People Web International

By PWI Reporter Kenya

Internally displaced persons received yet another hostile reception in Trans-nzoia County after the post election victims from the county and leaders blocked them from entering the 600 acres land purchased by government to settle them.

The displaced persons were first rejected in Narok and coast and yesterday they were also chased by residents in Trans-nzoia County.

The leaders, squatters and IDPs who received the planned resettlement of over 700 IDPs from other parts of the county to a private land in Trans-nzoia County stormed at Kwanza DC’s office before they turned back the IDPs who were transported in parastal buses and government trucks.

The IDPs were forced to turn their lorries and buses around and drove fast to the Trans-nzoia west DC and Kitale police station for protection.

The IDPs and leaders from the county later proceeded to the farm and took possession of the land believed to have been purchased by the government.

Security armed with riot gear were deployed to guard the farm about 30 kilometers from Kitale but were overwhelmed by hostile local landless people that had invaded the farm.

Forestry and wildlife minister Dr Noah Wekesa while in Keese secondary school told residents that he will not allow IDPs from other areas to be settled in the county at the expense local ones.

Dr Wekesa said the government should instead resettle IDPs from the county that were displaced in 1987, 1997, 2002 and 2007 who were languishing in IDPs camps.

“I will not allow IDPs from other counties to settle in Kwanza constituency because Trans-nzoia has more IDPs and squatters than any other place in the country." said Dr Wekesa.

Parliamentary aspirant Janepher Masis and nominated councilor Pius Kauka termed the move as incitement by the government saying Kwanza was volatile and wrestling IDPs from other counties could complicate the conflict in the area.

Councilor Kauka said IDPs from Teldet, Gatatha, Katwaka Nasianda GSU Salama GSU A/B, Cheptumbelio, Gitwamba and Kiminini were still languishing in camps.

The leaders complained that IDPs programme was implemented selectively and vowed to protest to the highest authorities including filing a case in court.

The squatters from Sabaot, Bukusu Turkana and Pokot who live adjacent to the controversial land have also invaded the farm.

Contacted for comment, north rift regional commissioner Wilson Wanyanga assured the IDPs from Nakuru that they will settle in the farm.

Mr Wanyanga warned leaders who were inciting residents to invade the farm that they risked being arrested. He said the government was working on the Trans-nzoia case and soon the victims of post election will be resettled along with landless people. He said he had called leaders from the area to be formally informed over government moves and asked them to be patient and keep the peace.

Tension is high at Kwanza district as a group of squatters continue to invade the purchased farm in Endebess division.

-- by Johnstone Wanjala - PWI Reporter Kenya - kenya@peoplewebinternational.com

20-04-2011

By PWI Reporter Kenya

We treat the poor no better than chewing-gum stuck to our shoes.

If you are poor in Kenya, you must never fall seriously ill. If you do, your descent into hell will begin. Assuming you have a local clinic, you will in all likelihood be given the shoddiest treatment there. Misdiagnoses are legion; but because the victims are poor, no investigation is ever conducted. If you are sent to hospital, you will not be allowed near a bed unless a sizeable sum is deposited. Seriously injured people often go from hospital to hospital pleading for treatment. Many die in the process.

If you are poor and in hospital, your kith and kin will be treated like animals when they come to visit you. They will be kept waiting at the gate for hours, even though you are in a serious condition inside and might be in your final hours. Watchmen take a particular delight in tormenting the poor, even though they are poor themselves.

If you are poor and you die in hospital, your grieving children might not even be allowed to see your body until the bill has been settled. Your children will be faced with the twin traumas of coping with the shock of your departure, and raising the money to clear your final bill (an amount beyond their collective reach). If your bereaved children gather the guts to ask the doctor why you died, they will very likely be shouted at and thrown out. Because you were poor.

If you are poor in Kenya, don’t expect the state to be your friend. Someone I know recently spent a night in jail. His ‘crime’? He happened to be crossing the road when the Head of State’s majestic convoy was passing, and he didn’t make way in time. Because he was poor, he was tossed into a cell without any further questions. It took the intervention of his employer to stop him from languishing in goal for days.

If you are poor in Kenya, you are the easy target of every policeman. You will be frisked on any pretext, and more often than not relieved of your mobile phone and what little money you have in your pocket. If you are poor in Kenya, you don’t want to be in your slum when the police come looking for criminals. Because your life has no value, it will be easily extinguished in the melee. No questions will be asked later.

If you are poor in Kenya and have a job, you will spend every penny you earn putting your children through school. You will have outstanding loans hanging over your head all of your life. Despite this your children are unlikely to prosper, because they will have only received the most rudimentary education which will not allow them to rise out of poverty. They will inherit your poverty, your loans and your outstanding hospital bill.

If you are poor in Kenya, you don’t want to be a young female. Your poverty will sufficient license for every lust-filled male to view you as easy game. Your body will become the playground of others.

If you are poor in Kenya, you have no protection: not against criminals, not against the state, not against daily insults and derision.

If you are reasonably well-off in Kenya you may never experience these things. You will generally be treated with respect. Doctors will take the time and trouble to talk to you. Watchmen will never block your entrance. Policemen will be wary of incurring your wrath. Teachers will give personal attention to your child. You will lead a life of dignity, like every human being should.

Poverty is Problem Number One in Kenya. We can lose ourselves in all the fancy discourse we like; it doesn’t go away. The chattering classes can analyze the likely political scenarios in December; they can discuss how many tourists are coming to Kenya this year; they can have forthright debates on Tony Blair’s legacy, or whether Nicolas Sarkozy is a good French president for Africa, or whatever else preoccupies them. If they lifted their noses from their glasses and closed their mouths for a moment, they would see that they are a tiny minority, an affluent little island of fun surrounded by a heaving, seething sea of abject misery.

There is no easy answer to this problem. A certain amount of poverty is inevitable, after all. But to strip a large part of the population of all esteem is inhuman and unforgivable. Those with means, education and know-how are painting silly castles in the air, when those around them eat off garbage sites.

The causes of poverty are complex; its solutions have many dimensions. Better health, better education, better opportunities are pre-requisites. A thoughtful approach to economic participation is necessary. This requires big ideas and innovative schemes. But more concern, more awareness, more sensitivity is within each person’s grasp. A poor person is just you with less money. Step one is to realize this.

-- by PWI Reporter Kenya - kenya@peoplewebinternational.com

If you want to know what lies ahead for any society, look at the quality of its education. For young people, education is a critical factor. It prepares individuals, as well as societies, to manage their environment for survival as individuals and communities.

 This was long ago recognized in traditional Africa, where informal education of the youth was compulsory, free and universal. Everyone was taught the customs, practices and values of their people. They were prepared for responsible adulthood and equipped with valuable skills, trades and the cultural philosophy of their society.

The changing times demand that we give quality education and training to the youth so as to add value to their and our collective life as a society. Government and other player must consciously endeavor to address this basic right and strive to achieve education for all, which is one of the Millennium Development Goals that Kenya is beholden to.

The idea of universal primary education was first mooted in Kenya in 1973. When marking the 10th anniversary of independence, founding President Jomo Kenyatta declared that primary education would be free from January of the following year. Increasing economic hardship, however, saw the introduction of school fees.

Thirty odd years later, fresh efforts are made to provide free primary education. Some meaningful steps have been made in this direction, but a lot remains to be done.

In many parts of the country, the pupil-teacher ratio is still far from satisfactory as it stands at about 1:60, when it should be 1:40. In some schools, there are more than 100 pupils to each teacher.

This erodes the quality of teaching. In most parts of the country, especially in the rural areas, many children learn under trees or in substandard classrooms.

The children are exposed to the natural elements and other physical circumstances that make learning difficult. While some children are hungry at school, have no access to proper medical care, no uniforms, no sanitary facilities and suffer from the shortage of teachers, others experience the opposite. Standards should be improved so that all children- irrespective of background and circumstance – get quality education.

In free primary education, a lot has been done in the provision of textbooks. While there are still many problems to grapple with at the primary school level, more should be done in regard to secondary schools and other post-primary institutions. Poverty and the adverse economic conditions are such that many parents cannot afford to take and retain children in secondary schools even though the institutions spend less than a dollar on each child a day.

By the United Nations standards, any one who lives on less than a dollar a day lives below the poverty line. It is difficult to imagine how this paltry figure is spread out in schools to cover three meals a day, books, laboratory equipment, new technology, sports facilities and a wide range of co-curricular needs.

It becomes worse when school fees are raised. Different ways of funding secondary education should be sought. How do we increase chances of more students joining high school and at the same time ensure quality education? How do we make the universal average standards in high school qualitative? How do we tap skills, technology and knowledge acquired in high school?

These are the questions we must think about and solve to successfully address the question of life beyond universal primary education.

-- by Johnstone Wanjala - PWI Reporter Kenya - kenya@peoplewebinternational.com