During our first year of medical school at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, a group of students came together to develop and apply skills from previous international experiences to do public health work abroad. Six of us, plus one of our classmates' husband, pursued a connection with Kathleen Harrison, PhD, former professor of pathology at Loyola, to travel to Kenya under the auspices of her (at the time) nascent non-governmental organization Project Harambee. We were indelibly marked by our experiences there.
On that 3.5 week trip in summer of 2006, we visited with members living in squatter settlements in Nairobi, including Kibera, Mathare, Mukuru, and Kawangware. We also met with leaders in various NGOs, such as WOFAK (Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya), MMAAK (Men's Movement Against AIDS in Kenya), and AfricaAlive! at the United Nations Commission of Human Rights compound in Nairobi. We spent time in squatter settlements at the Lea Toto Clinics in particular and heard powerful stories from patients and social workers about what the burdens of HIV/AIDS and poverty actually meant. We visited Upendo Village in Nakuru and saw how much empowerment and good a group of committed Sisters could provide working with limited resources. And we saw joyful HIV+ children receiving top care at the Nyumbani Village orphanage.
One day during our first trip we stopped shortly in the community of Embulbul, a former squatter settlement community of approximately 6,000 or so members outside the wealthy suburb of Karen. We brought along a needs assessment tool that we were using on the trip to gain information about the communities we were visiting at the time. We met with informal community leaders with whom "Keen" Harrison had met on a previous trip, and some of us quickly realized that we had an opportunity extended to us to work with community members here more than just during this one trip. Maybe it was in part due to the women who lined up to be surveyed who told James and Daniel (community leaders and activists) that this was the first time that many of them ever felt listened to; maybe it was in part due to the finding that there was little to no NGO work being done in the community; or maybe it was due to the inspiration we experienced from James, Daniel, and concerned community members to improve their community in a material resource-poor setting.
Four of us returned on our "day off" during that trip and vowed among ourselves and to James and Daniel that we would return to continue partnering with the community in whatever way we could be of use. Seven months later in February 2007, for seven days in the middle of a hectic semester in medical school, three members from the first trip with the addition of four new team members came back to Embulbul to continue our partnership, now student-led and partnership driven.
Stories and information from our trips can be found in more detail in other posts. Thank you for visiting this project and for your support!
