Solar MP3 Education for Pastoral Women in Kenya

You’ve heard the expression, “the best laid plans”…  Well, in our previous update we were confident of the Lifeplayer units arriving at the end of January and being in Marsabit County in February.  Kristine Pearson booked a trip to Kenya as we had planned for late Februrary or early March distributions.

However, the cargo vessel delivering the Lifeplayers to Kenya was unexpectedly delayed in Singapore and the Lifeplayer units only arrived at the end of February in the port of Mombasa. They then had to be cleared from customs by the Kenya Red Cross and on-shipped safely to their warehouse in Nairobi. Therefore, we are delaying implemention until May.

All the organizations involved had previous commitments during March, and April is both Easter and first term school holidays. Therefore, we agreed that the May and June period would work for all parties involved. This consignment of Lifeplayers isn’t only for Her Voice, it’s for other initiatives as well. There is always a lot that has to fall into place behind the scenes that we seldom talk about. We try to make it look easy, but it always isn’t.

In any event, since Kristine was in Kenya for the planned distributions, she and partner Fatuma Adan of HODI, travelled to Marsabit to meet again with womens' groups. They took the opportunity to show them our new product called the Gemini – which is a solar and wind-up portable MP3, multi-band radio designed and engineered for smaller groups.  The women thought it was a product that could possibly be sold by the entrepreneurial womens' savings clubs. These groups are comprised of both Muslim and Christian women who work together to create small businesses in their communities.

While there they took to opportunity to revisit content wishes and needs of the groups, and also to meet with the Deputy Governor of Marsabit County (photo below) and other key government officials. We believe that having the buy-in of the local government is essential in Kenya, especially in a county like Marsabit, which has experienced tribal clashes in the past.

This initiative has taken far longer to implement that we had ever imagined, however, we’re looking forward to May and June implementations in Kenya’s far north.