Extracts from the Newsletter of the Ursuline Fund for Kenya ~ Winter 2006

Here is an extended update from the Kenyan coal-face. Our sisters work to help those help themselves, who have to struggle with poverty on a daily basis. Sr. Clare Ursula Tobin, Regional Leader, and proud daughter of Kilkenny, wrote to us earlier this year.

“We spent a few hours in Kibera slum (in Nairobi). It is the largest slum in Africa – 700 acres, home to nearly one million people. It is incredible and shocking: People milling about in throngs. The smells, stench and flies are overpowering.

The one-roomed houses on top of each other are separated by an open sewer which flows into the river, which, in turn, is fouled up with all kinds of garbage. The rows of washing hang from roof to roof across the narrow paths.

We visited schools there too however, which are oases of cleanliness, happiness and life in the midst of sheer desperation. With the donations you gave me, I was able to offer some help toward the projects there: food for AIDS orphans, and for mothers on AIDS treatment, fresh water for ill families, and medical care for those in greatest need.

I have been in Kenya a long time, and have seen Kibera from “a distance”. I must confess that nothing had prepared me for the reality.

The rest of Kenya is battling with famine and drought. It is cloudy these days, and the high temperatures are a good sign that rain is on the way. That is our prayer. Some areas have not had rain for three seasons. At every junction there is a collection for money and food for the north, where the people are worst hit.

Competition between the wild-life (they have come out of the National Parks in droves) and the domestic animals (cows, goats, sheep) for the scarce water-resources and scanty grazing is causing more tension. Three people were killed by wild animals a few weeks ago, and twenty houses have been toppled by the elephants in their search for grain. Even here in Karen, (a suburb of Nairobi, named after Karen Blixen, whose story was told in the film: “Out of Africa”) the Maasai (nomadic warrior-herdsmen) are everywhere. When their animals can go no further, they fall, so we see carcasses strewn by the wayside. At a feeding camp recently, children and monkeys were seen tussling for food.

The people of Kitui are surviving on the mangoes. It is terrible to see last season’s crop still in the fields, where it died from drought before it bore fruit. Please pray that the rains will come to all areas. Our sisters are well: very busy helping with famine relief and caring for the sick and weak. Sr. Rose Wasike had a queue of a hundred parents and sick children when I called to see her in Kitui Hospital.

Sr. Margaret Mary O’Connell (Kerry woman, Tipp woman, woman for all seasons!) is in great form, even though she had a touch of Malaria last week. She has a large First Year class in her Polytechnic this year. I hope to go to Turkana on Thursday D.V. The new schools in Kitale, as well as those in Kanamkemer and Lorugumu (Turkana) are doing well. The Dispensaries are busy too, and they are awaiting medical supplies as I write. We hope to get them before Thursday, so we can bring them up.

The people are full of hope, despite much bad news, and they look forward to the rains coming. . . They are amazing! Your donations and gifts to our work enable us to bring relief to so many in different ways. On behalf of all here, I want to thank you for the privilege of being your “extended arm”, and of seeing and experiencing the joy and relief when help is given. All kinds of blessings are bestowed on us!

Sr. Maire sings!

With love and gratitude, Sr. Clare Ursula Tobin
Now, a word about the “support services” of the Ursuline Fund for Kenya

a. In Aug. Sr. Maire O’Donohoe and her guitar sang and played on the streets of Cork. There was a late-summer spirit of generosity abroad, and for five hours of singing, she and her accomplices (including Srs. Perpetua Nyakundi, Sr. Eunice Ndana, and Sr. Jacinta Kerubo) managed to harvest almost 830 euro. It has gone, every last cent, to boost the coffers of the Ursuline Kenya Fund. Every little helps!

b. In mid-September, The Irish Catholic newspaper published an article on the Ursulines, by the journalist, Sarah McDonald. It focused on our work in Kenya, and told of the murder of Ursuline sister, and teacher, Anna Nanjala in the Turkana desert in 2004. There were generous responses, both financial and prayerful, from a number of readers.

c. The new database of the Fund finally got up and running in the course of this past year. It was a relief, and is proving itself these days!

d. A final thought for when you have time for reflection:

“What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters indeed,
compared with what lies within us.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

Newsletter of the Ursuline Trust Fund for Kenya Autumn/Winter 2005

Report of Sr. Anne Marie Dixon on her first trip to Kenya, Summer 2005, to visit her sister-Ursulines there.

Nairobi is situated at approximately 6000 feet above sea level, and usually has a mild climate. But not this summer! I experienced it as cold, wet and grey and was glad of my fleece!! Karen, a suburb of Nairobi, named in honour of Karen Blixen, of “Out of Africa” fame, is both lovely and poverty-stricken by turns. Here it is that Sr. Clare Ursula, the current regional leader of the Ursulines in Kenya, resides. Our house in Karen is a centre of Formation and of Hospitality. Srs. Leah, Perpetua, Pamela, Kevina live in the community with Clare.

Srs. Pamela and Perpetua work in Formation with the twenty-one Junior Professed sisters, and the Novices.

Srs. Leah and Kevina are teaching in Forest School in Nairobi. At the beginning of this academic year Leah had 115 pupils in her class! It’s hard to know whether to weep or to rejoice! Education at primary level is often reduced to an exercise in crowd control.

Merici House, Kibomet, Kitale - St. Ursula’s Dispensary

In 2003, once the water-supply had, eventually, been secured, building started on St. Ursula’s Dispensary. In building the Dispensary local home-cured building blocks were bought, which gave local people much needed money for school fees, and helped introduce the sisters into the community. A Mother and Child Care Programme is based today in the dispensary.

Srs. Martha and Francisca are our sister-nurses who work in the dispensary. Their work includes visitation of schools for preventative and curative assistance. There are many diseases endemic in Kenya. These include Malaria, Typhoid, HIV/AIDS.
Without the help that is so generously sent from Ireland and elsewhere, our sisters would simply be unable to continue their work in the dispensary.

Kitale Primary School
Sr. Alice teaches in this school. It is one of the materially poorest schools in the area. It has four permanent classrooms (i.e. made of bricks) and five semi-permanent classrooms (i.e. mudwalled) all with earthen floors.

Some of the classrooms are extremely small in relation to the number of pupils. There are already 500 pupils in the school, and the number is increasing each term due to the policy of free primary education. Pupils range in age between 4 and 20 years. There is no age limit on admission. There are even occasional pupils in their seventies to be found, sitting alongside their more junior classmates! Most of the pupils come from very poor families, and are often bereft of their parents, orphaned most frequently due to HIV/AIDS. Grandmothers, in particular, seek to sustain the lives of the children, and give them structure, but they are often ill-equipped by reason of age and poverty; for Kenya cannot afford social insurance for all, and the older women depend on the increasingly fickle rains to enable them work in the shambas to have food for the little ones. There is usually no income coming into the majority of such homes, for the purchase of school books, class materials or medication. Our sisters are sometimes in a position to help subsidize the poorest children, due to generous friends in Ireland and elsewhere.

New Pre School Kitale
The building of the pre-school: two classrooms, staff room, store room, office, and the ubiquitous “long-drop” toilets, began in 2004. Again, the discovery of water after a number of long and arduous digs, made it all possible.

Fourteen undergraduate students from St. Angela’s College of Domestic Science, Lough Gill, Sligo, came to Kitale this summer, with staff-members, Sr. Anne Conway, Mr. Michael Collins and Mr. and Mrs. Downes. They completed the fencing around the school compound, furnished classrooms, made desks, chairs and cupboards, painted and decorated, made teaching aids and jigsaws, swings, slides, seesaws! The students, mainly young women, were good (as you would expect!) at sand-papering, painting, cutting timber, twisting wire, and ruining their beautiful nails in the process! They contributed all the material themselves, and covered other costs: in financial terms their generosity amounted to over 20,000 euro. In human terms it was priceless.

St. Martin’s Diocesan House, Kitale
This is a house of hospitality for missionaries on the long journeys up- and down-country. (A journey from Nairobi to Turkana takes all of fourteen hours, and that even when road and weather conditions are good!) Sr. Clotilde runs the house, and it is in tiptop shape. It is constantly in use and has a warm, welcoming atmosphere. We visitors spent a lovely few days there, and were treated royally. (Sr. Anne Marie is top left in the photograph.)

St. Patrick’s Dispensary Kanamkemer Lodwar, Turkana
The dispensary caters for 60-90 patients per day. In addition to their work there, our sisters also do home visitation and school visits. The dispensary has a laboratory where tests for Malaria, HIV etc. are carried out, and treatment given immediately. Sr. Jacinta is in charge here. Building-work on an extension to the waiting-area of the dispensary has recently been completed.

Kanamkemer School , Lodwar
Sr. Catherine teaches here, in a primary school that has over 1600 pupils. The numbers have been increasing steadily over the last three years because of the new, idealistic government policy of “free” education. The government has sadlynot been in a position to provide additional teachers needed, so class sizes can be daunting.)

Lorugumu, Turkana Desert
50 kilometres south-west of Lodwar, and now on the road to nowhere, one “finds” Turkana Girls Secondary School.” Sisters Florence, Francesca and Philomena work here. Again in Lorugumu, we are very fortunate in having two bore holes to supply water to the secondary school, primary school and mission. Without the water, there could be no school at all.

The secondary school has a full quota of 320 students. All students are necessarily boarders in this desert region, which is the home of the proud, nomadic Turkana people. When we were visiting there the Form 4 students were doing mock exams (similar to the mock Leaving Certificate in Ireland.) and the rest of the students were busy studying for their end of term tests. I was very impressed by the work ethic, as students sat happily under the thorny acacia trees, studying in sunshine so glorious as to be almost impossible to work in! How I wished for the same application under darker northern skies – and a share in the sunshine!

Kitui
Here again, in the “bush” and semi-arid country of the Kamba people, Ursulines are involved in two boarding schools: St Angela’s Secondary School, where Sr. Teresia teaches, St. Ursula’s Secondary School where Srs. Kawingi and Jacinta teach. Ithookwe Primary School, Tungutu, where Sr. Rosalyn teaches, is a local government day school. In all of these schools one gets the feeling of a great Catholic Christian tradition, planted and passed on by the many Irish Ursulines who blazed a trail down the years, and continuing to strengthen today in the sure, strong hands of the Kenya people themselves.

Kitui District Hospital
Sr. Rose works here as a Clinical Officer. She diagnoses illnesses, and with the help of aid from Ireland, is able to subsidize people who cannot afford the cost of medication; that’s c.60% of the people she treats.

Mutune Social Centre Kitui
Mutune Social Centre is a youth Polytechnic run by the Ursuline Sisters, and focussed on domestic economy. crafts and skills. The Centre was originally started over thirty years ago, to help illiterate women of the area earn some extra income, and at the same time to help improve the living standards in the local homes. Over the years the emphasis has shifted to catering for young school-leaver girls, whose strongest gifts lie in their manual and creative abilities, or whose parents cannot afford to pay the Secondary School (i.e. academic) fees for four years. They choose instead to do a one or two year course in the Centre. Sister Margaret Mary is the Administrator, and Sister Cecilia is a teacher. The goals of Mutune Social Centre are:

1. To give young girls a sense of their own dignity and worth
2. To teach them skills which enable them to become self employed
3. To help them to become good mothers and good homemakers
4. To help them to take their rightful role in society.

The Centre offers the following courses in Dressmaking, Tailoring, Crafts, Knitting (hand and machine), Agriculture, English, Money Management, Christian Religious Education.

The students also take state-recognised Trade Tests in both Dressmaking and Tailoring.

Seven teachers, a matron, a watchman and a cook are employed in the Centre. It is not government-funded, and is fully boarding. As a result it is totally dependent on school fees for its income. Even though the fees are as low as 250 euro per year, the students are often unable to pay them. It is not easy to run such a centre over the long-term, but as the true Kamba says “ Shauri ya Mungu “ which means “That is God’s problem, and God will provide”. But even God needs to provide with a little help from friends often! If it were not for the aid that they receive from Ireland, our sisters, in Mutune Social Centre and elsewhere, would be unable to even begin to meet the many needs of the people whose paths cross theirs every day.

My few weeks in Kenya were wonderful. They provided a marvellous opportunity to get to know the country, and gave me some understanding and appreciation of the African culture and way of life. I also got an insight into how the work begun in faith by our Irish sisters almost fifty years ago, is begin continued in the same faith, in the midst of new challenges, by our younger Kenyan sisters, who, as Kenyans themselves, can respond with an understanding and a wisdom that would forever be beyond those of us who “came from afar”.

“Ar scath a cheile a mhaireann na daoine.”
“In the shelter of one another the people live.”

– Old Irish saying.