It's all become very 'normal' here....

I was asked the other day why I hadn't written blog for a couple of weeks, and I was like, I don't really have anything to write about. It's a very strange feeling when working with pretty much no resources, with some of the poorest people in the world, with the most complex difficulties/disabilities, suddenly becomes.... Normal...

I had a really interesting meeting this morning with Dr. Fred from Kima Hospital in Emuhya about how we can start up the epilepsy clinic at the EARC again. It used to run really successfully, not only providing people in the local community with a free service of treatment and review, but also offering really affordable prices for medicine that meant everyone could access the treatment they needed. Unfortunately, corruption and greed got in the way of it continuing, but there is such a need here I have decided to use £100 of the money that was kindly donated by my friends and family before coming out here to start up the clinic again. Far too many of the children I assess have undiagnosed epilepsy so any SLT intervention is pointless, if every day they are having seizures, every day they are likely to regress in their abilities. Like all disabilites here there is a huge stigma attached to people with epilepsy, so much so I have even met a family whose son eats from different utensils than them incase they 'catch' it. Not only will the clinic treat the children and adults in the community, but through two amazing volunteers that do outreach work through the EARC, awareness will continue to be raised about this difficulty, and therefore reduce the prejudices attached to those who have it.
The other goal of the clinic is to create a small form of sustainable income for the EARC. Profit can be made from selling the drugs, which can be used to pay for the assessment teachers to be able to do their job and follow up on all of the referrals for children with special education needs to schools they make. Statisically most children don't get taken to the school they have been referred to due to many reasons, this money will enable the teachers to find out why, and support them in attending.

I'm being 'business woman extraordinaire' at the mo, trying to formulate a proposed business plan to create a small sustainable business at the EARC to generate income for the long term. Yellow House CBO and the EARC have been relying on Yellow House Children's Services for funding/donations too much, and now, there's no money. We're waiting for Kenyan power to come and disconnect us... Not ideal. So, we're planning on creating a distance learning computer resource. So many teachers and locals are doing distance learning degrees (Wellington being one of them) and they are constantly complaining on how difficult it is researching online because internet cafes charge too much, there's no where for them to just go and use a computer to type up their essay, nor is there anywhere quiet they can sit and study. We have decided to create this 'space' for them... Through the help of a friend's organisation called access:energy we are looking to install solar pannelled electricity, so we never have to worry about the huge bill from Kenyan power, and we have 5 newly refurbished computers coming our way from Yellow House Children's Services... Just got to work out a way of getting the money to get it all up and running.. Look out for our Indiegogo campaign over the next couple of weeks...

Clinically things are going really well. I am focusing on two schools - Madzu Primary School and Kegoye Primary School, both have special educational needs units, both are integrated schools and the teachers are fabulous. I decided to focus on these because the teachers already know how to interact with the kids, and teach at their level. Other schools I have visited haven't even got these skills and I could spend the next 4 months trying to teach them that, not any strategies to support their teaching which I will be able to do at these 2 schools. After discussing this with my colleagues this is a much more benficial approach than me rarely working at any school.
Plus, a welcome to Kegoye which includes me suddenly being called to address and introduce myself to the whole school can't be beaten!!

I also checked on Elizabeth to see how she was doing in her new school and she was already settled. I was welcomed by her big beautiful smile as she proudly showed me her work, introduced me to her friends and modelled her brand new school uniform (thanks to my dear friend and fellow volunteer Skye who let funds to support Elizabeth's mother in buying the things essential for starting school..). Elizabeth's mum and community are so happy with her being accepted into a mainstream school they are starting a support/community based organisation for other families in the community who are suddenly bringing their children with disabilities out of the woodwork no they've seen what can be achieved. An organisation like this could generate income for the whole community... I have promised to help as much as I can in setting it up. Oh, and not forgetting the invite to Elizabeth's Church by her Pastor they can pray with me as thanks...

So yeah, things are ticking along nicely, work is work. Like I said... It's all a bit 'normal' now. I blooming love it though!!!

New Year: New Challenges: New Achievements...

I have been so slack in writing my first post of 2012. There has been so much that has happened over the last month. So much that I am proud of...

I came back to work after an incredible 6 week travel break around East Africa with a friend in tow. It was very surreal to have someone sharing my Kenyan world with, but wonderful to be able to show someone my life here.

The break also did a lot of good in enabling me to be removed from the work I’ve been doing, giving me more time to reflect and decide on how I wanted to use the next 6 months in continuing to create a sustainable speech and language therapy service in Vihiga. That has always, always been my goal: sustainability and the more I’m here, the more I’m reminded of the importance of this.

The other big decision the ‘break’ gave me time to mull over and digest was that I want to stay here. I want to be here as long as possible and as well as my goal of a sustainable service, the next few months are about me working out a way for me to stay...

A dear friend in the UK who has become much more than a zumba instructor of mine, fundraised last year to buy a wonderful little boy I work with called Newton a wheelchair to enable him to attend mainstream school. It was definitely one of my proudest moments as a speech therapist (ironically, not really a lot to do directly with SLT) seeing him in school on his first day! His face said it all!! Not only has this wheelchair enabled Newton to start school, but that school is now inclusive. Inclusive education is the law here, but many schools refuse to have children who have disabilities, even if with a little bit of support they are able to access the curriculum.  Ikumba primary school is now building disabled access ramps and adapting the path to their latrine. Not only these positive changes, but now all of the children and teachers have been “exposed” to a child with disabilities and learn that they are in fact just like them, they will grow up with a positive attitude towards people with disabilities, and therefore slowly start to eradicate the stigmas and prejudices that surround these people. 

Getting children who should be into mainstream school is becoming a bit of a habit of mine now... Elizabeth is a beautiful young girl who has cerebral palsy. Her mum is a real fighter! They came to the EARC to find out which school Elizabeth should be placed in. Immediately it was apparent that this wasn’t the full story, but I carried out an assessment over a couple of sessions to look at Elizabeth’s cognitive abilities and as I expected, she was age appropriate. After chatting with mum about my assessment findings and that I did not believe that Elizabeth should, under any circumstances be placed in a special unit I found out that she had tried to enrol her daughter in her local mainstream school. She had been rejected and almost chased away from the school. Mum wanted Elizabeth to attend this school because it was just near to their house and it would also allow Elizabeth the independence of walking to school on her own/with classmates.

I went with Wellington, Elizabeth, her mum and dragged the Area Education Officer along to the school to discuss it with them. The reason Wellington and I didn’t want to try and place her in an already inclusive mainstream school is because that local school will continue to reject children with disabilities if it’s not addressed now.

Of course everyone was very polite, and after meeting the headteacher in the street after the meeting in the school, it was decided that Elizabeth should of course join the school, nothing was mentioned about the initial rejection (not worth turning people against me when I want to create a positive working relationship with them) and she’s to start school over the next week.

We had our second workshop for teachers in the Vihiga County – went much better than the first one in November: higher attendance, more involvement and ideas generated by the teachers in how to support children in their classrooms with speech and language needs. That’s over 150 teachers trained now in basic SLT awareness and strategies to use in the classroom.

A huge event that happened over the last month was the 4^th East African Speech and Language Therapy Conference in Kampala. It was such a success with attendees from 16 different countries, and something I am so proud to have been involved in. It was a four day conference with presenters from all over the world, including (geek alert. Geek alert) my ‘hero’ of speech therapy Cath Irvine, the co-founder of Intensive Interaction.... and me!!! I co-presented alongside Martin Nafuhko, Occupational Therapist in Mumias about the challenges facing speech and language therapists in western Kenya and what Yellow House is doing to address them. This was our time to showpiece all the hard work that’s been going on over the last couple of years, and specifically now. It was amazing to receive so much positive feedback on the work that we’re doing out here, and it shocked me to realise a couple of things.. 

1.      In Kenya there’s one speech therapist to on average 5 million people (never will I moan about   NHS waiting lists again!)
2. Apart from VSO, Yellow House is the ONLY organisation in East Africa offering a free SLT service.

The next conference is either going to be in Kenya in either September 2013 or January 2014. Either way, I cannot wait to be there!!

‘Placid’ –

I was shocked a couple of weeks ago when a good friend of mine told me I was “too placid”. After looking up a definition of the word, I am so confident in saying that DEFINATELY does not refer to me. For a start, a ‘placid person’ would not have moved to Kenya in the first place. Secondly, there’s no way a ‘placid person’ would last 7 months here, let alone think about all the possible ways to allow her extend her stay...

It’s 100% a man’s world here in Kenya, and Africa. As a mzungu, I immediately get some minor form of respect from the people I meet and work alongside. As a young, unmarried woman that respect is lowered. As a young unmarried woman, doing a job here that does not even exist in the eyes of the government, that respect is lowered even more. As a young, unmarried woman, doing a job here that does not exist and is coming in to various workplaces that 95% of the time is run by men; I have to earn every ounce of respect that I may get. This in turn will mean they invite me into their workplace and allow me to share ideas and knowledge in a way that will hopefully benefit the children they are working with. It has taken 7 months for me as that white, unmarried, young woman with big ideas that means changing a lot of strict, rigid systems here, to earn the respect which will allow me to the job I came here to do – to create a sustainable speech and language therapy service for the Vihiga County. I wouldn’t call that ‘placid’....!!