Solar MP3 Education for Pastoral Women in Kenya

Our CEO, Kristine Pearson, spent most of June in Kenya progressing this and other initiatives in Kenya with our local partners. We noted in our previous report that the project’s implementation had been delayed. And now it’s further delayed.

When you’re close to an election, as Kenya has been, you need government cooperation and support, yet everyone seems distracted. That’s because they are. People were hesitant to make decisions in the case there would be a new party in charge come August. We need the government’s support for both content (the Ministry of Education) and other ministries involved in the duty-exempt clearance of the Lifeplayer units. When we have that, we’ll be able to send them to Kenya. It’s both the national government and the government in Marsabit County that we need to have on-board and fully supportive. Luckily, so far so good, but our timing is poor.

It was determined in June that we would have to wait until after the elections to proceed with this project. Our key partner in the north, Horn of Africa Development Initiative and its staff, were involved in the elections in some way – by holding inter-faith meetings on the democratic process, encouraging women to vote, and by monitoring the polling stations to ensure they were peaceful. By all accounts, in Marsabit County, the elections were free, fair and peaceful.

We’ve also made the point before that new projects often have unforeseen challenges or we underestimate how long something can take to get off the ground.  Perserverance is one of our specialiites! 

Now that the elections are over, Kristine will be returning in September to tie up loose ends, finalise the content partners, and meet with on-the-ground collaborators to kickstart the implementation of this much needed project. The women are keen listening group participants and are anxious to get begin learning.

As always, we’ll keep you posted.