PSU Students Engage in Service Learning

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to make breakfast for the kids and staff of the CYEC as a thank you. Then Saturday evening, all of the staff and students had a dinner party together to celebrate the time we’ve spent together here.  The next day, we spent the afternoon in town.  We saw an art gallery in the neighborhood of Majengo with beautiful 3D paintings.  After that, we had some Kenyan pizza in town and headed back to the youth center.  Today is our last day in Nyeri, and tomorrow we will be heading to Nairobi to spend the day in the city and then catch our flights later at night

The landfill team has mostly wrapped up their project. After installing the plastic liner, they filled it with several alternating layers of dirt and trash, and compressed the layers using an oil drum filled with water. They also used a cover to keep out rain water when not in use. A news station and radio station came by on the last day to do stories on the project.

    The food security team is busy entering and coding all of the data that has been collected through their surveys.

    Yesterday (thursday) we all traveled to Nanyuki to see the equator.  After that, we had lunch at a nearby restaraunt called “Trout Tree” and saw some monkeys while we ate.

On Wednesday, a national Kenyan news station cafe to our landfill to see what we’re working on and interview Bonnie, the local man heading the project, and our student Peter.

This past weekend the 5 students plus Noel went on safari in the Aberdares. Saturday was spent at the Solio Game Reserve, a rhino sanctuary which is home to many large game animals including giraffes, zebras, water bucks, lions, and of course rhinos. Sadly, we were unable to see a lion after spending rigorous hours on our lion hunt. We saw other smaller animals as well: gazelle, baboons, and wort-hogs. We had a picnic lunch Saturday next to a lone tree on the savanna and overlooked a herd of rhinos as well as the mountainous backdrop of Mt. Kenya and the Aberdares. Our day on Saturday ended at the most beautiful Bed and Breakfast owned and run by a german woman, Petra, who has lived in Kenya for the past 32 years. The lodging sits near the base of the Aberdares, with a gorgeous view of Mt.Kenya right from the porch and windows of the house where we stayed. On Sunday, we got up early for a nice change of pace with a European breakfast spread, from toast and jams to omelettes and porridge. Safari on Sunday was spent in the Aberdares National Park, a more forested landscape with tall tress, waterfalls, and home to animals including elephants, baboons, rhinos, hyenas, leopards, and many more. We were very fortunate to see a hyena up close! They are much cuter than made out to be in the lion king. During the day we walked to two waterfalls and had another gorgeous picnic after the first waterfall. On our way out of the park we stumbled upon a breathtaking sight: a herd of Rhinos and two lone Elephants roaming in a shared open area of land. It was a great way to end the whole weekend. Overall, Safari was amazing and definitely lived up to anything we could have hoped for! We got to live the Lion King for a whole weekend!

-Kayla

The food security team has finalized their survey instrument and has met with, informed, and trained the community health workers!  The survey combines the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)  — a standardized scale used all over the world to rate the intensity of food insecurity — with our own background knowledge, knowledge that we have gained of the surrounding areas and academic training to access the food insecurity in the neighborhoods of Nyeri .  There are 8 questions in the FIES which account for different aspects of food security including emotional stress due to lack of food, skipping meals, and diversity of foods.  In addition to these questions we added demographic information, agricultural production, access to drinking water, and power dynamics within the household. Giving us a more contextual and well rounded view of the FIES model. 

Administrating the survey instrument are community health workers that are already immersed in the surrounding neighborhoods. When meeting with the community health workers it was a collaborative and informative experience for everyone involved.  There was a good balance between teaching and learning, as the health workers versed us on local vocabulary, and we in turn answered any questions the workers may have held. With certain survey questions the health workers voiced their concerns with and helped us identify caveats in our survey!  However, when piloting the survey in one of the local areas of Thunguma, they discovered some further issues with some of the questions, and we made further modifications to the survey. We are currently working on coding the survey, which entails creating a spreadsheet to enter the data into. We are looking forward to seeing the results, and continuing this exciting research!

• Miranda & Kaitlin

Both the landfill and food security teams have made significant progress on their projects. The landfill team has been developing a small prototype landfill as well as considering how to create the actual, much larger landfill. We sloped the sides so it’s easy to go in and out of the landfill. We are going to put in a plastic liner to prevent water leakage and a cover to prevent it from filling with rain water. We dug a trench to drain the excess water displaced by the cover. For considering the larger landfill, we have mostly been looking at what shape it should have, the removal of contaminated water and methane that can build up, and other practices that can make the landfill more environmental.

The food security team finished training community health workers to administer their survey, and a pilot survey was conducted in the town of Thunguma near the Youth Center to assess the effectiveness of the survey.

It is now Tuesday morning and both groups spent the day Monday making headway on our projects. The Food Security Team meet with CYEC employees to go over the survey and fit the questions to the local language. The survey is almost finalized and today will be spent testing the duration of the survey. The Landfill Team took their first visit to the dump in Nyeri yesterday. There is a cleared space for our prototype landfill at the dump site where we will be working. Monday was spent getting tools from town, beginning the process of measuring the size of the landfill, and breaking ground by digging the outline. Overall, day one of working on our projects has been a success, and we can’t wait to see where we go from here!

-Kayla

Both the students and staff on this project feel deeply honored and humbled to have the opportunity to work with locals of Nyeri, Kenya.  This class (CED 499) has been working in tandem with the Children and Youth Empowerment Centre (CYEC) for 10 years to help them accomplish their goals of developing a more vibrant, secure, and affluent community.

This year we are excited to work on two projects with the CYEC — creating a sustainable landfill prototype and assessing food security in Nyeri and surrounding regions.

Waste management has been a challenge for the community recently.  A waste management system currently exists and encourages the separation of trash and recyclables, but waste still piles up in the streets.  The piles have developed into hubs for delinquent activity, becoming a hazard to the community.  The creation of a landfill intends to heal these communal wounds and will offer opportunities for economic advancement, job creation, as well as increasing the vitality of the region.  We are working with the staff and youth of the CYEC to build, operate, and sustain a landfill with resources they have access to in their area.

The CYEC informed us that Nyeri is perceived to be relatively food secure, but they are still interested in knowing to what extent households experience hunger.  They are creating a polytechnic which will help the children and youth in their center to develop both professional and life skills.  They are interested in developing a project to help their community to be more food secure.  This is in its preliminary phases, and the results of the data collected will be used to see how the center will move forward with addressing their situation.

It is exciting to think that these projects are both in the early stages of development, and future students will be able to see their growth!

~ And now, “Thank you.” ~

Drs. Janelle Larson, Sjoerd Duiker, and Brian Thiede have all been so helpful in shaping the class’ perception of the setting we will be inserting ourselves into.  They have made sure we understand the sociocultural contexts of the locals, children, and youth we will be working with, as well as ensuring that we understand our role as facilitators, not dominators.  They all bring their individual expertise, experiences, and overall enthusiasm to help make these projects as effective and collaborative as possible.

All of the students are also grateful for the scholarships we have received to make this trip possible for us.  Furthermore, thank you to our families for their openness to our participation in this endeavor!

And lastly but certainly not least, thank you to the Children and Youth Empowerment Centre for allowing us to work together so many years.  We are grateful for your insight, flexibility, and open communication as well as your enthusiasm and passion for what you do!

We are all excited to see how everything unfolds while coming together.

– Miranda

Kenya is a country on the equator of eastern Africa.  It shares a boarder with coast with the Indian Ocean and is directly below Ethiopia, above Tanzania, and east of Uganda and the Congo.  There are a variety of climates in Kenya including everything from desert, ocean, and lush green lands!

Kenya has experienced many cultures and rulers over the years.  The original peoples of Kenya operated in separate kingdoms and there was no one established authority until the 18th century (the Wanga Kingdom).  Arab and Persian settlers had already frequented Kenya by 1 CE!  Kenya was “claimed” by both empires at different points in history to occupy the Port of Mombassa – an essential port for a vibrant trading economy.  Islam was brought to Kenya by merchants in the 1st through 5th centuries and is the second most followed religion after Christianity.

British colonial rule was established in the 1800’s and continued until 1957, largely because of the Mau Mau uprising [mau-mau is a verb and is roughly translated to to intimidate someone (often an official) by confrontation or threat].  That being said, Kenya is a newly independent country with hard working people and deep social wounds.  It is also interesting to note the duality of excessive wealth and poverty operating in the same space.

Nyeri is a rural county in the highlands of southern-central Kenya (near Nairobi), and is teeming with life.  There is a stunning balance of duality at play in Kenya.  Nyeri is in stark contrast to a largely barren desert, which is largely due to differences in altitude.  It is much visually greener than many areas in Kenya, and thanks to this, many people are able to earn a living through farming and raising livestock.

Nyeri used to have a very predictable dry and rainy season, but it has been changing recently.  Typically when the class goes, it is in the dry season.  However, there was just a drought in Kenya and it has been raining recently, and is expected to continue for much of our time there.