Life in Kenya evolves quickly ...
Door: Robert Hoogendoorn
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Talitha & Robert
14 Maart 2014 | Kenia, Nairobi
It has been a while since I wrote my last blog. This is mainly due because life in Kenya really starts to evolve. I'm getting busier at work, I'm attending at more activities and then the time for writing becomes less.
But nonetheless it is going great over here. I like it that it becomes more busy. This month started great with a concert at the NairoBits office with young Kenyan musicians who had the chance to expose themselves. It was a great party and it was a lot of fun hanging out with these cool young kids.
The first week in march we mainly spend time with the whole team, both organizations, to start up the project. We are going to use a kind of quite new project methodology, called SCRUM. This was introduced by Fred who had experience with this method in his carreer with SNS Bank. It's a great way to do ICT projects. Within this methodology you break down the project to two weeks sprints. You agree with each other what will be achieved in these two weeks, you work with eack other to make it workable in two weeks and then reflect on what has been built. In this way you will have continuously feedback from the most important stakeholders which makes sure that they are highly involved in the project. Everybody is enthousiastic about it, and we are trying to finish a first draft of a website, first draft of a database, first draft of content about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Right (SRHR) topics and a first draft of clinics in Nairobi within google maps. Beside that we are trying to get panel groups of young people who also will review the things we are creating every month. So a lot to do as a start up for the first sprint.
In that perspective I went with Sanne last week to a school to create the first panel group of 5 youngsters who will help. The teacher helped us, because there were 75 volunteers ;). The 5 who were selected were amazing. Chris (16 years old) said to the question why would you want to join: "If I would get a chance to help my fellow age members to prevent them from bad things to happen in their lives, I will take it immediately!" I liked it so much, I wish everybody would have such a mentality in this world. How different this world would be if we would act like this inspiring 16 years old kid!
We did the same at Nairobits for childeren who are not tending school anymore. In Nairobi their are a lot of childeren who cannot pay school fees and dropped out of school. Here Pim will take the lead, but it was also very inspiring to see their enthousiasme.
Tomorrow we will go to visit a clinic. One of the Alliance tasks is to collect data about all the clinics in Nairobi. We went this week to a training within the Alliance, where members were given a tablet to go into the slums to record the locations of the clinics with GPS. And they are going to record the services of the clinics and a rate of youth friendliness etc. This is the first time this is happening in Kenya and we are going to use this data to present on our websites.
So we are moving ahead with all these cool kind of activities. Today we were at a Talent Conference for young college students to see what their oppertunities are for the future in Kenya. Really interesting. The funny thing is that I put aside my fear and went lobbying among the organizations. So I went to Unilever and British American Tobacco and bragged about NairoBits and both were interesting to offer internships to the young webdesigners. Haha, it was funny because I was the only white person over there, they all took me very serious. So cool stuff to do :).
My social life has also got direction. I'm now playing at a football club, Impala FC. There are 30 guys from 20-35 years old from Kibera slums. They train every day, yes every day 3 hours. I'm tending to play once a week with them, but it was fun to join the first training. Thanks to Gavin Oyas I also got invited to join Bible studies. Yesterday evening I went to the church and there were more than 200 young people attending the Bible study. They will put me in a group of 15 people and we will have also kind of joint sessions.
Life is not bad in Kenya. Our project is heading into the right direction, we have a lot of fun over here and I feel more and more comfortable about my job over here. The only thing is that I miss Talitha a lot. But we are over half way, so we are really counting down the days!
Greetings from a Sunny Nairobi!
Ro
But nonetheless it is going great over here. I like it that it becomes more busy. This month started great with a concert at the NairoBits office with young Kenyan musicians who had the chance to expose themselves. It was a great party and it was a lot of fun hanging out with these cool young kids.
The first week in march we mainly spend time with the whole team, both organizations, to start up the project. We are going to use a kind of quite new project methodology, called SCRUM. This was introduced by Fred who had experience with this method in his carreer with SNS Bank. It's a great way to do ICT projects. Within this methodology you break down the project to two weeks sprints. You agree with each other what will be achieved in these two weeks, you work with eack other to make it workable in two weeks and then reflect on what has been built. In this way you will have continuously feedback from the most important stakeholders which makes sure that they are highly involved in the project. Everybody is enthousiastic about it, and we are trying to finish a first draft of a website, first draft of a database, first draft of content about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Right (SRHR) topics and a first draft of clinics in Nairobi within google maps. Beside that we are trying to get panel groups of young people who also will review the things we are creating every month. So a lot to do as a start up for the first sprint.
In that perspective I went with Sanne last week to a school to create the first panel group of 5 youngsters who will help. The teacher helped us, because there were 75 volunteers ;). The 5 who were selected were amazing. Chris (16 years old) said to the question why would you want to join: "If I would get a chance to help my fellow age members to prevent them from bad things to happen in their lives, I will take it immediately!" I liked it so much, I wish everybody would have such a mentality in this world. How different this world would be if we would act like this inspiring 16 years old kid!
We did the same at Nairobits for childeren who are not tending school anymore. In Nairobi their are a lot of childeren who cannot pay school fees and dropped out of school. Here Pim will take the lead, but it was also very inspiring to see their enthousiasme.
Tomorrow we will go to visit a clinic. One of the Alliance tasks is to collect data about all the clinics in Nairobi. We went this week to a training within the Alliance, where members were given a tablet to go into the slums to record the locations of the clinics with GPS. And they are going to record the services of the clinics and a rate of youth friendliness etc. This is the first time this is happening in Kenya and we are going to use this data to present on our websites.
So we are moving ahead with all these cool kind of activities. Today we were at a Talent Conference for young college students to see what their oppertunities are for the future in Kenya. Really interesting. The funny thing is that I put aside my fear and went lobbying among the organizations. So I went to Unilever and British American Tobacco and bragged about NairoBits and both were interesting to offer internships to the young webdesigners. Haha, it was funny because I was the only white person over there, they all took me very serious. So cool stuff to do :).
My social life has also got direction. I'm now playing at a football club, Impala FC. There are 30 guys from 20-35 years old from Kibera slums. They train every day, yes every day 3 hours. I'm tending to play once a week with them, but it was fun to join the first training. Thanks to Gavin Oyas I also got invited to join Bible studies. Yesterday evening I went to the church and there were more than 200 young people attending the Bible study. They will put me in a group of 15 people and we will have also kind of joint sessions.
Life is not bad in Kenya. Our project is heading into the right direction, we have a lot of fun over here and I feel more and more comfortable about my job over here. The only thing is that I miss Talitha a lot. But we are over half way, so we are really counting down the days!
Greetings from a Sunny Nairobi!
Ro
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18 Maart 2014 - 09:08
Jessica Hoek:
Hi Robert,
I am impressed by your report. It looks like you have a lot of contacts and activities and that you are getting into your job. I recognize what you describe on your contact with young panel members. I did the same in Holland and found it to be inspiring and rewarding. And also great fun to work with young people. I can read between the lines the joy it brings you to be of meaning for that community. I can imagine you miss Talitha very much. Will she still be joining you in Kenia? And if so when will she join you?
By the way, my company film is nearly ready, i will send you a url as soon as its read so you can see the result and your contribution.
Well enjoy your football and keep up to good work.
Kind regards Jessica
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
