Community Service Experiences

COP Chronicles

Nearly three quarters of the population of the capital live in sub-standard conditions, of poverty, lack of hygiene and proper sanitation, promiscuity and overcrowding. Unemployment or precarious casual employment, single-parent families, substance abuse, lack of adequate educational facilities and widespread apathy among youth are other common problems of these communities, in which the most basic human rights are not guaranteed. We are a Nairobi-based university and so recognize the need to be active community players in trying to find solutions to these social problems.

To this end, the University set up the Community Outreach Programme; we invite our students and staff and past students to do volunteer service in an orphanage, primary school, home for abandoned babies or among street children or street youth. On successful completion of 150 hours of service they submit a written report and are awarded a certificate. Another feature of the Programme is the empowerment of unemployed youth in the local community and the informal settlements, to whom we offer special courses in computer skills or in setting up their own business.  We also work together with other organizations, such as Kenya Youth business Trust and CISCO, to achieve this end. We liaise with local Government and community committees to raise the quality of life, especially among the youth. Although the Programme is still young, we are already noticing the impact of this work, both among the beneficiaries and the volunteers. As happens when a stone is thrown into a pond, the ripples reach far, and this is what over the years we hope to achieve.

Published/Unpublished Articles by Martyn Drakard

Spare a thought - One

A recent report by the World Bank on youth development in Kenya should not spring too many surprises on the intelligent reader who follows youth issues with interest, assuming it has its facts right. However, the huge percentage of young prison inmates, aged between 16 and 25, the almost two million 5- to 17-year olds in child labour, the 40% of uneducated girls who have had a child by the age of 20, the high rate of attempted suicides and depressed youngsters, as well as the deep distrust between young people and our police, should make us sit up and think. Information like this is an invitation to search for the roots of the problem rather than, in tried and tested Kenyan manner, bring down the stick harder, whether in school or court, or the kiboko at home; even less, throw up our arms in pretended horror and despair. More...

Spare a thought - Two

As you turn left at the end of the dual carriage-way near Uplands, and descend towards the Rift Valley on the newly-tarmacked old Nakuru road, as smooth as black silk, you could be excused for not noticing a turn-off to your right, opposite the tidy and trim Ngenia High School compound. A sign points you to St Charles Lwanga parish, my base for a visit to Kamirithu. Yet the small township of Kamirithu has its own story, and fame. In the 1980s, a people's theatre was set up by the best-known son of the community, Ngugi wa Thiongo, which the government of the time promptly closed down after the staging of some anti-establishment plays; and replaced it with an under-utilized polytechnic on the same site, which the local people have rebuffed in protest. The youth still cling onto hopes that Ngugi will help solve their problems of poverty and unemployment; the older generation are more sceptical, and judge more by deeds than by words.More...