„I was prepared that people in Kenya would want me to take them with me to Europe, or that I would be strange to them. That it would not all be rosy, but that there would be dark parts as well,“ Mirka Triznová says. A doctoral student in customer relationship management at Matej Bel University worked for three months in Kenya as part of the Volunteers for Africa 2010 project of the eRko – HKSD organization. The project was part of the broader MVRO Platform programme for sending volunteers.
What was your first impression of Kenya? The people were very warm, very kind. But I was expecting that. Entering the country was excellently organized. We had an introductory volunteer weekend in Nairobi. We did not have to process culture shock on our own. People who had lived there longer explained to us why things in Kenya happen as they do. When you know what causes different situations, you can understand them better and it is not so surprising.
You started in Nairobi with the Euphrasia Women Centre project. What was your role there? The Euphrasia project has three activities. One is a two-year middle school for disadvantaged girls from slums. The second target group is mothers with children, to whom the centre offers accommodation for up to six months. Staff try to help the girls reintegrate into life fully. They find them housing, help search for relatives. The third activity is the production of traditional souvenirs so the girls can earn a living on their own. When I arrived, eRko was the only sponsor of the project. It was necessary to find additional sponsors and with them ways to fund the center or the individual girls.
How did you contribute to plans to secure sponsors? There was no registry of girls with which we could work concretely to raise resources. We planned in various ways to approach potential sponsors, and for that we needed girls’ profiles on the computer. Creating them was my task. Photographing them was a cheerful experience. Some were shy, others laughed a lot. I made basic presentations of their stories. When I had written “orphan” fifteen times, I was no longer amused by it. I realized how well off we are when we do not have to deal with the death of parents due to AIDS or ending school in third grade because of money.
From Nairobi, you moved to Kisoko in the north of the country, where you worked on a project with children with mental and physical disabilities. What was that experience like? Kisoko was completely different from the capital. The project was in a place that I could not even find on a map. In the local diocese, the sisters had several projects with disabled children. Their approach to them is that children are not seen as disabled. They are rather seen as children with an extra challenge they have to overcome compared to others. The motto there is: Not pity, but possibility. Pitying is the worst thing a person can do. Several schools operate there, each as an independent project for children according to type of disability. I worked in a project that functioned as a boarding school, with accommodation, a canteen, kindergarten and school.
What did you do there? We spent time with the children. Me—the volunteer—and about 40–50 children. The children had different challenges, from Down syndrome to physical challenges. In the morning I went to kindergarten with children hanging onto me like a Christmas tree. I tried to give the children all of my attention and to share it so they would not become jealous of each other. Sometimes it was enough just to stay with them, to sit there, to be present.
How are such children perceived in Kenya? Let me give you an example from my own experience. The sisters hold meetings with parents and create parent groups where parents can share their experiences. When one father was introduced to me as a volunteer from Europe, he said to me: “Surely you do not have such children in Europe.” Europe is perceived as a symbol of something positive. In Kenya, challenges in children are perceived as something bad, something that only they in Africa have.
How is this related? We start from the economic conditions there. When a family has four children and one of them has such a challenge, even if they would really like to, they cannot keep the child at home and provide rehabilitation. And then they must go to the fields. Another thing is that this is not an equally capable child, so sometimes parents put the child aside and do not care for it.
How do the projects approach children? In the project, children have the space of time. The sisters let a child wash a shirt for 20 minutes—for the feeling of having done it himself. While I was there, one little girl came to the project, curled up into a little ball. They helped her progress so she is now in a wheelchair. She cannot walk, but we already drew together. Or my little “boyfriend” Aaron. He had a shortened leg, could not walk, only crawled on all fours. I always tried to take him with me because he always stayed to the side. He became my little “heartthrob,” because he did not cling to me the way the other children did. I have now learned he was operated on and his leg is now in such condition that he could walk with crutches. He was also very fast on the ground, but this will be better for him.
How do you view development assistance after your experience in Kenya? In Kenya I had the opportunity to see that this really works. The money does not vanish as is said in the big scandals about development aid, where it is said that funds do not go where they should. In Kenya I really saw that the money from Dobra novina was used correctly.
What did two months of volunteer work in Kenya bring you? Many friends, many good people. A clearer view of how and where help is given. Perhaps also reflection that when you help, you need to think carefully about how you will do it. First, whether that person wants it, and then whether it will truly help. Sometimes the effect can be the opposite. A person can get used to it and become lazy, and stop taking care of themselves. And development aid should be about development.
When you look back on your experience, what should a volunteer bring into the field? That they do not save the world. When we had a meeting of volunteers, there were several volunteers from Europe and they were disappointed that people did not listen to them and things did not work the way they wanted. They were disillusioned. I think a healthy humility is a good thing. Not in the sense of thinking that I can do nothing, but rather that I can do the maximum I can. Not expecting to change the world or Africa. A person can change things when they start with themselves, but they cannot change everyone around them.
Text: Magdaléna Vaculčiaková Foto: Archív M. Triznovej
Sending volunteers to developing countries
In Slovakia there is still no system of stable support for programmes sending volunteers to developing countries within development aid. According to their capacities, volunteers are prepared and sent by several Slovak non-governmental organisations. The MVRO Platform, in cooperation with four of them (Človek v ohrození, eRko – HKSD, Tabita and SAVIO), sent nine volunteers last year to Kenya, Georgia, Mongolia and Vietnam. Within a joint project, funded through the Slovak UNDP Trust Fund and the SlovakAid programme, it also prepared recommendations for official institutions on creating a mechanism for stable support for sending Slovak volunteers to developing countries. So far, the legal status of volunteers has not yet been regulated in Slovakia. This will be addressed by the Volunteering Act, which will also regulate the obligations of the sending organisation. It is to enter into force in January 2012.
The article was published in the bulletin Rozvojová pomoc - Jar 2011. It is published by the Platforma mimovládnych rozvojových organizácií (MVRO), which is an association of legal entities—a federation of 32 (25 full members and 7 observers) Slovak non-governmental organisations mainly concerned with international development and humanitarian aid.