Tag Archives: Rusinga

At a loss…

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I was stunned this morning when I logged onto my Facebook page and started a chat with one of my friends in Mbita, Kenya. As we talked he received news that CanAssist’s dear friend and associate, Mama Benter Odihambo, had just died at the Mbita Hospital. Kennedy lives across the street from the hospital. I was getting the news before most of her community knew.

This is indeed sad news for everyone who knew her.

Benter was a cheerful, gentle, nurturing leader in her community on Rusinga Island, Kenya. A widow with a large extended family, she was the epitomy of the strong African grandmother who is wise and caring, not only to her family but to her entire community. I will cherish the memory of the afternoon she and I spent together in February, chatting as parents, grandparents and dear friends.

She founded the Little Stars Academy – an elementary school for vulnerable children that is on the edge of Mbita town.The school has grown from a few tin buildings with about three classes to a larger school that graduated students last year who will now go on to secondary school. Their school had top marks in the region and both the top boy and girl won scholarships to continue their schooling.

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Benter was a dear friend and an adopted mother to many Canadians as well. She was always cheerful and helpful to students from the McGill Canadian Studies in Africa Program, some of whom came to know her well after their studies. She worked with the CanAssist African Relief Trust to improve her school and established the prototype school garden near her home which provides nourishing food for the children and income for the school. She worked with the women of St Mark’s Church in Barriefield Ontario to help establish a program to supply sanitary pads for the older girls at the school so they would not miss school during their monthly cycles. She, along with other members of her family, even had a part in the upcoming movie “Nightrunners”, shot on Rusinga Island in February of this year.

The sadness I feel at her passing is like losing a family member. I know that many people in Rusinga, Mbita and Canada will mourn her loss. At the same time we must resolve to continue in her spirit to help people who are vulnerable.

I will append some photos and videos of Benter that will remind us of her grace.

Mama Benter Odihambo.

Mama Benter Odihambo.

In 2013, CanAssist will continue the good work started by Mama Benter by helping to renovate classrooms at the Kanyala Little Stars School.  Friends who would like to donate to this project in her memory can do so at : http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?CharityID=d95557

Sanitation improvements on Rusinga Island

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Rusinga Island, on the shore of Lake Victoria, is off the beaten path for development and in a very poor region of Nyanza Province, Kenya. The people in lakeshore beach villages rely on fishing for their meagre incomes and the population of the villages fluctuates with the season. Declining fish stocks in Lake Victoria and lowering sale prices for their catch has made living conditions difficult for these people.

Kaswanga Beach - Rusinga Island, Kenya

Kaswanga Beach – Rusinga Island, Kenya

The CanAssist African Relief Trust has been looking to improve sanitation in four of these lakeside commnities. The villages may have a population of between 100 and 400 inhabitants throughout the year and have had no toilets or washing facilities. Bathing has been done in the lake where there was no privacy and near the same region where household water was drawn for both cleaning and even drinking. The fields near the village were makeshift night toilets and became both contaminated and a health hazard. When it rained, fecal contamination was washed into the lake close to the bathing/water retrieval areas. This, of course, provided a significant health hazard for diarrheal diseases like typhoid and cholera.

CanAssist has been working through the Badilisha Ecovillage Foundation on the island to improve this situation.

VIP (Ventilated Improved Pit) latrines and a washing room at the Kaswanga Beach community.

VIP (Ventilated Improved Pit) latrines and a washing room at the Kaswanga Beach community.

We  built latrines at four of these villages around the island. Although four stalls may not really seem adequate to serve the population of the village, these are four more than zero and the communities are grateful for their addition. The fields adjacent to the villages are much cleaner. Fecal contamination no longer is washed into the lake near the village where water for drinking, washing and cleaning is gathered.

The communities have also asked for washing facilities so that they can have some privacy when cleaning themselves and also discourage contamination of their water supply with detergents and soaps. Last year, assisted by a specific donation from the Mission Committee of St.Peter’s Cathedral in London, Ontario, CanAssist built two washing rooms with cement floors, four private stalls with doors and drainage into a grey-water underground pit.

I visited the Kaswanga Village in February (see the movie trailer here! and was assured that these improvements, which may seem rudimentary and even crude to the North American reader, were making a grand difference to the people who live there.

The treasurer of the Beach Management Unit smiled and added ” If we could get a water pump to bring water from the lake to a raised tank near the washing facility it would be warmed in the sun and we could have warm showers.”

Some things that we just take for granted are deemed luxuries to many African villagers.

Congratulations are in order …

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The CanAssist African Relief Trust has been a supporter of the Kanyala Little Stars School on Rusinga Island for the past few years. We have become good friends, visited often and shared the friendship with other Canadians who, like me, love to visit Mama Benta and the kids at the school.

Since we first met the school in 2007, it has grown. When I first visited them there were four classrooms with students up to about Grade 3. There are now 300 students at the school. It is bursting at the seams. Despite this crowding, they are not compromising on academics.

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Last year they graduated their first Class 8 students and when I was there earlier this month they proudly showed me the results of the standardized country-wide exams that students write to gain entrance to Secondary School.

They had 19 candidates and all of them passed. In addition, one of the “Little Stars” was first on Rusinga Island and second in the much larger Suba District. They also proudly reported that the second standing at the school was a girl, Phelistus Ogola.

This week I also learned that Elisha Onyando has been “awarded a full comprehensive scholarship from Equity Bank Kenya based on his superb academic performance.”

I am so proud of the students, teachers and directors of the Kanyala Little Stars organization. They are all working to build a better Kenya.

Congratulations to Elisha Onyando on his academic successes and the scholarship to help him pursue his Secondary School education.

Congratulations to Elisha Onyando on his academic successes and the scholarship to help him pursue his Secondary School education.

Getting to Mbita …

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The trip to Mbita from Nairobi involves a short flight to Kisumu, a two hour taxi ride to a ferry dock at Luanda and a one hour ferry trip across Homa Bay to Mbita town. There is now a relatively new Tarmac road to the ferry. Before this road was made asphalt, it was muddy and twice in the past, the McGill student group has been stuck on the road, once having to leave one of our overlander trucks mired in the mud overnight.

imageThe ferry trip is always amusing. This trip I arrived about 15 minutes after the ferry had left and had to wait two hours for the next one in a dirt-floored lean-to with benches adorned with ripped cushions, the stuffing belching out of them. It is certainly hotter in this part of the country. In Nairobi the temperatures were pleasant and actually cool. In Kisumu it was in the mid-thirties.

As I waited for the ferry, I watched the fishermen come into the landing nearby in their wooden boats, typical of the region. There is always an on-shore wind early in the evening and the lake actually turns from calm to treacherously rough.

Finally the ferry arrived and a few cars and passengers disembarked. However, there was a small herd of cows that had spent the trip on the main deck and they had to be cajoled and whipped to leave the boat down the car ramp. The region has had more rain than usual in the latter part of 2012 so the lake water level is higher than I have seen in the past. This meant that the ramp for cars ( and cows ) was steep so the cows balked and slid as they exited the boat. In their anxious ride over they had produced a fair amount of dung which littered the deck and the ramp, so much that the cars that were boarding ferry were having trouble getting up onto the boat, their wheels spinning in the “bullshit” and spraying it around. Eventually, two and a half hours after I had reached the landing, the ferry was loaded and ready to depart.

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I happened to meet Linda, an Amercan woman who now lives on Rusinga Island. Our paths had crossed on my previous visits the region. She  was returning to Rusinga Island with some new wicker furniture including a couple of nice chairs, so the two of us sat on the deck of the boat amidst the dung having a visit and watching the sunset.

My "home away from home" for the next three weeks.

My “home away from home” for the next three weeks.

The bottom line is that I arrived safely in time to have dinner and a Tusker with the film crew for Nightrunners, the movie. I feel quite at home at the ICIPE station here and figure it is my 8th stay here. I know all the staff and vice versa. I will be staying in the same room I have had for the past few years, overlooking the grounds that lead to Lake Victoria.  I have already had welcoming  hugs from Tabitha, the lady that cleans my room. Another of my international homes.image

Hot off the press

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Kennedy Onyango from Mbita Kenya, has sent along this photo of the celebrations happening now at the Kanyala Little Stars school on Rusinga Island. CanAssist and her supporters are most pleased to be a virtual part of this special Day for the school.

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Another “Big Day” for Kanyala Little Stars

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One year ago, twenty Canadian supporters of the CanAssist African Relief Trust joined the children and staff at Kanyala Little Stars School on Rusinga Island, Kenya to celebrate the “opening” of the school farm. With a lot of hard work by the Kanyala team, financial and moral support from CanAssist, and a sprinkling of engineering advice from Canadian Andrew Forsyth, the school turned a dry open field into a lush garden that now produces vegetables and fruits to support the school, both nutritionally and economically. Some of the initial challenges included getting water to this dry property, fencing it to keep the hippos from ravaging the garden at night and enriching the soil to make it fertile.

This week, I received this email message from Mama Benta Odhiambo, the director of the Kanyala Little Stars School :

“I am writing to share with your honourable self and the CANASSIST-Canada Team that we are planning for a Big Event on Wednesday 25th July 2012 to celebrate the 1st Anniversary since our Farm’s launching by CANASSIST. This day-long event will bring together key local goverment officials and local groups and community members to see for themselves how the farm has changed from a drought-strickened, barren Land to a green, beautiful heaven with variety of fruits,trees and crops.

We will also hold a big celebration for the orphans and the Little Stars children, where they will be given fruit salads made from our farm produce on that day.

The Canadian flag will be raised high on that day both at the farm-gate and in the school to show our gratitude and appreciation to CANASSIST and the people of Canada.

We owe you alot and would feel happy if you allow us share this success wih the government of Kenya,locals groups community and the children.”

Val Horsfall and Erin Firlotte ride with students of Kanyala Little Stars School to the School Farm where the school and their visitors from Canada celebrated the official opening of the farm project on July 25, 2011.

There has been another remarkable surprise. The CanAssist farm and the hard work of the Kanyala team has been internationally recognized. Last month, Mama Benta attended a conference in Geneva, Switzerland to present the CanAssist Kanyala farm as a model for mitigating the effects of drought on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Quite a change for Benta to go from rural Rusinga Island to an international meeting in Geneva.

Africans know what to do to improve their lot. They do, however, lack the financial resources to put their plans and dreams into action. CanAssist is happy to be able to provide the needed spark to ignite this development. Following the Kanyala success, CanAssist has also started a second school garden in the Mbita region. The school has named it “The CanAssist Oasis of Hope”.

Congratulations, Kanyala Little Stars, on your success.

This week, several of the Canadians in the group that visited the farm a year ago gathered for a reunion of their own. They were happy to record greetings and messages of congratulations to their friends at Little Stars in Kenya and send them through is short YouTube video.

CanAssist supporter, Susan Potvin, interacts with children at the Kanyala Little Stars “Big Day” on July 25, 2011 when the school celebrated the official opening of the Kanyala CanAssist Farm.