After an intense 3 days at Kenyatta University we were looking forward to a change of pace with the Focus Youth Initiative Chapatti Forum. I was particularly looking forward to meeting my Kenyan son and daughter in-law and my Kenyan granddaughter of 7 months little Taji. We were greeted by my adopted son Kris (it was so good to see him after 2 years) and arrived at the day orphanage run by Focus to a warm greeting and were put to work immediately chopping cabbage for the stew and making chapattis. The students had great fun doing this and there are lots of pictures floating about. I will try to add some here later on if the connection holds. I got stuck into the kneading and rolling of the dough (because I am big and strong….or so I was told before the guy left me to my own devices) 😉

The rest of the students were enabling the locals and the children to familiarise themselves with the equipment and everyone was enjoying the day and atmosphere of celebration. Children love chappos (so do I!)

After a while Kris’s wife, Maureen or little Mo as I call her, arrived with baby Taji……I’m afraid the students got to see the softer side of me as I was reunited with mo and saw my adopted granddaughter for the first time…….I admit I had to stifle a tear but she is an absolute cracker and eventually just before we left for the day she gave me the biggest of smiles……heart melting!

Unfortunately, 3 of our party were affected by the sun so I decided to accompany them back to our apartments to check whether they required medical treatment – which gladly none of them did! Alex, who was among the walking wounded, was least poorly and so stayed with the other two to be on the safe side. Things would have been fine had we not got stuck in another Nairobi traffic snarl-up which meant I arrived back at the dying embers of the festivities and was immediately called upon to ‘say a few words’…….again! All in all I think most of the students enjoyed themselves, although it was very hot and I think one or two more would have appreciated leaving just a little earlier. The day at the orphanage was a good reminder of the realities of poverty in parts of the world, something they were to experience at the ‘Stories of our Cities’ exhibition but more of that later.

There have been internet problems so blog contributions will be as and when I’m afraid.

Crumbs…..today marked the end of the first workshop collaboration with Kenyatta University and was extremely hard work for all the students involved, who were absolutely amazing by the way! The focus was all about editing and preparing for presentation. The atmosphere in the hall was intense as videos; podcasts and a photography exhibition were shaped by the stressed participants. Subjects ranging from tribes & tribalism; the poverty gap (including a digital story on the same subject); domestic violence and ways in which community media centres can support communities to deal with these issues; faces of community & a 40 minutes radio show podcast on community media centres were produced. Around 40 students from Media Studies & Performing Arts & Film Technology courses collaborated for the first time on subjects of which they had limited prior knowledge.

However, no presentations are possible without the necessary pre-production efforts and these took place on the previous day. This started with some planning meetings following on from day 1 and an early lunch. The collaborators were then transported to the town of Ngong where they were greeted the District Commissioner, who I’d just had a meeting with to outline the history and aims of CM4K. He pledged his and the administration’s support for the development of a community media centre in Ngong. After this we were accompanied by the Chief, who nowadays are technically assistants to the DC (in turn answerable directly to the President), to a meeting with renowned author and Swahili Scholar – Professor Wallah Bin Wallah. I found his ‘motivational’ style of address interesting and the Kenyan students clearly loved him whilst still smarting from the challenges his books had set them during various stages of examination. In the main, I think the Brighton students found his jumping from Kwaswahili to English a little difficult to follow at times, which was a shame because he had much of interest and import to share with young scholars about culture, identity and their aspirations. I was asked to speak briefly after him so I chose 4 of his main points and employed them to the future of CM4K and their role in it, which I think was appreciated. He must have liked it as he awarded me one of the medallions he presents to students who show excellence of individual thought. So yay me! 😉

We then visited the Ngong township primary school where the focus was primarily poverty, education and community media centres in Ngong. This was a very interesting visit which set my mind racing about how community media and a centre could help community organisers and campaigns. Whilst we attended this meeting some of the group visited a nearby children’s home, which resonated with my own personal experience and which I was sad to have missed.

After that we had a brief visit to the top of the Ngong hills, some of the students are posting pics of this spectacular if a tad windy view of the Rift Valley as the sunset……and so on to the presentations and the feedback session. I will leave the students to explain what they did and their experiences but it is safe to say that I am extremely proud of all of them (both universities). Yes there were technically difficulties but in such a short timeframe, who would expect different? That said, the end products were fantastic examples of story-telling and collaborations by young people.

The feedback session made this old community activist well-up as students from both side shared their joy at the experience and their determination to continue down this path. For a man of my years it is very touching to see young people share my vision for community media with a determination and tenacity. I don’t want to dwell on this for long but I am allowing myself a moment of pride and pleasure. In addition, Kenyatta University are eager to develop a collaboration and are considering introducing community media into their curriculum and inviting me to teach a course. Early days but I think CM4K and our vision is going from strength to strength. It has been the most worthwhile of workshops and if it possible I seem to enjoy each annual visit to Kenya more. Well it is late now and there is a beer waiting for me before bed. Tomorrow we are off to a community media chapatti forum in Ruiru with our partners from the Focus Youth Initiative programme.

We finally arrived in Nairobi after a looong flight, some nice food and a few Tetris games. We were accommodated at our hostel and were more than happy to finally have a rest..on the ground. The first day of our Kenyan journey was very chilled. We had a walk around the hostel, had a look around, had a nice meal at the local mall. In the afternoon we got introduced to Willice. First we talked through our workshops, discussed the programme for the following days and decided on the kits. We all were very excited to meet Kenyatta University’s students.

Today was a random one. Hoisted onto the bus with our convinct bus driver Victor and his FANTASTIC taste in 80’s music we headed to Kenyatta, get some filming done, eat and then all go to Ngong together on a giant bus.

This was the best journey by far, getting to know the students of Kenyatta and exchanging stories. Alongside this we also got to see some of the scenery and had our first glimpses of the poor-er areas.

We arrived at a place in Ngong that was a bit random. We were ushered off of the bus and into a place that was colourful, had a swimming pool and all kinds of music playing. One minute I was pointing at a chicken, the next I was sat in a heavily paper decorated room, with a man at the front giving a motivational speech half in English and Half in Swahili, this is where things got confusing. When he spoke in English I understood, then he switched to Swahili and back to English where the topic had changed and I was lost again. Regardless it was a surreal experience, especially when I realised there was music in the background which I’m 90% sure was Aqua on repeat with an added soundtrack of a baby laughing, a rooster and fair ground rides. You can’t make this up.

This ran quite late and as we approached the primary school all of the kids were filing out and going home. We were really upset we missed it, but by some luck 6 of us (Me, Dan, Miheala, Alex, Charlie and Boyana) got the chance to head to a childrens home, not many people are let in there or allowed to take photos, we were lucky. Our projects were based around poverty and the gap between the rich and poor so we headed off to ‘quickly’ interview the owners.

We didn’t know what to expect but we were definitely lost for words and got a bit emotional. These children have been abused and abandoned and those at the Faraja children’s home strive to give them a better life, regardless of conditions. These kids were just happy to have a roof over their head and somewhere safe to be. Regardless of what awful things
have happened to them they still smiled and posed like mad for pictures, alongside absolutely going crazy when we gave
them our phones and cameras to play with.

After that emotional journey and leaving the orphanage a thankyou note for their amazing opportunity and hospitality, we headed for gong hills with everyone to watch the sunrise, which was incredible. No photo could ever justify that view. No one could ever justify the madness of Bus drivers over here, the dedication to getting somewhere… an English bus driver would take one look at that road and hill to get to gong and be like “sod this im off for a pint”.

CM4K QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ay you know your seats a chair right?” (Spencer, C. 2015)

Today we started the workshops and community project with Kenyata University. I am one of the four students who are handling the photography group. The whole thing begun with us asking the students from the host university what it is that they would like to learn more about. Overall everyone said that they are very keen to learn more about how to manually control the camera.

I really enjoyed the way the whole day played out as everyone contributed to the knowledge sharing process. It was a very interactive workshop where the focus was on on hands-on experience. We were asking each other questions and trying out different techniques you can use on manual mode. Everyone seemed to enjoy working with the different shutter speed settings and capture sharp movement or blur.

After everyone was properly informed on the meaning of community media, we started a brainstorming session about how the spirit of community can be represented with photographs. We settled on the topic: “The faces of the community”, which will feature both portraits and street photography with human presence. For the last part of the day we broke up into groups and took some portraits of each other as well as other people on campus. We also spoke about the concept of digital storytelling and discussed a possible collaboration with the audio workshop group in which we could use some of their recorded interviews in combination with our images to create something to tell the story of the community and the importance of community media.

The atmosphere was amazing throughout the whole day and everyone was very enthusiastic and passionate about what they were doing. That made the whole thing an even more worthwhile experience.

And just a little non-work related update. We got to experience a crazy amount of rain being poured down on us in record time.

Even though I was with a couple of hours sleep, and generally not the greatest morning person, today’s early start had me in good spirit and in a mood to make the very most out of today’s first session of workshops at Kenyatta university. We gathered and checked all our equipment, loaded it into the minivan with us and headed off and just under an hour later we arrived at Kenyatta university.
I really didn’t know what to expect of our first day, especially meeting the Kenyan students and how they would respond and collaborate with us in the workshops, as I never properly engaged with any African youth before and had no idea as to what kind of personalities I would come across – but I kept an open mind and prepared for any scenario.

To familiarize ourselves and sort of break the ice between all of us, I initiated a seating arrangement with us all sitting on the floor in a big circle and everyone introducing ourselves in turns. I think this was vital to the rest of the workshop as we all had eye to eye communication and could speak to each other without having to raise our voice to be heard, as everyone was in audible range of each other.
The workshop shaped up pretty quickly, and I realized from the first hour of the workshop that they Kenyan students we are working with are actually very intelligent people that absolutely feed off knowledge and education. I was blown away by how eager they were to engage and express ideas and, in general, stimulate a discussion with us from UoB, as well as discussing various ideas and issues about their community amongst themselves. Specifically, a small discussion debate rose between two Kenyan students about the messages that Kenyan entertainment television transmits to its audiences, and what I was really happy to see was each person respecting each other’s view.

The rest of the first part of the workshop ran smoothly and according to plan, with us splitting into smaller groups in order to focus on the Zoom microphone and give them an opportunity to have a hands on experience with how it works. By the time we finished the lunch break and began the 2nd part of the workshop we had established a pleasantly friendly bond and could communicate on a comfortable level with the students, which resulted in the Audacity introduction being successful.

By the end of the day, although really happy with all the work we had done and what achieved, we were desperate to get back to the flat and relax…but the return journey odyssey that was in store with us consisted of encountering crazy cd-selling babyman, traffic police enforcement and horrendous Nairobi traffic.
Expected return journey time: ~1 hour
Final return journey time: 3.5 hours

Time for a couple o’ Heinees and Casa Del Lads shenanigans !

Leaving frosty London, arriving in snow-ridden Zurich and several hours later in balmy Nairobi just below the equator was somewhat of an unusual experience for me. The fact that at the same point in time people are shoveling snow on one side of the globe and sweating buckets on the other seems fascinating to me – what a world.
Arriving in Nairobi at about half 7 in the evening, the process of getting visas, collecting luggage, exchanging currency and getting the bus to our accommodation was surprisingly a lot easier than I imagined. What really made an impression was the amount of security in and around the airport – security and police casually patrolling with AK-47s made it seem as if they knew something bad was going to happen, but apparently it’s just how it is everyday other day around Nairobi airport.
Apart from the grotty shower and below average beds, our accommodation isn’t too bad – we have a shopping center and a bar just outside our doorstep.
I got scanned and body-searched by security when entering the shopping center – it seems they’ve had problems with security in enclosed public areas before and can’t risk not scanning and searching everyone entering the shopping centre…again – what a world.

I’m really looking forward to starting out tomorrow, initially meeting our partners at Kenyatta university and conducting workshops. I won’t deny, I don’t expect us to be top notch tomorrow as we will need a short period of time to adjust to being on the opposite side of the classroom…nevertheless, I’m sure we will get used to it quickly enough and be able to deliver the workshops confidently.
I can not wait to go to more rural areas and spend time within African culture, but one step at a time.

Off to sit in the living room of the apartment for our workshop briefing with Pete and then off to hit the bar! Tusker beer is a must for those visiting Kenya for the first time 🙂 Just don’t put ice in your drinks!

This was the first day of the fieldtrip collaborations and some of the students were a little nervous. They needn’t have been because with the exception of not really understanding the bried, the students from Kenyatta were very keen both to learn and share the knowledge they possessed – which of course is the perfect recipe for collaborative learning.

We had been led to believe that the students understood the concept of community media centres….when it became clear that this was not the case Willice from the International Youth Council explained the hopes for Ngong, the community we are visiting today, and I gave an impromptu lecturette on community, community networking and community media centres. After that things ran much more smoothly and all the participants engaged most productively.

I leave the students to describe their activities but I was most impressed with both sets of students and am really looking forward to the next 2 days and the concluding presentation/exhibition.

Unfortunately, the trop home was not so good. It took us 3.5 hours for a trip that should take 40-50 minutes. This included an hour and a quarter waiting on the police to accept a bribe from the driver to give him back his licence for a minor traffic violation resulting from the chaos and confusion their traffic management was causing. I had not experienced police corruption before, only heard of it, but it angered me immensely.

We arrived back at the apartments only to find no water at all….so showers and toilets were no gos…..a frustrating end to an entertaining day. As I write this we are running a little late as getting 14 people through 2 showers is a challenge! Oh yes……the water is back on as of 7.00 a.m

After spending sometime discussing the workshops yesterday evening in our living place, today is the first day we actually run the designed workshops. With a early start, it has been a long day really. When our mini van arrived and drove into the Kenyetta University, the first impression it gives me was it is a massive university comparing to ours. I think you can hardly see such a big leisuring ground available in the UK. Right after the stunning feeling it gives me, we walked to the hall start listening to few brief talks by the representatives from both institutions. From these speeches, I see how both institutions are benefiting differently from their perspectives.

Having a nice tea break afterwards, we started working with a groups of students who are really enthusiastic in the radio sector. I can feel their enthusiasm for audio and radio. It leads to me thinking of where’s my enthusiasm gone when I first chose to study Media overseas in the UK. I feel ashamed when some of them saying that they really like acting or want to get into the film/ radio industry, cause they said this in a way that you can see ‘fire burning’ hugely in their eyes. Two of the students later on have a little argument (or maybe I should call it a keen discussion) on whether radio production should focus on political issues or sociable issues like relationship and sex. Through this discussion, it is an example showing us radio is definitely a place, a platform and a field to include different people’s thoughts and opinion. There’s definitely no right or wrong answer of what should be broadcasted on the radio.

Today’s workshop also includes a little introduction of the Zooms and activities for the student to play around with it. I can see how happy the student are when they are able to deal with the basic cutting and pasting of the recordings and manage to put them in the right order. Lastly, the audio workshop ends up with some plannings being done on what topics to focus on when we are going to do the recordings and information collections in Ngong tomorrow for the establishment of the community media centre.

After all today, I looking forward to keep working with the audio group of students in the following two days. They are so nice and I do feel we are collaborating with each other. Even through sometimes I am not hundred percent sure the answer of the questions that they asked me, they didn’t turn a black eye on me and was trying to discuss, find and work out the answer together with me which makes me feel not that embarrassing and warm to work with.

Firstly I’m going to start this blog with a picture of me and the BEST DJ in Kenya, DJ WISDOM.

secondly, last night I also took over the role of Kenyas best DJ for exactly 40 seconds:

When my alarm went off this morning at 6am I was hoping it was some kind of joke, it wasn’t. 6am isn’t a difficult time to get up at but we are three hours ahead so my body clock screamed “its 3am GO TO SLEEP”.

An awful start to the morning for me personally, I managed a bite out of a piece of bread before running to the bathroom to be sick constantly for about 10 minutes, always a pleasant experience.

Kenyetta is not a university, it is a town. It takes one hour to walk from one end of the campus to another!  Speaking to the students was an eye opener, these people are aware of how lucky they are to be at university and are so eager to learn, it makes you reflect on how spoilt you are. They commit to university 7 days a week, all day. Where as I complain about getting up at 8am for a FILM SCREENING.

Initially our group had a bit of a meltdown when we began; We felt like the students were dis-interested and were not listening to a single word we were saying. A particular group we were working with just seemed like they didn’t want to be there, but really they just didn’t understand the concept of the work at hand. The concept is to make a video about how a CMC can help an issue, in our case thats the gap between rich and the poor. The poor can seek help in the Community Media Centre and use the facilities and exchanges with other people to learn and gain experience and get a job.

This was lost in translation but after lunch we sat down with them and explained properly and they turned out to be probably the best group out of the other 2 in our Video workshop. We are going to produce the best video, just saying.  Im gonna add in some photos I took of me and Charlie’s group being the best 🙂


AND NOW FOR THE TRIP HOME.
Was an absolute NIGHTMARE. Stuck in what was essentially a tiny can with wheels, in heat, in traffic, is never fun. We called the van the “banterbus” but that lasted for about an hour, the fun and games stopped 2 miles from home when our Bus driver, Victor (shout out VICTOR) essentially got arrested and we were left on the roadside, confused for about an hour.  He had his driving license taken off him and eventually had to bribe the police to get it back.

Tomorrow we’re headed to Ngong to work with primary school children and have our groups bring their video ideas to life, I’m really excited about this.

CM4K QUOTE OF THE DAY 
“a man dressed as a baby tried to sell  us CDs but we were like NO. non of this.”

the banter bus aka an empty tin of beans. lacking banter after 3 and a half hours.