This week it was reported that the El Nino rains have begun in East Africa. While it would be easy to assume that this would provide relief to the drought sticken region, the rains are likely to bring new risks http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-20-voa39.cfm

“Kenya is having a terrible time. But it would not be doing so if the breadbasket in the west of the country had not been torn apart by ethnic violence. If the agricultural outreach programmes, which helped farmers to improve productivity through the 1960s and 1970s, had not collapsed, if the Government’s milk and beef marketing system was not ruined by corruption, and if people had not been settled on marginal land that can never sustain them, then Kenya would be able to feed itself even in times of drought”  Sam Kiley, TimesOnline

Unfortunately, the people who are working so hard to preserve and improve the Kenyan environment are up against the seemingly unstoppable powers of climate change.

Projects from tree plantations, to solar-powered cookers made from cardboard boxes in Kibera, are gathering momentum. But so are the numbers of people left with nothing as a result of both drought and flooding.

Forgive this huge generalisation,  but in my experience of working with young Kenyans, is that they rarely show a defeatist attitude. Even with the current drought crisis in East Africa,  my contacts in both rural and urban Kenya remain upbeat about fulfilling their hopes and aspirations for the country.

In Nyanza, I was totally bowled over by the work going on to protect and improve the rapidly degrading landscape.

One such project is the Ecosan pit latrine project. which is designed to improve sanitation, and with the help of charcoal, recycle waste safely to help farming.

The Unit serves three purposes: 1. Safe waste disposal 2. Improving environmental health 3. Being a prerequisite for organic farming, which is a livelihood alternative to wetland farming.

Patrick Omullo, built his own prefabricated ecosan in less than four days. but the standard ecosan unit takes a week to put up!  

A couple of organisations really pushing the boundaries for change in Nyanza Province are the following:

Sunset Birders

Osienala

During my time investigating the issues relating to climate change and migration, I have heard countless stories of why people migrate, and the realities of settling into a new life. The task of trying to make enough money to feed and educate their families, involves challenges on an epic scale.

Migration has existed for generations. I come from an Irish family, so I am fully aware of the history relating to why people relocate. My mother arrived in Liverpool on a boat from Ireland in the 1960s. She thought the locals were speaking a different language for several days, but she believed she was in a  place that would offer her a better future. Her twin brother, chose the other option associated with Irish migration, and made his way to the USA. Neither have ever returned home.

Our television screens constantly show the suffering of refugees pushed from their homes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, and more. But this is not new, particularly when considering the mass migration that occurred as a result of World War 2. Thy sympathetic cradling of a displaced baby by Angelina Jolie is not a new image.

So what makes today’s situation so much greater?  The size of the problem and the numbers it will effect. The severity of the various problems now pushing people from their homes, is far greater than has ever been anticipated. Migration is large, and problematic, and most importantly it is complex.

The boundaries are blurred. Climate change will push people from their homes in dramatic scenes, as witnessed in last week’s numerous natural disasters. It will also make people economic migrants, as they head to cities in search of work after their crops fail to grow through drought.

As I have previously discussed on this blog, differentiating between a climate refugee, and a refugee of war, will continue to be debated as more and more conflict breaks out over farmland, and cattle. Politics, tribalism, and economics will continue to play an essential role in the situation.

Developed countries now accomodate the majority of forced migrants. Ways of coping and dealing with this will continue to be scrutinised, and the pressure on governments to help support less developed nations is continuing to grow.

On Tuesday I began the process of capturing the tape into Avid (the software I will be doing my editing on). This was an incredibly slow process, not helped by the fact that I discovered a virus on my hard drive, and had to then copy everything onto a new one.

Capturing from tape is done in real time, so it was a good opportunity to watch the footage and begin to plan how to use it. I’ve been playing around with some ideas about how to break up the stories into more bite-size pieces of audio and video, and this is my plan so far…

• There will be one main video piece that I don’t want to break up, as I feel this would ruin the narrative. It will be approximately 10-15 minutes long. The video will address the main idea of the project – The effects of climate change on human migration and displacement in Kenya. I will start with the rural stories from the flood plains, and then cross over into the effects this could have on urbanisation and life in Kibera.
• I invisage having a series of two minute video and audio packages appearing underneath the main video, which will contribute to the themes already raised.These will explore in detail other aspects of life in Kibera.

Packages  (of around 2-3 minutes in length)

• Fears for the ever expanding population of Kibera and the risk of further tribal tensions. This will incorporate interviews from human rights workers in the slum, as well as an interview with a woman who was horrifically burnt during the 2008 post-election violence. (Video)
• The importance of religion to residents of Kibera. (Video)
• Kibera’s orphans. A visit to one of Kibera’s many HIV/Aids orphanages. (Audio)
• Nairobi’s refugee crisis. While not directly connected to climate change, Kenya’s cities are also full of refugees from countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Burundi, Ethiopia and Rwanda. The issues effecting these communities are not very different to those seeking work and shelter coming from the rural areas. Due to security issues, the interviewees identities will be hidden, thus lending itself well to a radio documentary format. (Audio)
• The UNHCR. A look at the UNHCR’s role in the increasing numbers of refugees through climate change. Also exploring the challenges in protecting IDP’s (internally displaced people). (Print article)

One man was the same age as me. He had fled Burundi after his entire family were killed while he was at school. He was just seventeen when he arrived in Kenya alone, and was sent to a UNHCR refugee camp. However, when he entered, he realised that the people responsible for killing his family were also there. The boy told the aid workers running the camp that he could not stay, and they informed him that if he left the camp, they could provide him with no aid or support. Scared of being killed, he left the camp and slept outside the gates.

Similar stories were repeated by the others, including accounts of persecution by the Kenyan police, and a lack of support from international agencies. Amongst those I interviewed were men and women from Sudan, Ethiopia and Burundi.

The main problem I have had with the interviews done in Nairobi has been with sound. It really is the noisiest place on earth! Understandably, it is not possible to find quiet places in the middle of a slum, but even with these radio interviews outside of Kibera, the sound of traffic is likely to be a problem in post production.

I am staying in a hostel with some guys from Morocco and Colombia and they are here to work on the fibre optic cable, which will get Kenya’s Internet connection up to speed. Every morning at breakfast I tell them to get to work and hurry up!

Granny Obama takes visitors between the hours of ten and five, and is apparently very friendly to all well wishers. I was really excited about going round for tea – mainly so that I could get an amazing profile picture for facebook. However, I got delayed with some filming at Wetlands, and decided to give it a miss…until next time anyway!

We were advised to speak with the government official in Busia who deals with the IDP’s in the region.

We were ushered in to a meeting he was having to introduce ourselves and explain what we were doing. He then told me that he did not do interviews on camera, and that he could not be sure of my motive. Fair enough - and a predictable response from anyone who works for a government, which is plagued with accusations of corruption on a daily basis. However, he did tell me quite plainly that all those who had been displaced by the floods last year had returned home, and that enough aid had reached the region.

So we decided to dig a bit deeper and head to the flood plains to see for ourselves. We hired a car for the day and headed along the most awful roads ever, deep into the Kenyan/Ugandan countryside. It was so dusty and dry, and I was praying that are car would not break down.

Eventually we reached the town of Budalangi and locals informed us of a displaced peoples camp that still had many families living in it. So off we went for a few more miles until we stumbled across the camp.

I won’t go into too much detail about it, as the filming and interviews I did there will speak for themselves. However, I have to say that none of us were prepared for what we saw. The representative from the Red Cross and my guide Paul were both visibly shocked by the terrible conditions these 15 families were living in. The first few minutes were a bit worrying too, as the people though we were an aid delivery. It could have been a bit of an ambush situation, but luckily Paul and Allan from the Red Cross set things straight.

No food or water has been delivered to them since November and they are miles from anywhere. The children are terribly malnourished and the stagnant pools of water around are bringing disease throughout the camp. The tents are not much more than a piece of tarpaulin, which were donated by UNICEF nearly a year ago. They are too hot and there is not enough room for all of the families to fit inside.

It really was terrible. They can’t return to their homes because the houses are gone and they have nothing to start a fresh with. It was a sad picture, but yet again the people spoke with dignity and respect, willing to show us their lives. I really have no idea what they are going to do though.

On the way home, we were all quite reflective about what we had seen. We then got flagged down by the police. It is common in Kenya that the police will stop your vehicle and ask for a bribe. Our driver got out of the car to speak with them. When he returned he was smiling. He told us that they had wanted money, but that he said to them I was with the BBC. They instantly got scared and let him go. Quick thinking on his part!