Music & Video integration, the project is evolving

Sitting outside on our balcony at 18:00 in the evening, with still a nice evening sun, I realize that the weather is really awesome here in Kenya. Everyday sunny, around 27 degrees and only once in a while in the evening some rain. Life here contains much more activities outside and that is something which I like a lot.

It has been a while since I wrote something. Last weeks were quite busy and a lot of things has happened within the project. We are showcasing our first content to our panel groups and the website is really making progress. It’s nice to see this progress and the whole team is proud at where we are right now. But at the same time we are realizing how little time this project actually has. You would say, 10 months is a lot, but not if you are full of dreams and ideas. Beside the website and the mobile application we have ideas about maybe creating a SMS service, create games for on our website dealing with specific topics like body changes, collect personal stories about living with HIV, creating songs about specific topics and add video content. All these things have to be created and of course all of this takes time. Add then a marketing campaign around the launching of our platform and you can see that 10 months is a short time.

But it’s amazing to see how help comes from different sides. A friend of Pim is a Dutch movie maker and comes a week over and would love to help us creating a movie. The same counts for me. My great friend Lieuwe Ramaker has decided to come over and also create some video content for us. So we will have two specialists helping us in that area. Then last week I got a call from my Kenyan bro Mr Mayor to attend a meeting of young Kenyan artists who want to make a difference in Kenya by stimulating young talents to broadcast their music, but also to help the communities throughout their reach outs. They are quite famous here in Kenya, and I had the honor to meet them. We decided to see if we could help each other. They are thinking to create a song for us and we are thinking to post a few of their songs related to specific topics. In this way we also hit the music and video attention of young people and try to make it all cooler and more attractive.
And that’s exactly what I like about this work. It’s the diversity of things. One moment you are reaching out in the slums, the other day you are talking to Safaricom about hosting deals, then you are speaking with artists, then you are presenting for NGO’s. I can try so many skills and I’m growing every day here as a person.

Last 2 weeks were also the training days of Lifeskill Promotors, the organization Talitha is helping. They were preparing 3000 unemployed young adults (+/- 25 years old) with lifeskill lessons which can help them in a future employment. Like self-esteem, stress management, interpersonal relationships and many more. Sanne and myself joined for 2 days the sessions just to see how they are teaching and to learn how the youth looks at certain things. The lessons were really amazing. Their views on certain topics are not always equal to our views (if you could ever compare them), but the way they teach is lovely. With so much energy and fun, all lessons become so interesting. I don’t know if words can describe how cool the teachers are, but I have to share this story.
One of the teachers, called Samuel (know him from Kenya Indepth 2012) was amazing. He had per accident put some tape on the table and then later on he sat on the table. When he stood up, the tape was stuck at his butt. In the beginning the class was laughing a lot. Then one student had the guts to raise her hand and say: “Sorry sir, you have something on your butt.” Without any reflection of shame, Samuel replied: “What is it, is it an animal?” and then turned over to a sleepy guy and said: “I trust you lad, take it off my butt”. You should have seen the face of the guy who was doubting if he really was allowed to touch the butt of the teacher. I could not stop laughing. Anyway, I guess in reality this is more fun, but I can tell you that a smile appeared again on my face by writing this story ;).

We also celebrated Kingsday here at the Dutch Embassy. That was a weird experience, to party with over more than 500 Dutch people. There is a lot of business going on in Kenya, because Kenya is so rich in commodities and is one of the fastest growing African nations. A lot of Dutch organizations are here to make a profit too and raise the development of Kenya. It was really fun to party like that and have bitterballen en kaasblokjes ;).

Last Sunday I was also asked to preach in the church of Mr Mayor. And Talitha started to record an album together with Mr Mayor. So you can see, a lot of things are happening here. We are actually also looking forward to our first little vacation. At the end of this month we will go to Uganda, because the bus trip is really cheap. For 25 euro’s you can travel from Nairobi to Kampala and we will visit my best man on my wedding, Mr Fulukas.

So you can imagine, time flies when you are having fun … 

Robert