First Day at CYEC
Today was our first visit to the Children and Youth Empowerment Center- our primary partner and collaborators here on the ground. After chilly -or- burning hot showers at 7:30 am (we have yet to master the temperature control), the 35 students, faculty, and doctors walked the 15 minutes from our hotel to the CYEC. We split into two groups and were given guided tours of the Center including the boys and girls dorms, classrooms, dining hall, garden, irrigation system, soccer field, and clinic. As the big groups of Wazungu (white people) walked through the center, some primary school aged students reluctantly started approaching the group. This soon turned into hand holding and swahili lessons, and 20 new, mini-tour guides emerged.
Following the tours, we had a brief introduction session with the CYEC staff and the Penn State students and faculty. We thanked the staff for their warm welcome and expressed our excitment at being at the center and working with the students. After the intro session we broke up into our project groups, Mashavu, Wishvast and Essential Design. Mary the Nurse at the Center met with the CYEC students and helped to decided which students would work with which project. About 15 students, 10 boys and 5 girls were designated to work with Mashavu.
Mashavu Core Team
We introduced the group to each other and plunged into the Mashavu lesson, starting with a broad over-view of the system and how it works. We talked about the availability of doctors in Kenya, and tried to express the value of Mashavu in addressing this problem. Tara and Rene took the lead on the education, and Brianna jumped in as needed to help clarify things for the students. Alice and Steve did a demo of the thermometer, as that was the only device that was working in the morning. We brought in a regular stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, and had the kids practice with the devices. WE talked about the heart and lungs and blood and what the devices measure. The CYEC youth practiced using all the devices on each other and on the Penn State Students. Before breaking for lunch, the students sang the national anthem for us!
After a delicious lunch of beef stew, we held some ice-breakers with the entire Mashavu team and our CYEC students. We broke up and into pairs of one US student with one Kenyan student, and interviewed each other. Then each pair introduced the other to the rest of the team. Then we played a round of human knots, and had three groups who raced each other. After the ice breakers, some members of the Mashavu core team, Rachel, Gill, Carey, Roma and Samir put together a skit to help explain Mashavu to the CYEC students, in hopes that a dramatization would help bridge any language barrier. After the skit we checked for understanding in the students, and then asked them to recreate the skit themselves. A few kids volunteered, we found one little theatrical fellow who dramatically protrayed beng a sick patient. The kids seemed to really comprehend the skit.
After the skit, we broke the kids up into three teams, and they met with the Bio-E kids who explained the devices to the teams. Each Bio-E team was explaining 2 devices and the teams spent about 15-20 minutes at each station. They were able to try the devices and test them out on each other. For the pulse oximeter trial, they had the kids run around the building and then returned to be tested, so they could see how their pulse rate would spike. After each team had rotated through the device stations, Steve did a crash course in the Lab View questions. By this point in the day, the kids were fading and we were all getting tired, so we thanked them for their excellent work and sent them off for the day.
The communication barrier was significant today, as the Penn State students tried to grasp the English level and understanding of the CYEC students. The students were mostly shy and quiet, but opened up at times and are much more animated in 1 on 1 conversations. We think the students grasped a basic understanding of Mashavu, and hope that we didn’t overwhelm them too much. After dinner, Mary spoke to the group, and asked about the challenges of the day in working with the students. She offered some advice to bridging the communication gap, writing things down and having the students who understand explain it to the others in swahili. As usual, Mary’s advice was extremely helpful, and we plan on using some of these strategies tomorrow. Finally, at around 8pm we piled the entire Penn State team into two Matatus (mini buses) for the 10 minute ride back to the Ivory hotel.
BioE Team
Today the Bioe team accomplished a lot. The day started looking grim, as almost none of the devices were working as we had anticipated. However, throughout the course of the day we made the scale, blood pressure cuff, pulse ox, and thermometer functional. They may not have completely correct callibrations, but those are minor problems right now. The Spirometer, and stethoscope are proving to be a bit troublesome, and some major trouble shooting will be needed. On the bright side of things, we were able to meet many of the directors and children at the CYEC. We taught the children what the measurements from these devices meant, and how to take them. They practiced taking one another’s measurements, and despite being very quiet and shy, seemed to really be interested in it. Once the day’s work was done, we found the silver linning in the clouds and were able to play soccer and hang out with all of the kids of the CYEC.
Tara’s Trips to Nairobi
Khanjan, Tara (your blogger from the Nairobi expedition), Nurse Susan, and others from CYEC left early in the morning for a day trip to Nairobi. We met with a broad group of influential Kenyans including industrialist Dr. Manu Chandaria, Judy Kibaki (President Kibaki’s daughter and Vice Chair for CYEC), members of the board of trustees, local university professors, the Kenyan director of the Global Peace Festival Foundation, Paul Maina from the CYEC, visitors from Penn State and several other local champions. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together members from academia, non-profits, and organizations from the public and private sector to discuss ways to provide opportunities for the more than six million children and families living on the streets in Kenya. The individual efforts of the various stakeholders were introduced, including efforts in social entrepreneurship, telemedicine, agriculture, emerging technologies in water treatment and waste management, and access to micro finance opportunities for young entrepreneurs. A list serv and committee were formed to ensure future coordination. Dr. Chandaria’s closing remarks focused on the importance of doing, moving from discussion to action through a cooperative effort. On a side note, we were treated to a delicious all-vegetarian Indianised Chinese lunch. I don’t think I’d mind being a vegetarian if I could cook like that!
Khanjan, Tara (your blogger from the Nairobi expedition), Nurse Susan, and others from CYEC left early in the morning for a day trip to Nairobi. We met with a broad group of influential Kenyans including industrialist Dr. Manu Chandaria, Judy Kibaki (President Kibaki’s daughter and Vice Chair for CYEC), members of the board of trustees, local university professors, the Kenyan director of the Global Peace Festival Foundation, Paul Maina from the CYEC, visitors from Penn State and several other local champions. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together members from academia, non-profits, and organizations from the public and private sector to discuss ways to provide opportunities for the more than six million children and families living on the streets in Kenya. The individual efforts of the various stakeholders were introduced, including efforts in social entrepreneurship, telemedicine, agriculture, emerging technologies in water treatment and waste management, and access to micro finance opportunities for young entrepreneurs. A list serv and committee were formed to ensure future coordination. Dr. Chandaria’s closing remarks focused on the importance of doing, moving from discussion to action through a cooperative effort. On a side note, we were treated to a delicious all-vegetarian Indianised Chinese lunch. I don’t think I’d mind being a vegetarian if I could cook like that!
After our meeting with Dr. Chandaria we meet with Paul Njuguna from the UNIDO office to discuss details for the Big Mashavu Demo on June 3rd. A stakeholders meeting is set to take place in Ngong next week to meet with local health care professionals, UNIDO and AMREF officials and members of Mashavu. During this pre-demo trip we will also test the power source provided by UNIDO, determine the village the Kiosk will be stationed in for the Demo, and ensure the system is working smoothly. After ironing out the details of the UNIDO partnership we travelled across town to coordinate with the Safari Company. After two hours of “bad news”, and “good news” we finally settled on a location, Meru National Park, and the dates: May 27th and 28th. The bad news was that some of the parks and campgrounds we were hoping to visit were unaccessible because of all the rain Kenya has been getting. The good news was that we found a great park to visit (a little further away) and we get to sleep IN the park during our Safari! A moment of panic erupted when I pointed out Khanjan was double booked for the 27th-it’s hard to be at a stakeholders meeting in Ngong and on a safari at the same time! A few changes of plans are in the works and hopefully all will be set to visit Ngong a day early on the 26th instead. We grabbed a quick bite for dinner of pizza and burgers before our long drive back to Nyeri.
