AVIF Volunteers in Kenya

Friday, June 22, 2007

Another fantastic idea brought to you by AfriGadget

AfriGadget

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 11:57 PM CDT

Peter Kahugu of Banana Hill just outside Nairobi makes a living using his bicycle.

And no, he is not a professional cyclist.

AfriGadget reporter Afromusing and I had an opportunity to interview Peter who has modified his bicycle with a belt, a set of tensioning pulleys and a grinding stone to make it a knife-sharpening machine. By kicking the bike up onto its stand and engaging a gearing system, he is able to use "leg-horsepower" to drive a grinding wheel and sharpen knives while "on the move".

Peter has been at this for 2 years now and he makes about Kshs 500 ( app. 10 US$) a day by riding his mobile workshop from client to client sharpening all their knives as he goes. The grinding stone he uses has lasted an astounding 2 years and he has had to replace his drive belt a couple of times but that is as simple as cutting up a long strip of rubber from an old car or bicycle tire inner tube.

Be sure to click though on the image for video on YouTube of the Peter and his bike in action.

Note from Nancy in Toi Primary, Kibera slums, Nairobi

...Wish list: calendars and maps of world, africa for classrooms.Nothing on walls or for reference. As we made the dolls and the boys made animals out of the material I brought- along with needles thread, embroidery thread and yarn for manes or hair- the students took the opportunity to sew the many holes in their sweaters.
I left needles and thread, etc with those that wanted it. - hope I have enough left for todays class.
I brought the beach ball world globes - one per class and they were wonderful for them.
They have nothing as you know.
All were very excited to learn to make better dolls/animals in hopes of selling them one day.
So, material and supplies for a classroom would be good. I might see if I can get more material for the teacher who is now turned on with the idea.
My class yesterday had 83 students - level 7 and always that many- it was a normal size class and incredible!
The children were beyond wonderful. Must run - ha no time.
Nancy

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Toi Primary

Nancy just sent these photos, shes been to a school in Kibera today, a slum of Nairobi. The students are in level 7 which is 7th grade, between 11 and 16 years old and all very very kind and loving. Thank you Nancy.

ACT on CO2 Carbon Calculator

Oneclimate.net just advised me about the Carbon Footprint Calculator, designed to make it easier for individuals to consider their own impact on the environment, through the use of home electrical applicances, transport, etc. Its simple to use .. for more info go here and spread the word to all. Thanks to David Milliband, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (UK)

Technorati Tags: climate change, carbon footprint

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Fly with Emirates

We'd like to thank Emirates Airline for offering free excess baggage to our volunteers taking over donated classroom supplies and other items for the orphanages & schools, during this Summers volunteer programme.

Emirates have confirmed they will waive the charges on an extra 20kgs of baggage for a volunteer on their outbound flight, putting the authority into the booking so it will be seen by the check-in agents on arrival at the airport.

Thanks especially to Lesley Walsh at Emirates, Wilmslow UK

Technorati Tags: excess baggage, kenya

Monday, June 18, 2007

Big thanks & favours

I really want to mention & recommend OneWorld.Net for the wonderful contribution they make. We recently partnered with them and they've given us such massive assistance. Thanks especially to Gabrielle Hamm, Partnerships Coordinator in London for listing our vacancies, our events, our website, no one could be more generous.

It doesn't surprise me that Kofi Annan recommends OneWorld.net as one of his favourite websites, reflecting his belief that “information and communications technologies are enormously powerful tools for development.

 

Take a look at their main site and also the new OneClimate.net an alternative to Rupert Murdoch's MySpace, focused on climate change. Our main project at the moment is promoting solar cooking, featuring soon on the site. How simple but effective the concept is, helping people, the environment, health, ecosystem all in one.

Technorati Tags: one world, climate change, solar cooking

Projects

We're fast approaching the start of
the Summer Volunteer Programme and we're still in negotiation for the
following projects, to run alongside Solar Cooking introduction and
promotion :

1. Kenyan Ministry of Health Dental Clinics to run at each host site.

2. Glyconutrient distribution to children

3. Malaria prevention education .. distributing literature and nets via KeNAAM

4. Sanitary pad distribution and education to young girls

5. Assistance with the incredible work carried out by V-Day

We hope to confirm our wishlist for the programmer shortly.

If we can help with any other projects during our 5 weeks programme let us know.

Technorati Tags: glyconutrients, RBM, malaria

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Commoncraft

I wanted to thank Beth Kanter, again, for explaining .. in 2 lines and a hyperlink what an aggregator does .. she took me to Commoncraft's funny / quick  & informative video here which again leads to further education. Subscribing is important, of course.

Technorati Tags: rss, beth kanter, avif

SQUIDOO

I've just been sent a fantastic gift by Megan Casey

Editor-in-Chief, Squidoo.com :

It’s about setting up an eBay store, then a Squidoo lens, then a

Flickr account for your photos, then a YouTube video .. and linking them all together to introduce yourself and increase traffic, for free. Personalized signposts

Pointing everything back at each other… is a little unclear .. your Flickr to

your eBay, your eBay to your Squidoo, your Squidoo to

your Flickr AND your eBay, and all of them from your

blog. I needed a little more instruction on how to do this, but its fairly easy to "

Mix in a little del.icio.us tagging and StumbleUpon

favouriting" to achieve results.

Megan writes "Squidoo is called a co-op for a reason. Success is shared.

The better your friends do, the more traffic you get. And

in a nice twist, the better your competitors do, the better

chance your lenses have of getting found as well."

This can only be a good thing.

Its encourages to go back to the idea of selling our communities wares on eBay, even with the large postal costs which we can't seem to avoid.

I'll get on it immediately, come back soon for the new store opening, in the meantime you can donate a percentage of your own sales to AVIF !

Technorati Tags: squidoo, free traffic, blogs, kenya, children, AVIF, volunteer

Friday, June 15, 2007

Other really helpful technologies

I'm posting this, Brami, on the blog :

Brami Jegan is writing an article for us and was asking about the technologies we use, being an online charity.

Here are a few more :
Aggregators .. e.g Afrigator .. spreads the word about what we do automatically using RSS feeds (really simple syndication)... I think thats how it works anyway.
RSS - People are so so busy these days, its just the fast pace of life because we can do so much more, so much more quickly with the internet now .. Feeds / RSS is just a way of checking local stories / news / blogs / updates by having the headlines sent to you, not the whole blog (kind of !!)

I, personally, am always busy, I spend 10 hours a day most days on this laptop answering email enquiries and learning new technologies to promote what we do, gain more interest - as well as a lone parent to 2 primary age munchkins - so I don't have time to keep up to date with certain blogs .. some people do.
In fact, some people manage to make a steady income from writing blogs every day .. its like Sex and the City, Carrie's Column .. they make money writing down their own thoughts and experiences. Unfortunately I don't get time to read them .. it amazes me that people do.

I'm also becoming so accustomed to the internet now that I actually get annoyed when I have 4 or 5 errands in my local town and I'm having to drive there, wait in traffic or wait in line .. because they're things I can't buy online or get on eBay or something, instantly !! If only life was as efficient as the internet. I think this is where my loathing of bureaucracy comes from .. so much red tape just doubles or triples your workload .. another example is commuting to an office to earn money, which loses you so much time and money ??

I'm digressing, a common problem with the internet .. another technology is www.flickr.com, photo sharing .. digital photos can be stored online now but each photo can be tagged with keywords so if someone puts in 'kenya' or 'poverty' into Google they may well be shown a link to our photos on Flickr .. also available via the Blog .. its just another way of increasing visibility, getting more people aware of what we're trying to do.

Look on the blog again (reason I hardly ever speak to anyone anymore is that you can't direct someone to the internet quickly .. there are no hyperlinks in speech !!) The blog now features a Frappr Map .. another way to create a network of people, I've asked all the volunteers to add themselves but people are busy and no one has yet !!

Technorati automatically promotes a blog to the vast population too .. but I'll have to stop there because I really don't know how it does that. There are a massive amount of technologies that I'm using but have no idea how they do what they do eg www.feedburner.com

For donations online we could do a lot more if we could afford Justgiving's fees but we
get help from eBay's Charitable arm, Missionfish allowing people to donate %'s during an online auctionand much much more

....just so long as we get more people aware of what we're doing and more volunteers commit to coming over or just volunteering online via Nabuur.com, which enables anyone, anywhere to simply log in and assist a project from the comfort of their home or office. Devised by the ex-CEO of World Wildlife Fund, NABUUR (means Neighbour in old Dutch) is a wonderful technology and I'd like to promote it more. I currently help in a project with a group of dairy farming women.

Thank you, Brami, for all you're doing.

Kindest regards
Alison

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Absence makes the heart grow faster

Apologies for our silence and delay in response as I've been in the Isle of Mann for the Centenary TT Road Races. Having now returned to a mass of emails and spam I'm slowly wading through them and will respond as soon as I get to you.

Kindest regards
Alison

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Trustees

We need trustees !

We currently only have 3 trustees, 2 of which are related. We are currently recruiting to rectify this situation.

We need them to juggle the current Catch 22 situation - to enable us to grow and with this growth, introduce all bureaucratic (some I believe unnecessary) measures, i.e.

Memorandum and Articles of Association

A governing document (we do have a constitution)

Full accounting with the annual reports (we have virutally no money !)

Minutes of the board meetings (onsite or VoIP)

Strategic, Business or Operational Plan

Policy and procedure documents of the organisation

We actually have some of these items but until we are able to obtain more Trustees we prefer to concentrate on getting the job done rather than whether or not people believe we're corrupt or trustworthy. That is an increasingly hard task in todays world but one I will not spend ridiculous amount of time / money or effort on.

We do not charge fees from our volunteers (who cover their own essential costs). I will not allow AVIF to become a "gap year con". We do not get financially involved with any of our hosts. Both myself and Sharon, as Managing Trustee, a Kenyan citizen, are unpaid and cover our own expenses. The corruption existing in Africa is severe and we actually prefer to be non-financially involved.

We "emphasise the importance of resilience, self-reliance, and innovation; we separate fact from emotion & balance necessary levels of protection whilst preserving reasonable levels of risk. Unwilling or able to spend vast amounts on insurance policies we would like to empower individuals to take more personal responsibility for risk since they are best placed to manage it."

No-one is paid, as it should be. We have only received £650 in total for funding, which has been used to cover costs. Our current Barclays charity account holds the remaining £230 which will be used to cover costs of the orientation running in July, purchase solar cookers etc. Most will be covered by ourselves.

Until we spend time and money on bureaucratic measures to improve our governance and transparency we probably will not receive funding .. hence our need for Trustees.

We are an innovative charity and are aware of governance and transparency to the point of ridicule (this blog for example)

We do everything short of publishing the access codes to the online Barclays Community Account. Should our non-conforming current governance, however, mean we must remain financially uninvolved, we are still able to achieve a great deal more than if we followed the advice of consultants and became a limited company.

We have been wonderfully advised by someone far more bureaucratically experienced than I (thank you Liz) that certain procedures as essential for even the smallest of non-profit-organisations.

I hope we can continue to grow and juggle without spending too much time on red tape. The phrase trustee indemnity insurance will not help an orphaned child complete their secondary education rather than succumb to child labour. I do understand though that it may indirectly get us Trustees that can conform us enough to be able to obtain funding for these children.

Technorati Tags: governance transparency charity poverty kenya children

Monday, May 21, 2007

I've had a weekend of seeing friends & family (under very heart-wrenching circumstances). It has been a soulful time and this was an equally poignant moment, while sifting through my emails, when I opened this forwarded chain apparently sent by Phil McCann (Madeleine McCann's aunt) .. followed immediately by Brami's email of a case she'd been sent.

I merely wanted to highlight the point Brami made

earlier this week

[Email 1]

PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE AND FORWARD IT TO EVERYBODY IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK...

 

As you are aware my niece, Madeleine, is still missing and I am asking

everyone I know to send this as a chain letter i.e. you send it to everyone

you know and ask them to do the same, as the story is only being covered in

Britain, Eire and Portugal. We don't believe that she is in Portugal anymore

and need to get her picture and the story across Europe as quickly as

possible. Suggestions are welcome.

Phil McCann

The chain has a portugese disclaimer saying :

Anyone with information should contact the Portuguese police direct on 00
351 282 405 400 or contact Crimestoppers
anonymously on 0800 555 111.

[Email 2]

The name of the child is:  Vinisiya

She is three years of age.

Her father is a construction worker.

She was taken while playing in the street (Bindiamaamn Koil
Street, Odaimanagar, Besant Nagar, Chennai , India). She has now been missing for two months.

 

I hope this is of interest to you, just one
missing child of thousands.

Technorati Tags: madeleine missing children poverty

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger

A volunteer has asked about safety .. the website contains these details but I'll post it too :

AVIF cannot enforce but make recommendations that volunteers apply for membership to AMREF's Flying Doctor Service which will ensure emergency evacuation to the nearest registered major hospital. While we also have a discounted medical package available from SafeMed we believe the average "western" UK/US travel / medical insurance will provide the same cover.

 

Should things go wrong our hosts are able to contact us immediately. We hold all emergency information .. Volunteers are asked to pass on all details of travel / medical insurance as well as references for Flying Doctor membership, at Orientation.

 

We insist that volunteers travel up-country by air, a much more convenient, faster and safer method of travel, though this cost must again be borne by yourselves. We have

 an established arrangement with 540 Airlines who are a new but very amenable company.

AVIF will give you all the information you need but also emphasise the importance of resilience, self-reliance, and innovation; we separate fact from emotion & balance necessary levels of protection whilst preserving reasonable levels of risk. Unwilling and unable to spend vast amounts on insurance policies we would like to empower individuals to take more personal responsibility for risk since you are best placed to manage it."

 

You will be given a full safety brief in Nairobi, will have the full welfare support of AVIF Liaisons as well as the protection of the village you will be aiding ~ their support speaks a thousand words.

 

Technorati Tags: safety kenya risk flying doctors AMREF

Thank you so much

To all our prospective volunteers.

Thank you so so much to Helen B, Helen H, Charlotte & Louise for the fantastic photos uploaded to Flickr. Please try to use this facility as every photo if given "tags" can increase the sites visibility and the Blog can be used by anyone, just send your entries to me by leaving comments or by sending emails and I'll post your comments.

Asante & salamu !

Alison Lowndes

Founder Trustee

www.AVIF.Org.UK

Bookmark our Blog here

VoIP & IM Skype : avif_volunteers_in_kenya

Member of the NCVO & DEA

New Online Webstore

HAVE YOU MENTIONED SOLAR COOKING TO ANYONE ?

AVIF is a UK exempt charity able to claim GiftAid HMRC ref. XR99385

Saturday, May 19, 2007

AfriGadget - solving everyday problems with African ingenuity

Really not sure about how this works (live bookmarking etc) but this is a great idea for spreading the word .. About BlogAfrica

This leads me to AfriGadget which then ... arrrghhhh .. why is the everyday world not as efficient as the internet .. I can do so much just with a laptop and my fingertips but it takes so long to drive places that I have to leave now just to be able to fit in everything I have to this weekend, back and forth driving to get to see & do everything I need to today (including seeing my darling Uncle because my Aunt died a few days ago).

Have to go offline now .. as soon as I get back I'll be sifting through Eric Hersman's site and no doubt making contact to help in some way .. Neeeeed ... more .. .hours .. in .. the .. day !

Technorati Tags: blog africa bookmark global voice innovation development

Friday, May 18, 2007

Congratulations Brami

We've been Afrigator'd.

I'd like to introduce another fabulous page. John Powers of Bazungu Bucks

has helped us in many ways; not only pushing us up the blogging curve, but in simply including us in his network. John mentions Ethan Zuckerman
who I had the pleasure of communicating with a few months ago over our
current project promoting Solar Cooking. Ethan highlighted a few
realities of rushing into helping the africans in general without
thought for their customs, ways of life e.g. solar cooking (slow
cooking but using the power of the sun) may have a massive amount of
advantages but could possibly alter the taste meaning people won't like
the food .. and the whole project fails. Solar Cooking International,
however, who introduced us, have a tried and tested well-established
procedure for training and gentle introduction to this much-needed
concept. All details and even plans of action for helping, field tests, etc are all available on their extensive Wiki.

Changing the subject (essential with my multi-tasking lifestyle) ..

Nick @ PodNosh suggested that I also take a look at Diggers Trackbacks Tutorial (for Blogger) too to help, many thanks to everyone but why doesn't Blogger give us automatic trackback ?

If anyone needs to Fire Up their Blogging I'd recommend ScribeFire I'm now testing the new Performancing-ScribeFire publishing tool .. if you're reading this ..

Lastly .. what a ride its been this last few days but thanks to everyone involved esp. Beth Kanter, Nick Booth,(hope my trackbacks worked) and Congratulations to Brami Jegan, my anonymous, link-less friend, for reaching the Orange Blogs Round Up for her article on the imbalance of media coverage of the abduction of Madeleine McCann. Every child is equal.

Technorati Tags: kenya, children, volunteer, trackback, blogging

Thursday, May 17, 2007

AVIF Update 8

To all our prospective volunteers:

SHOULD YOU WISH TO RECEIVE UPDATES AUTOMATICALLY PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG

(This email is being sent to you as you have enquired about the Summer 2007 Volunteer Program or individual programme. Should you no longer be able to attend please let us know immediately as places are limited)

ALL PHOTOS ARE NOW AVAILABLE ON OUR FLICKR PAGE
PLEASE BOOKMARK, UPLOAD PHOTOS AND CONTRIBUTE
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avif/

1. Please ensure that everyone has seen, read and returned the Medical Form from the Volunteer Handbook and sent in flight details.

2. By July 1st we will assume that without flight details you are NOT attending.

3. Itinerary as per website :

27 July arrival at JKIA, Nairobi & Gracia Guest House (see below)

Orientation 28 & 29 July

Return flights to Kisumu (book through www.fly540.com or other) or road to Nakuru Mon 30 July

4 week programme 30 July to 26 August

Return flights to Nairobi for Safari rendezvous / own plans/ home 27 Aug

Maasai Mara Safari 27-30 Aug

30 Aug travel to Nairobi for return flights / hotel accommodation

NB. Safari is optional ~ itinerary on JOIN US > Safari section

Re. safari, numbers must be confirmed by 30 June.

GDS require deposits to secure by end June and full payment by end of July.

Please contact GDS directly or via the website link (JOIN US > Safari) to make arrangements. There is an itinerary available there.
AVIF has no financial involvement with GDS.

4. Rather than approx USD70 to go by road (250kms and 5/6 hours) you can fly (45mins) for USD118 (one way) with AirKenya. Unfortunately 540 Airlines do not currently fly to the Mara.

This transfer cost is additional to the safari price quoted in the itinerary.

5. Our Food, Our World, Oxfam’s latest resource for teachers, introduces five children from around the world, and uses the food they eat to explore their lives. By focusing on similarities between the children, the pack helps to build global awareness and empathy with others, and also assists in challenging stereotypes.

Ideal for pupils aged 5-9, the pack covers issues such as food production, food transport, and healthy food. It contains a 64pp teachers’ booklet, 32 full-colour photocards, a CD-ROM, and a colourful A1 poster.

Teachers can also access free online materials (lesson plans, case studies, and photographs) on Cool Planet: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/ofow . To receive a free poster featuring all five children, email your details (name, address, and job role) to: publish@oxfam.org.uk. Our Food, Our World can be ordered from Oxfam’s Catalogue for Schools, or through the pages on Cool Planet.

Learning from the pros

In true Blog style I'm making use of all the incredible help and tips I've received over the past few short hours, simply by writing this post.

We've now joined Digg, Reddit, re-pinged with Technorati, been publicised by www.oneworld.net, been helped by Beth Kanter, Studio 501c, Podnosh and many more.

I try to use my Thunderbird (still trying to get to grips with it) Sent box to record all the daily occurrences made possible only by the internet but its hard to remember them all.

Brami just sent a HIGH FIVE by email .. I need to get her on Skype so I can send an emoticon backatcha .. she's another virtual friend that I may never meet. Truth is I may never meet 90% of our volunteers but I'm a lover of photographs being the next best thing and they ply me with many .. of course I'll make sure to load them onto Flickr now .. in fact I'm trying to figure out the Merge facility since "lucky me" Flickr and Yahoo just partnered up.

Its all going so well, thanks to everyone.