JANE:
Before you read our latest Blog, please take a moment to click on the link below and orientate yourself to where we have been this week, running the last Leadership for Hope event before we fly home on Sunday 8th Dec.
The photo's you'll see were all taken by the photo-journalist Georgina Goodwin. It was she who implored us to come to Mugumoni before returning to the UK. Some weeks ago she took us into this desperate slum, on the edge of Kibera, to witness for ourselves the realities of Hopelessness and the living hell where 20,000 people dwell. This week we partnered with her and our tiny team, to host the event ourselves.
Have a look now: http://www.lightstalkers.org/images/show/1382834
Running this event posed huge logistical challenges for us. We had no partner organisation within the slum to liaise with (there are no NGO's or government organisations working in the small area of 'Southlands' where we decided to base ourselves), so we literally had to start from scratch and organise the whole event:
- finding a venue that was safe (a fenced compound with security guards)
- finding someone who would be competent enough to cook for 300 people every day
- finding a way to get food to and from the venue every day, as we had no kitchen and intermittent electricity
- finding a team who could mobilise people within the community and would literally spend days weaving in and out of the bars and filthy streets talking and persuading people to come - people who would be serious about committing to the 3 days of training
- we had to secure a 'good enough' relationship with the slum chief to provide us with a 'safe enough' status - without his 'support' we would not be safe
- we had to buy or find all the equipment and supplies, from chairs to toilet paper & soap, from training sheets to bottled water (900 over 3 days)....we also needed a venue that actually had running water (which is a luxury)
- we had to source armed guards also, as there was a security alert from the British Government just before we started, concerning possible terrorist attacks in slum areas.
The amazing fact was that somehow or other we actually overcame all these challenges... stumbling and faltering. And it happened, against all the odds....and it feels like a bit of a miracle.
People actually came and we watched the impact of the training on people's lives over the 3 days. Thomas, a young guy, fighting a daily battle with strong drink and ill-health said to me, 'I know that if I don't change my thinking I will never change my life. I must lead myself to a better place. You have helped me to see that I can do this. I have potential...I want to be a bigger person'.
During the 3 days Trevor taught about the destructive power of Hopelessness, which can feel like an impossibly high wall, impossible to overcome. And the corrosive impact of 'poverty thinking' - poverty not just being a material reality, but one that can come to live inside our heads. He spoke about the need to think 'new thoughts' and to lay down the mindsets of a leader that would generate a proactive and life affirming way of thinking, that would expel entrenched fear and lead to living a life that helps discover our full potential.
I have to say, that the 3 days were mighty tough, especially as Trevor was sick for days 2 & 3, but made it through hour by hour. He was totally brilliant!
We are both totally mackerooned right now, but that's ok, because we've been left feeling deeply moved by the courage of those who have so little, yet they left with a determination to flourish and write a different story for their lives - one of HOPE. We feel like we have scaled an impossibly high wall this week. We made it, inch by inch, trusting that we were in the right place at the right time.
PS. I can't end without giving a 'big shout' to our friend Nick, who responding like grease lightning to our need for financial support to feed everyone over the 3 days - we are so thankful to you Nick!!! Respect and thanks
- JB
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| Peter our cook, feeding the 5,000... (he started cooking the 600 chapati's each day at 3am!!!) |
It’s hard to put into words what oppression and fear look like. We joke about ‘the big man’, ‘the mafia’, but we have been living with this first hand this week.
Corruption is endemic. It’s all about how people use their power for their own interest. They smile in your face and in the next second they are wanting money. Money for what? Nothing. They just see it as their right if they have a position of power that everything and everyone should be a source of income. If someone in the slums roof is leaking and needs a few nails then they have to pay the Chief money. Why? Because that’s how it works. The real thing that hurt us most about it all is that it ensures that poverty doesn’t get broken in these communities. Even when the young people come up with amazing initiatives to clean up the community, the powers that be want a slice of the action. It makes everyone smaller. It makes the community smaller. It crushes innovation & creative thinking that would bring about change. We had to fight with this attitude every day and not give in to giving bribes in order to make the space to bring Leadership for Hope into this community.
Martin Luther King said, “Darkness does not chase out darkness; only light chases out darkness”
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| Mary aged 27 - a true leader |
Peter is a Rastafarian from the Dandora slum, a single parent dad, with the most gracious heart, vision and talent.....he is light. Peter was influenced by Leadership for Hope in our early days in Kenya in 2012 and is now leading 9 community and income generating projects in his slum, was one of our first 15 trainers we trained on arrival here in September. Peter translated the whole of the 3 days with me this week and he was simply amazing.
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| Georgina, Trevor, Peter (our translator, friend and Kenyan Trainer) & Jane |
PS. By the way, Nairobi Half Life is an excellent Kenyan film, made about inner city Nairobi. Sell the farm and get a copy
PPS. After our last blog thanks so much to those of you who were moved to offer money for the glasses. We have now bought the protective glasses and have had confirmation that they will be distributed to the ladies of the quarry this Saturday (with the blessing of the Chief – a prime example of how power can be used for the benefit of others).
- TW
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