatively small organization has made such a tangible difference in peoples’ lives. A difference we can see. And to which many Kenyan people themselves bear witness. We remain convinced that sharing resources beyond our shores and remembering we are all connected to one another is key to our mutual thriving.
But we have also taken this opportunity to step back from all the efforts that daily occupy our attention and reflect. We have looked at what motivates us and asked,
What is our WHY?
There are many significant realities that inform our work, that led us to create Africa Exchange, and that pull us forward in doing what we do in Kenya. There are very real challenges on the ground that affect the kind of lives available to the families in the communities in which we work. We will be exploring these and our respective programatic responses in subsequent blog posts this year. But today we remember two.
We do it for the children.
The needs of vulnerable children have been a primary focus of our work since our founding.* According to current data from UNICEF, under-five mortality in Kenya has fallen from 102 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990, to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2019. That is good news! Still, every year 64,500 children die before reaching the age of five, mostly of preventable causes including diarrhea and pneumonia, illnesses that can largely be prevented by clean water and other basic health interventions.
Children living in Kenya’s northern pastoralist counties where we primarily work, are more likely to die from preventable diseases than those living elsewhere in the country. Currently, a national average of 88% of children are fully immunized, however, only 50% of children in some pastoralist and underdeveloped counties are fully immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases[1] and almost all lack clean water sources.
Our Change for Children program and the establishment of Integrated Child Development Centers (ICDCs) across Kenya are an intentional response to these very real crises. In addition to priorities of health and wellness, we’ve also given years of time and attention to education, capacity building exercises and development programs for stability and sustainability in communities. And most recently, environmental concerns. Communities in Kenya are dependent on healthy environments for their own survival. The need to protect water sources and soil structures has led to significant tree planting both at our ICDCs and in the homesteads of all the children. These priorities are making an impact and communities are becoming stronger. Children at our centers are healthier and happier and more prepared for entering primary school when they are of age. The communities that sustain them are becoming more resilient.
Of course, the children don’t stay children for long. They move through our ICDCs, grow up into adolescents, and before long, are young men and women, facing new and more complex challenges. We have paid special attention to the trajectory of these kids, especially the girls.
As in other parts of the world, women in marginalized regions of Kenya face so many barriers to their own thriving. And as difficult as it is to imagine, child marriage is one of them. Concern for these girls is another “Why” for the work to which Africa Exchange is called.
We Do It for Stella.
Who is Stella? Stella is a young woman who grew up attending one of our ICDCs. Because of a largely absent father and the subsequent death of her mother, Stella was raised by her older siblings. Barely making ends meet and out of desperation to provide for his siblings, her older brother began to entertain the thought that perhaps marrying off Stella to an elder in the community would bring in enough income to sustain them. After all, she was 14 and almost done with primary school. The man asking for the union was over 70. Hardly a marriage made in heaven, but the family would benefit from the dowry of goats and cows. We intervened through our community network and sent her to secondary boarding school as a means of at least delaying that future. But when she graduated secondary school at 17, the pressure was still there. We intervened again and now Stella is in university. Here is her story in her own words.
One of the best ways to end child marriage is to keep girls in school. Each year of secondary education may reduce the likelihood of marrying before the age of 18 by five percentage points or more in many countries. The same goes for university. By contrast, child brides are much more likely to drop out of school and complete fewer years of education than their peers. By keeping girls in school, they are better able to make their own decisions and choices for their lives[2].
Delayed marriage and childbearing results in fewer children per woman, this means more resources per child, better health and survival rates for mothers and children. This link is critical.
"Child marriage not only puts a stop to girls' hopes and dreams. It also hampers efforts to end poverty and achieve economic growth and equity … ending this practice is not only the morally right thing to do but also the economically smart thing to do."[3]
Africa Exchange’s “Scholars” program[4] was created for exactly this reason; to provide a path towards higher education for outstanding performers, for the sake of their own future and for the sake of their communities. Currently we have 23 female and male students studying in secondary and university institutions across Kenya. Each of these got their start in one of 12 of our ICDC units!
It is deeply gratifying to hear Stella share her intention of returning to West Pokot as an example to other young girls about what is possible; her own vision of what can happen when a woman is empowered to develop her own gifts and talents and bring them to bear on her life. We know there are many others like Stella. We believe in their futures and want to take seriously providing real opportunities towards that end. We know the statistics bear out the fact that with the support of women and girls especially, comes a direct correlation to the alleviation of poverty and population pressures.
As we look to the next 25 years, we press on with new hope and vision. We are convinced we don’t go this journey alone and welcome those who want to share of themselves and their resources for these long-term goals; children who are happier and healthier, communities who are stronger and more resilient, and all the Stellas who are ready to lead us towards tomorrow!
[1] https://www.unicef.org/kenya/health
[2] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/immersive-story/2017/08/22/educating-girls-ending-child-marriage
[3] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/immersive-story/2017/08/22/educating-girls-ending-child-marriage
[4] Richard Ondeng and Ralph Harrell Memorial Scholarship Program
Our Scholars project is intended for a select few, well performing students on a rotational basis. Only 6% of children qualify for this provision and only 3% are ultimately selected.
Funding for the Scholars project is through specific private donations, not through our general budget. We recently set up a Change for Children Scholars Endowment to receive funds for this project. Should you be particularly interested in contributing towards the endowment, please contact us at harrell@africaexchange.org
* We began our work with street children in highly congested slums in the capital city, Nairobi, during the height of the AIDS pandemic. Almost a decade later, we felt moved to concentrate on what we felt was the source of urban migration and congestion - the lack of opportunities in remote rural regions, particularly those involving early childhood development and education. We adopted a strategy associated with the “quick wins” of goals 2 and 4 of the then Millennium Development Goals, the predecessor to elements in goals 1-6 of the current Sustainable Development Goals or “SDGs”( https://sdgs.un.org/goals )
Celebrating 25 Years of Africa Exchange!
During the autumn of 2022, we gathered to joyfully celebrate 25 years of the work of Africa Exchange and to launch our 25th Anniversary Challenge that will enable us to do even more good as we embrace the work ahead!
25th Anniversary Teaser
Hosted by Knollwood Baptist Church, our celebration dinner was attended by many friends of Africa Exchange for a time of thanksgiving, fellowship, a look back and a look ahead. We presented “Game Changer” awards to persons and entities, honoring their catalytic contributions to our ethos and program development.
We announced the establishment of the Change for Children Scholarship Endowment Fund that signals our ongoing commitment to the Richard Ondeng/Ralph Harrell Memorial Scholars Project. This entails a scholarship award to students who began their education in our Integrated Child Development Centers and have subsequently completed their primary education with high marks. The scholarships provide full tuition and fees for boarding secondary school placements and select university tuition awards.
The evening concluded with a 25th Anniversary Matching Funds Challenge which works like this - the first $100,000 donated toward our 25th Anniversary goal of $250,000 will be matched dollar for dollar with an anonymous contribution to our Change for Children Scholars Endowment. In a little over 2 months, we’ve have received $28,150 towards this effort!
We look forward to sharing with you the impact that we envision will result from meeting our goals. In the meantime, Accept the Challenge and Happy New Year!