Kisumu, Kenya
October 16, 2004
Caitlin Stanton
We've been having an amazing couple of days in Nairobi and Kisumu. In Nairobi, which doesn't feel as big of a city as it is, because it is divided into distinct neighborhoods, we traveled about an hour outside of the city to visit a rural secondary school for girls. We spent a rich afternoon just talking with the girls about their lives, their boyfriends, their hopes and plans- one of the big problems for girls in Kenya is that the schools don't have adequate bathrooms, or have one pit toilet that is shared by boys and girls, this is coupled with very limited access to sanitary pads-- so they feel embarrassed to go to school when they have their periods, so tons of girls are missing a week of school each month, when it really wouldn't cost government/aid agencies that much to remedy the situation. Almost every grantee we have visited in Kenya has asked to add a line item to their proposal budgets for the provision of sanitary pads to girls (of course, this is case in point the reason for general support funding!)
We have also heard a lot from a grantee, the Coalition on Violence
Against Women, about the impact of the Global Gag Rule. Contraception
and condoms used to be somewhat accessible, now even basic
contraceptives are incredibly difficult to find and usually
outrageously priced because of the limited supply-- as a consequence
the rate of unwanted pregnancies and AIDS are skyrocketing (the Global
Gag Rule also impacted condom shipments that were intended to help stop
the spread of HIV). Kenya already faces intense population pressures
(with a hugely negative effect on its environment-- see Wangari
Mattai's work) and all the gains that had been made in stabilizing
population growth, in promoting women's reproductive rights, etc are
being lost. Bush is responsible for lost lives in more countries than
Iraq-- there are HIV+ people who might have been healthy except for the
Global Gag Rule.
Anyway, now we are out in Western Kenya in Kisumu. Kisumu itself is a
small city (pop 75,000) but the surrounding areas are very, very rural,
and very poor. We have been visiting grantees in these rural areas that
have greeted us with song, dance, speeches, poems, etc. etc. It has
been overwhelming and humbling. We have seen the water pumps and
brick-making projects built by GWAKO (Groups of Women in Water and
Agriculture Kochieng) and funded with GFW support (and seen the
importance of funding this type of "direct service" as well as
advocacy, etc.) It has really been inspiring, but has also left me with
a feeling of inadequacy, there is so much more to do here, so many more
problems- girls getting married at 12, FGM, immense poverty, wife
inheritance, widows thrown off their land, HIV/AIDS, lack of education,
etc. These challenges are much more prominent in Western Kenya than
other parts of the country. The Global Fund could be entirely focused
on this region and there would still be so much more to do. It feels
like our support is both immense and just a drop in the bucket at the
same time.
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