By Donald G McNeil Jnr

Tackling a problem that is widespread but rarely discussed, a new American-backed charity in Kenya has begun making and giving away kits containing washable sanitary pads, underwear and soap.

Many schoolgirls from poor families stay home up to five days each month when they have their period, according to a recent study in rural Ghana by Oxford University scientists. Disposable sanitary pads like those used in wealthy countries cut absenteeism, but poor families often cannot afford them; a Kenyan girl interviewed by the Voice of America said a box of pads costs about the same as a bag of corn flour, and her parents had to choose the latter.

Substitutes like cloth, mattress padding or newspaper may leak or raise the risk of infection. Not only are the girls embarrassed, but as soon as it is clear they are ovulating, pressure for sex from men — often including their male teachers — steadily increases, the study found.

Huru International, in partnership with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Sunflag Steel, Warner Brothers and other backers, developed large but soft terry-cloth pads that can be washed and reused. They are sewn and packaged at a Nairobi community center supported by AmericaShare, the charity arm of Micato Safaris, a New York travel company. The kits also contain information about safe sex and avoiding AIDS. AmericaShare hopes other African women will use microfinance loans to buy the machines needed to make the pads and sell them.

Source: New York Times

By Daniel Howden

Nairobi is a place of starkly different realities, ranging from the appalling slums of Mathare to the plaza paradises of its newest shopping malls.

But there is only one place that can be said to be truly a city within the city: the United Nations compound at Gigiri, pictured right.

The Kenyan capital is the UN’s third-largest headquarters after New York and Geneva, and the base of its environmental body, UNEP.

However, the organisation has a somewhat uneasy relationship with Nairobi itself and chose long ago to retreat behind compound walls and into a world of UN supermarkets, recreational centres and armoured residential quarters.

The city beyond its walls was deemed to be too dangerous, which in bureaucratic speak meant a category C listing. This put the place on a par with Kinshasa, Bamako and Ouagadougou, which to anyone who lives here is odd in the extreme.

Odder still that Johannesburg, with its considerable crime problem, merits an A ranking, seeming to suggest that the league is based on amenities rather than safety.

Nonetheless you would have thought there would be a loud if muffled cheer from Gigiri when staff were told that the Kenyan capital was now safe enough to merit an upgrade to B.

As ever it hasn’t quite worked like that. The pretence that “Nai-robbery” is a seething hotbed of crime earns those hardy souls at the UN a tidy sum in risk allowances and the city’s promotion to the B-league will cost staff up to $5,000 (£3,200) per person annually and a free trip home.

The loudest cheer came from the rest of town, which has long resented the red and white number plates, inflated salaries and tax-free living of their UN counterparts.

Maybe now it’s safe outside, the two communities might get to know each other better.

Connecting the Kenyan way

Despite the oft-quoted maxim of Pliny’s that out of Africa there is always something new, most people believe the traffic heads mainly in the other direction.

It was satisfying then to see that Nokia has been copying Kenya’s Safaricom in moving into mobile banking.

Nokia Money will enable handset owners to transfer money or pay bills via their phone.

None of which would be new to your average Kenyan who has been using M-Pesa for several years.

Micro-payments have been a runaway success in a country where small amounts of money make a big difference to people’s day-to-day survival.

The same micro-transactions have also been evidence of serious economic activity in places where some companies were too timid or complacent to look for it.

The transfer system has seven million clients across Kenya and Tanzania and M-Pesa has become a verb that competes with “send”. Catch-up, Nokia.

Source: The Independent

The citizens of Eldoret, Kenya, celebrate the January arrival of their fire truck with a parade. The truck was a gift from sister city Minneapolis. Credit: provided by International Leadership Institute

A retired Minneapolis firetruck is once again ready to put out blazes — 8,000 miles away in the highlands of Kenya.

The truck was recently shipped to Minneapolis’ sister city, Eldoret, a city of 220,000 in western Kenya, after more than a year of coordination between the cities and a Minneapolis nonprofit.

But even with the 22-year-old, 500-gallon pumper truck, Eldoret’s fire department is still ill-equipped, said LaJune Lange, president of the International Leadership Institute, the group that organized the donation.

“They don’t have a modern sewer and plumbing system,” Lange said. “Basically, if a fire breaks out, they’re [limited to a] garden hose and buckets.”

That’s why the Minneapolis Fire Department is rounding up other decommissioned gear, such as fire hoses and firefighting suits, to send to Eldoret.

“They really have very little to no fire suppression at all,” Assistant Fire Chief John Fruetel said. “There’s not a fire hydrant on every corner like we have here.”

The institute is raising money to send that gear and a handful of Minneapolis firefighters to Eldoret to teach the Kenyans modern firefighting techniques.

“It would be very intense training for a couple of weeks, and something they could leave behind to train their prospective firefighters,” Fruetel said. “[We want] to get them to a point where if there were a major mess, they could at least have some type of fire protection.”

“It’s all about that next step now,” said Coventry Cowens, an institute volunteer who helped coordinate the donation.

At least 30 people died in a church fire in Eldoret after post-election violence in 2008, the BBC reported.

“This was a wake-up call that we needed to get back to the task of helping them modernize their fire service,” Lange said.

Delegates from Eldoret first asked for fire equipment when they visited Minneapolis in the fall of 2008.

“We [had] an opportunity to make that relationship meaningful,” City Council Member Don Samuels said. “We kind of became the big sister.”

The council approved the donation in July, but that was just the first hurdle. The 15-ton rig still had to be shipped a third of the way across the globe at a cost of nearly $20,000.

Eldoret raised the money for the six-week voyage, and when the truck arrived in January, the city had a parade.

Ian Larson is a U of M student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.

By JEFF OTIENO AND PETER LEFTIE

President Kibaki on Sunday evening lifted the suspension of two Cabinet ministers by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, terming it illegal.

Mr Odinga had earlier announced, quoting the National Accord and the Constitution which give him power to supervise ministers, that he was suspending two ministers whose ministries were embroiled in corruption scandals to pave way for investigations. The suspension was to last three months.

Remove ministers

But President Kibaki later said Mr Odinga had no power to remove ministers and the suspension was not done in accordance with the Constitution.

“The legal provisions on which the Prime Minister acted do not confer him the authority to cause a minister to vacate his or her office,” Mr Kibaki said, adding, “The war against corruption will be successfully fought when we do so in accordance with the constitution and the due process of law.”

Asked by reporters whether he had consulted the President, Mr Odinga answered: “Yes, requisite consultations have been made within the government. This is a government decision and I have also quoted the section in the Constitution and the National Accord which give me power to take the action I have made.”

Mr Kibaki, in his statement said he had not been consulted and, also quoting the National Accord and the Constitution, said ministers can only be removed by the President after consultations.

The suspended ministers, Prof Sam Ongeri of Education and William Ruto, dismissed their suspension saying only the President could remove them. On Sunday, Mr Odinga said in order for the government to conduct fair, independent and comprehensive investigations, the two ministers had to step aside.

Gathering evidence

“The decision taken will result in gathering evidence to determine if any individuals need to be prosecuted in the two scandals,” said the PM. Mr Odinga said two forensic audits by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) on the maize scandal and the Internal Auditor General’s report on Free Primary Education had laid credible foundations for the two ministers to be investigated.

In a quick response, Prof Ongeri said: “I have not received any communication from the appointing authority. I am very clear in my mind who the appointing authority is,” he said.

Mr Kibaki said his position on the status of the two ministers should not be interpreted to mean he had abandoned the war against corruption.“Therefore constitutionally, the two ministers remain in office,” the President said.

On Saturday, President Kibaki announced that eight public officials were to step aside in relation to corruption scandals. The education scandal involved fraud where top ministry officials, according to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, drew inflated imprests for seminars.

In the other scandal, maize in the strategic store was sold to profiteers who made millions of shillings while consumers suffered high prices and the government lost an estimated Sh2 billion. Procurement regulations were also broken in the importation of maize.

There were street protests in Eldoret, Kapsabet and Nandi Hills against Mr Ruto’s suspension. Prof Ongeri delayed a press conference he had called for 3pm and was consulting in his office with aides for an hour.

When he finally came out to address the waiting journalists, Prof Ongeri started by cheekily remarking that he was not in shock – in apparent reference to the PM’s announcement. “I hear somebody reporting mshtuko kubwa, hakuna mshtuko (there is no shock),” he remarked before he read a statement.

Section 4 (1) of the National Accord, quoted by Mr Odinga, says the Prime Minister shall have authority to co-ordinate and supervise the execution of the functions and affairs of the government of Kenya including those of ministries.

It also says that the PM “may assign any of the coordination responsibilities of his office to the deputy Prime Minister” and that he is to “perform such other duties as may be assigned to him by the President or under any written law”.

Section 15A of the Constitution on the other hand establishes the coalition government and creates the office of the prime minister, his deputies and ministers. The two sections, however, do not categorically give the PM powers to suspend ministers, leaving the issue to different interpretations.

On Sunday, the PM directed Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, the Criminal Investigation Department and the Inspectorate of State Corporations to jointly investigate the scandals. “The team should review the above two reports, as well as the reports on the maize scandal by the KACC, the Inspectorate of State Corporations and the CID with a view to recommending those cases which should be prosecuted,” he added.

Asked why the Special Programmes Minister, Dr Naomi Shaban, in whose ministry the Strategic Grain Reserve, one of the sources of the maize scandal fell, had not been suspended, Mr Odinga said the minister’s name was not mentioned in the reports.

“Her name (Dr Naomi Shaban) is not specifically mentioned in the reports I quoted. It talks about the ministry (Special Programmes) but does not mention her, however it mentions others who have already stepped aside,” said Mr Odinga adding that the two ministers (Mr Ruto and Prof Ongeri) had been mentioned in the reports.

Mr Ruto was mentioned in the PWC report, also referred to as project green, for having used his personal assistant to write a letter to the National Cereals and Produce Board for an individual to be allocated 1,000 bags.