CRS continues to respond to the post-election crisis in Kenya. Recently, staff from CRS and the Catholic Diocese of Eldoret trained 18 volunteers to serve as hygiene promoters in camps in the Eldoret area of western Kenya. One volunteer, Milka Nyambura Kariuki, lives with 2,000 other displaced people in the Burnt Forest camp. Here she shares how she is working with other volunteers to teach residents about improving camp sanitation and personal hygiene:

Volunteer hygiene promoter Milka Nyambura Kariuki is helping her fellow residents improve sanitation in the camp they are living in after being displaced by the post-election violence in Kenya. Photo by Gilbert Namwonja/CRS

Here I educate community members on hygiene and how to keep our neighborhood clean. Eighteen of us were trained, and later on we divided ourselves into different hygiene promotion groups. I was placed in the hygiene education group. In our group, the activities that we carry out include educating people on how to keep their water containers clean, how to boil water and how to use latrines well.

We also trained people on how to wrap food well because of contamination by house flies. We were taught that house flies can cause diseases like diarrhea, vomiting and even headaches.

As a result of our activities, we have witnessed change in the camp. Our IDP camp has become very clean. For example, the other day we carried out house-to-house visits and saw that people’s water containers were clean, food was well wrapped, and they are keeping their surroundings clean all over. Even if you visit the water points, you will find that containers are very clean. Before our activities, people also used latrines poorly, but now they use them well.

I would like to praise Catholic Relief Services very much because I did not expect to receive such training. Now I have changed as a person, and I have become a good example to others, because we were trained to be models for them. Now they practice hygiene as required.

Although peace is now holding, 150,000 people displaced by earlier violence are still living in camps. An additional 130,000 are estimated to be living with friends or relatives, too scared to return home.

Jerusha Ouma, CRS Kenya project officer for The Children Behind project, received the update below from partners working with CRS to assist 19,000 orphans affected by the HIV pandemic and other vulnerable children.

For the residents of Migori district in western Kenya, life has radically changed since the announcement of the disputed results from the presidential election held on Dec. 27, 2007. The violent reactions of people, especially the youth, led to substantial destruction of property and loss of life. The youths barricaded the roads and burned down property belonging to people from other ethnic groups. Almost everything came to a standstill in the community.

Those who bore the brunt of the crisis included people living with HIV as well as orphans and vulnerable children. Due to inaccessible roads and the ongoing violence, people living with HIV could not access health facilities to collect their antiretroviral medications. They also couldn’t travel safely to collect food supplements provided by CRS through The Children Behind (TCB) project, a privately funded CRS initiative that provides care and support to 19,000 orphans and vulnerable children as well as their caretakers in Nyanza province.

Partner staff on the ground had to quickly come up with ways to ensure that HIV-positive project participants wouldn’t miss any of their prescribed drug dosages. Using cell phones, partner staff quickly mobilized the project’s network of community volunteers. These dedicated volunteers were asked to head out to surrounding villages to collect treatment cards from clients on antiretroviral therapy, to use the cards to pick up the drugs from area health facilities and to then return to the village to deliver the drugs to respective clients.

Using bicycles as the only mode of transport, the volunteers rode up to 20 kilometers roundtrip along small village paths to avoid the main roads blocked by rowdy youth. Volunteers used the same means to also distribute food and provide other psychosocial services to project clients. This cadre of good Samaritans demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to service by risking their own lives to ensure that clients had the medications and food they needed for survival.

“I was so scared of the rioting group youths. I could not walk to hospital to get my drugs,” said one ART client named Mary. “Thanks to the TCB volunteers who worked hard to ensure I did not miss out on the drugs. I am praying that the political problems in our country will soon be solved so that we continue to live in harmony like before.”

Children were also not spared during the crisis. They missed school for three weeks due to insecurity reasons. In one village in the Karungu area, three orphans supported by the project were also beaten up when police broke into their house searching for rioters who had just escaped from the nearby shopping center. When project staff heard of the incident, they rushed to their rescue and took them to the nearby St. Camillus hospital. The children have since been discharged and are well.

Now the situation has improved and calm has returned in the villages. And thanks to dedicated staff and volunteers, project services continue.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was quick responding to violence that erupted in Kenya following the December 27 elections, but our Nairobi-based staff has also been affected by the unrest. Here are the stories of two members of our CRS family.

Kinyanjui Kaniaru

Kinyanjui Kaniaru is an engineer focused on water and sanitation. He has worked for CRS for more than 13 years and has been a mentor to many agency employees. He worked with CRS’ East Africa region to help pull together a strategy for water and sanitation programs, and has helped CRS Kenya with projects across the country.

Like many Kenyans, Kinyanjui Kaniaru, known as KK to colleagues, closely followed the campaign pitting President Mwai Kibaki against challenger Raila Odinga, and participated in what seemed to be a relatively orderly vote on Dec. 27. And like many Kenyans, KK’s life has been overturned by the disorder that broke out in following days.

Much of the violence across Kenya has occurred along tribal lines – Kibaki is ethnically Kikuyu while Odinga is a Luo, and some of the fighting has followed that division. But scores of groups have engaged in violence and no tribe has been spared. KK serves as a spokesman for many Kenyans when he states directly: “I am first a Kenyan, nothing more, nothing less.”

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