Building Capacity..

sorry, i know it has been a while since i have updated this thing :) i noticed that the more emails i was getting about how interesting it was... so i figured time to let you all know what i'm up to.

My new buzz word since being here is Building Capacity... its the new cool word for development and it is beign thrown around all over. in the first 2 months that i was here, i would ask people what they are doing or what the relationship between 2 groups is, and the answer was always building capacity... i finally got an explination as to what it is, and therefore an explination as to what i am doing here. I am helping groups develop and learn how to do things on their own. Like teching a group about business (liek the workshops i have been delivering to womens groups) it is helping them help themselves, unlike the oldschool development which would jsut come in and do things for them. Instead, we are building capacity here by providing people and groups with knowlege of how to do it themselves and how to teach others to do the same... so its pretty cool :)

work has been crazy, picked up like mad in the last little while. I have been working with the only student groups at Kimathi College trying to organize themselves better on campus. there are tons of students and so little student involvemnt so i am trying to work with the existing groups and encourage the new ones to come forward so that they actually push some activities on campus. so i held a workshop 2 weeks ago for student leaders and talked to them about soem basic things like settign goal, action plans, calendars of events, recruitment and the most important one i think here in kenya.... how to hold an effective meeting! ( honestly meetings here run over by like an hour and i feel like rarely there is action taken from them) but it has been really good and i'm continuing to work with them to help them plan their activities and actions.
We also have a bunch of big events on campus which have included the community. Thursday there was a big tourism stakeholders day and today was a big community day. Both events went well but thank god they are over! The kenyan style of organizing an event is by doing it like the day before, even if it involves like 300 people ( such as today's event). So it has been a bit frustrating and a bit difficult to work with sometiems, but regardless i am learing alot of patience.
We have also continued to work with Muringato Primary school here which has been so much fun. we go evey other week and play with the kids in the afternoon for an hour and try to visit every week to jsut hang out with them as well. Once again, please check out the website at Give meaning. com if you have not already! they are a great group of kids who live such challenging lives and this school is really doing phenomenal things for them by having clean drinking water and one meal a day. any additional support is incredible so please check out the site.
Otherwise, things are so-so. My computer got a really bad virus and i had to reformat it. almost lost my pictures but thank god i didn't... almost lost all my work and research, but thank god it is all backed up on a flash disk. whcih unfortunatly is infected with a virus... dun dun dun... o well. one step at a time.. at least i still have a computer. I talked to my mum when i was really stressed out about it and she reminded me that I',m lucky that that is all that is wrong over here with me. i was sick for a while and went and was tested for malaria but thankfully i think it was jsut food poisining or the flu :) I have never been so happy to have the flu :) one of the other interns here has gotten malaria twice and has dropped almost 20 pounds... talk about crash diet... i don't recommend it :)
I can hardly belive i have only 3 and a half months left... then back to canadian winter :) I am planning on going to tanzania and zanzibar in 2 weeks or so i'll keep you all updated as to my journey :) Keep me updated as to what you are all up to okay?!
love ya lots and cheers!
Paula