Afri Partner, Abjata Khalif and the Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network

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Abjata Khalif (right) presents a solar powered lamp to a midwife in Sankuri, Garissa, Kenya.
Abjata Khalif (right) presents a solar powered lamp to a midwife in Sankuri, Garissa, Kenya.

Afri supports the work of the Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network, founded by Abjata Khalif, which promotes sustainable development, conflict resolution and protection of human rights. Afri particularly supports these communities through providing solar lamps to school going children and midwives.

These enable children to study after the hours of darkness and help midwives to deliver babies safely.  You can read about this work here: “Tapping Renewable Energy”;  “Traditional Birth Attendants in Garissa, Kenya, now using Solar Lamps“; “Northern Kenyans adopt nocturnal life to escape extreme heat”

Abjata also visited Ireland a number of times as Afri’s guest, speaking at some of our events as well as to students involved in Afri’s educational programme.  He spoke at Sustaining Activism’s Fire in 2013  as well as at Féile Bríde in 2014.

Here is a short film about Abjata Khalif and the work he does (made by Dave Donnellan):-

Northern Kenyans adopt nocturnal life to escape extreme heat

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Asha Abdi, a woman in the northern Kenyan town of Atheley, sits outside a shelter designed to protect residents from stifling daytime heat. Photo: Abjata Khalif/Thomson Reuters Foundation
Asha Abdi, a woman in the northern Kenyan town of Atheley, sits outside a shelter designed to protect residents from stifling daytime heat. Photo: Abjata Khalif/Thomson Reuters Foundation

This report from our partner organisation, the Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network, shows the harsh consequences of climate change and how solar power is helping people to adapt.

By Abjata Khalif

ATHELEY, Kenya – It is 6 pm in Atheley and as the sun sets, bringing with it a cool breeze, this village in northern Kenya breaks out in a flurry of activity.

People gather outside, schoolchildren shout and play, and the sound of ululating fills the air. But this isn’t a wedding or a festival. The residents of this drought-stricken village are celebrating nightfall, because it means they can finally emerge from the shelters that have been protecting them from the extreme heat of the day and carry on with their lives.

“The ‘day’ has started and people are out of their hideouts ready to attend to their daily chores,” says community elder Abdi Abey. “Don’t mistake the celebration for a traditional festival. It’s a celebration of the changing weather.”

Over the past decade, Atheley and other villages in northern Kenya have suffered through a series of every-worsening droughts that have made normal life increasingly difficult. This year, for the first time, temperatures hitting over 40 degrees Celsius during the day have made farming, schooling, healthcare and other daily activities a struggle. Continue reading “Northern Kenyans adopt nocturnal life to escape extreme heat” →

Impressions from Féile Bríde 2014

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This year’s Féile Bríde aimed to mark the issues of “Life: Source or Resource-Enslavement versus sovereignty.”  The day started with the beautiful music of harpist Fionnuala Gill as the Brigid flame was carried into the conference hall.  The event made connections across borders, nations and nationalities, attracting speakers and partners from East Africa to the West of Ireland, in order to tackle together the unequal distribution of resources and the threats to food sovereignty.

Contributors to Féile Bríde 2014: (from left to right): Abjata Khalif (Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network); Mia De Faoite (Turn off the Red Light campaigner); Donal Dorr (author, theologian and Turn off the Red Light campaigner); Fergal Anderson (farmer and Food Sovereignty Ireland), and Pete Mullineaux (poet, dramatist and arts facilitator). Photo: Joe Murray

Speakers included Afri’s partner Abjata Khalif of the Kenyan pastoralist Journalist Network, Fergal Anderson a small farmer from the west of Ireland, veteran writer and campaigner on issues of human trafficking, Donal Dorr, and Mia De Faoite, a survivor of prostitution speaking from her experience. Continue reading “Impressions from Féile Bríde 2014” →

Tapping Renewable Energy

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Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network, a non-profit media organisation based in arid and remote northern Kenya region held one day training and distribution of solar lamps to pastoralist students from far flung Atheley Primary school in Garissa district of North Eastern Province. The training targeted 100 students from drought ravaged and disaster prone village of Atheley that hosts hundreds of climate and conflict displaced families.

Atheley village is located in remote arid region of northern Kenya that borders war-torn Somalia and Ethiopia and the area has no communication or transport infrastructure. Recurrent conflicts and prolonged droughts, high illiteracy level, disasters and humanitarian crisis affect general development of the village.

The village hosts hundreds of families displaced by climatic shocks like prolonged drought, famine, armed conflicts as result of resource competition, flash floods during rainy season, drying water wells and diminishing pastures for livestock, armed cattle rustling necessitated by forced pastoralist restocking, hostile weather in grazing areas that contributes to community displacements, disruption of livelihoods and local traditional barter trade system and closure of traditional markets. Continue reading “Tapping Renewable Energy” →

Traditional Birth Attendants in Garissa, Kenya, now using Solar Lamps

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Abjata Khalif, from Afri’s partner organisation, the Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network, writes about the introduction of solar powered lamps to assist in the work of midwives in Sankuri in Kenya.

Abjata Khalif (right) presents a solar powered lamp to a midwife in Sankuri, Garissa, Kenya.

Hasna Muktar, a traditional birth attendant in remote far flung Sankuri village in northern Kenya prepare her ‘’traditional delivery room’’ ready to offer deliveries services, behavioural change education and other consultation to pregnant women in the village.

Sankuri village is 300 kilometres from main Garissa town and the area has poor communication and transport network forcing residents to use donkey carts and camel to ferry patients to hospitals. The journey takes seven days to main Garissa town and most patients die on the way before receiving medical attention.

The mode of transport and duration it takes to main hospital is not favourable to women experiencing labour or are ready to deliver. The seven days journey is a recipe for obstructed delivery that causes fistula and mother and child death.

But Women in Sankuri have their set of rules and guided by cultural beliefs that traditional birth attendant has the prowess to offer good abdominal palpation , offering ‘’traditional ante natal care and safe delivery services without hassle of going to Garissa hospital and in hand of midwives serving many women at ago.

As the scorching sun set in the horizon, group of eight heavily pregnant women walks into Hasna expansive compound housing her ‘’delivery room’’, consultation room and traditional training room where she educate both pregnant and other women on behavioural change and family planning.

Her traditional facility is built with sticks and grass and the only source of water is from shallow well and no running electricity to light the facility that offered safe deliveries for last twenty five years. Continue reading “Traditional Birth Attendants in Garissa, Kenya, now using Solar Lamps” →