KENYA SELF HELP COMMUNITY

KENYANS LIFTING EACH OTHER UP

-A HAND UP NOT A HANDOUT-

There is no magic bullet that will wipe out global poverty. However there is a way to help the people themselves overcome poverty. Not by giving them massive handouts of food but by giving them the tools and education to use them.

To accomplish our goal we must address ten areas that contribute to poverty.

HEALTH: There are grandmothers raising up to ten or even fifteen grand children who have been orphaned by AIDS. Malaria is staggering in Kenya, a mother taking care of sick children cannot work and people stricken with malaria cannot work the fields and many die from the lack of being able to pay for medication. A five dollar bed net which most cannot afford would prevent eighty percent of the cases of malaria. Typhoid is another prevalent disease in Kenya that can be prevented by washing your hands and vegetables before preparing them. However you need a good water supply to do this. People also eat from the same bowl which spreads the disease.

SANITATION: In the slums there are open sewers that run next to water supplies. People use pit latrines when available but water is so scarce that many do not wash their hands after using the latrine and before preparing the meals for fear that there will not be enough water to drink.

SAFE DRINKING WATER: Most villages and slums do not have reliable water supplies and those that do still must boil the water to kill parasites. Springs need to be developed and wells drilled.

SAFE HOUSING: Most villages have mud huts with thatched roof that leak in the rainy season and the slums are tin shacks because the government will not allow them to build permanent houses. Most people do not have electricity they cook on charcoal stoves and eat out of one pot. There is no place to bathe and no toilet facilities.

POWER: There is no light at night for the children to do school work by or to tend sick individuals by. Some cannot even afford candles. There is no refrigeration, none of the things we take for granted.

TRANSPORTATION: Most of the people in the villages and slums cannot even afford a bicycle. A grandmother in one village had to carry her ten year old grandson ten kilometers to a clinic only to find out that the doctor only came on Tuesday and Thursday so she carried him back home and then returned with him the next day. Some have to carry their loved ones a longer distance using wheel borrows or other devices. If the farmers have extra produce that is beyond their consumption needs they can't get it to market.

COMMUNICATION: There are no phones in the slum or villages to report a need for medical need or a disaster or notifying of a relatives death. A simple cell phone paid for by the village would help. A call could be placed to find out if medical facilities were open in an emergency.

ARABLE LAND: And simple hand equipment to work it along with fertilizer for a first crop would go a long way toward sustainable farming. The farmers used to use fertilizer but now it cost $500 a ton twice the world average. The farmers need to also be taught which crops to plant to put nitrogen back in the soil.

EDUCATION: Kenya has a literacy rate of eighty five percent but they lack the knowledge of new farming techniques and new crops and irrigation methods. Most of the orphans don't have the money to pay school fees and for uniforms so they will not get an education. These children are the future we must help them.

PRODUCTS TO SELL: Most of the people in the villages and the slums have no way to produce a product for sale. Farm-Africa is working with villagers giving them a couple of goats and teaching them how to care for them with amazing results.

The concept of Kenya self-help community is to empower the poverty stricken, underprivileged orphans and widows in the slums of Kenya to help themselves get out of the slum and become self-sustaining and know that in God all things are possible. The project will give the individual person a sense of self pride and accomplishment through the development of a self-sustaining homestead or business venture. There are over 1,000,000 people in just one of the many slums in Kenya.

The community project can and will be constructed by the unskilled widows and orphans of the slum to help accomplish the sense of community and self-pride. It was designed with idea of teaching the people skills as they built the community. The people will learn to become a team helping each other and working together. The housing can be built without the help of power equipment however teaching the people to use power equipment when available will give them another skill when looking for employment. The community and individual farmsteads can have electric lights and refrigeration without being hooked up to commercial power lines with the use of alternative power. The children in rural areas can have electric lighting to do school work with. Farmers can have bio-gas stoves that operate off of gas he has produced rather than burning fossil fuels or charcoal. Everything built and accomplished in the community can be scaled down and copied to a small individual farmstead or scaled up to meet the needs of a large existing village.

This community will be co-operatively governed by the foundation and the people, with the foundation as owners of the land having the final approval when establishing rules in the community. Education and health training for young and old will play a big part in the lives of the community.

The community will be built around a circle with eight community circles ringing it. Each community circle will have seven homes and a central community building. The community buildings will house different activities such seamstress, cheese making, butcher shop, etc. The first community building will be a church for along with learning the skills of survival the people will need the word of the lord.

Each section of the community will also contain a male and a female orphan dorm with an adult house parent. The children will be an intricate part of the community. AIDS has left many children without parents and it is incumbent on the community to help raise and educate these future leaders. In the very center of the circle there will stand four large buildings.

In these buildings will be housed a clinic that will not only treat injuries and illness but teach hygiene and safe methods of food handling. And teach how to live with people who have AIDS and how to prevent from acquiring AIDS. People must be healthy to be motivated toward building a future.

There will be a school to teach the young and old. Courses will range from learning to read, to household budgets and business accounting. You must know how to budget to run a house hold or farm.

The third shall house the product handling and distribution center. Goat dairy products, vegetable packing, etc. will be done here as well as the co-op housed here.

The forth building shall serve as a community center and meeting hall. It will also be the meeting place of the governing counsel and the church.

This community can be started with just one circle of seven houses around a larger building that will serve as church and community building.

I realize that not all people will succeed in this environment and not all people aspire to be farmers. So the community is designed to allow the people explore different occupations connected to the community needs i.e.; manufacturing, teaching, sales, marketing, veterinary services etc. The community is designed to be a stepping stone for people to move from the slum to main stream of the existing community. There will be a core of permanent residence to facilitate this happening.

This project is designed to be a onetime investment requiring no further annual funds.

To accomplish this, the land is to be purchased on a one payment basis and never mortgaged. We must manage the original resources well and build upon them. If needed additional lands may be leased for farming.

Table of contents

I Overview of community

II Housing

III Electricity

IIII Water

V Sewer

VI Irrigation

VII Fuel

VIII Products

VIIII Equipment

X Co-operative

XI Land required

XII Clinic

XIII School

Community over view

There are over 20,000 people in the MUKURU- FUATA NYAYO slum and it is one of the many slums surrounding Nairobi. The government will not allow housing to be built with permanent materials such as stone and concrete. In the villages there is not sewer or running water to the homes. Sanitation is non-existent and the people feel trapped with no way out.

The Kenya Self Help Community seeks to correct these conditions and educate the people about disease prevention and health issues. The members will be taught the proper disposal of waste products and safe food preparation, storage and handling practices.

The community is based on agriculture as Kenya has a strong agriculture history and many university programs to plug into. University agricultural extension programs can be utilized to maximize crow production.

Clean self-built housing and water conservation are principals will be taught. Formal education for adults as well as children will be provided. For through knowledge comes true freedom.

Self-help and community are the keys to success here. The community will produce its own food. Any excess will be sold at market. The excess that is not sold will be distributed to the very poor still in the slums.

HOUSING

Housing will consist of concrete domes call Eco shells similar to the ones shown below. Essentially it is a thin concrete shell with no insulation. It is one of nature’s strongest buildings. It is virtually impervious to fire, tornadoes, earthquakes, and it is inexpensive. The Ecoshell is ideal for garages, small warehouses, sheds, grain storage, or housing in developing, equatorial countries. These low-cost buildings are very appealing. However the Ecoshell would not be adequate in colder climates. The Ecoshell starts as a steel reinforced round concrete foundation/floor. Vertical steel rods are embedded in the foundation and steel reinforcing for the dome itself is attached to it. After an airform is attached and sealed to the floor blower fans are used to inflate the form which creates the shape of the doom. Next rebar is placed and spaced per engineering specs. The verticals go against the form and the horizontals go on the outside. Plywood frames for the doors and windows are placed against the form and removed from the inside after the concrete is set. Next one inch of concrete is applied to the exterior of the airform and allowed to set then recoated to finish. (The concrete can be applied with trowel or shotcrete gun.) Remove the forms after the concrete has set and wire brush the rebar on the inside to remove any loose material, and then apply a coat of concrete to the interior surface. Now the shell is complete and you can hang doors and windows. Apply a coat of white sealer to the outside to reflect heat and you can move in or install interior walls to make separate rooms and add plumbing for appliances.

The building will be wired for 12v electricity for lighting and refrigeration. Alternative energy will be used to power the lights and other electrical needs. Most houses can be built for $2,500 for a two bedroom house. Remember most families in the slums are living in a 10' x15' tin shed.

These homes will be built by the families that occupy the community. Children as well as adults can help with mixing the concrete and applying it to the house. This will give the families a sense of ownership as well as community pride and develop new skills.

Dome built by hand in Indonesia after tsunami

ELECTRICITY

Electricity can be supplied from a number of independent ways. The community will be entirely independent when it comes to electrical power. For the most part it will use 12v power for lighting and small appliances. 120v electricity can be produced using inverters when needed.

Wind generators and photovoltaic cells will be used for most of the power generation. However alcohol fueled motors can also be used with the alcohol being produced on site with grains grown on the farm. The by-product of alcohol production is an excellent feed for livestock and chickens.

Each house hold can have its own small system built by the resident. And a large system will be installed to power the shops, barns and production areas. The small home systems need not be commercially purchased systems, but rather home built out of used car generators. Solar panels and inverters would need to be purchased from funds generated from farm products. The small systems will allow the teaching of electrical systems and maintenance of 12v or 24v systems. These skills may carry over into other jobs. Some of these systems are already in use in Kenya.

WATER

Well drilling will become a very necessary skill in this drought stricken region of Africa. Gable well drilling systems is a low tech, low cost way of drilling a well. The Chinese used hundreds of years ago. A cable system can be either hand operated (very slow and labor intensive) or run with a small engine.

We can also use rotary drill rigs however these take more skill and training.

Our first well has been dig by hand and is 115 ft deep.

Wells are a necessity for making the people self-sufficient. Once the people learn to develop wells the skill may develop into an occupation for some.

The pump may be hand powered, wind powered, or electrically powered by photovoltaic cells.

The water will be pumped into a tower tank to provide water pressure for the houses and other buildings.

A rain water capture system is a must in this area of the world. The system will involve a method of diverting normally lost rain water runoff from roofs and paved areas into a cistern for irrigation use later in the year during the dry season.

Animal watering systems will only activate as the animal comes to drink this will be accomplished in different ways depending on the animals drinking habits it will be an on demand system.

New efficient water saving irrigation methods will be used. No water that can be safely used will be wasted. I will elaborate more on that in the next two sections.

SEWER SYSTEM

The sewer system is not your usual septic system. We will use low flow toilets and showers to cut down on water usage. The toilets will drain into a bio digester where it will be mixed with animal waste from the barns.

Bio digesters have been used for over thirty years in China to provide gas for cooking and lighting lamps in homes in rural areas of China. The by products from such a digester are methane gas, Sterilized fertilizer as the heat in the digester kills harmful pathogens and make the fertilizer safe for humans to handle. The effluent coming out of the digester goes onto a sand filter where the solids are dried and ready to spread on the fields. It should be noted that the digester kills the odor also.

The liquid after passing through the sand filter drains into a cistern for use in irrigating the fields. The gray water from the sinks also passes through a sand filter and goes into the cistern for irrigation. As I earlier said no water is wasted.

In China they put ponds over the digesters to guard against leaks and also to maintain constant temperature in the digester. They also grow aquatic plants to harvest for food. Fish and grayfish could be another by product.

The methane gas can be used to fuel the cooking stove, run the refrigerator, and power stationary gas engines for electrical generators and water pumps.

IRRIGATION SYSTEM

The irrigation system will make use of drip irrigation technology. The University in Nairobi has a good agriculture program and hopefully will be of great assistance with the community agricultural program. The drip irrigation system allows little waste of water and combined with watering at night will eliminate much of the moisture loss due to evaporation.

By using the water from the digester valuable nutrients will be returned to the fields along with the fertilizer from the digester will limit the need for chemical fertilizers. Also the healthier plants will need less insect spraying.

The water from the rain capture system will cut down on the demand from the underground water table and conserve on water. This system can be used and easily maintained for a number of years.

FUEL FOR THE COMMUNITY

As mentioned before methane gas from the digester will be used to cook with. Propane will have to be used until the digester is running at full capacity.

Refrigeration can be run on either gas or 12v/24v or 110 v electricity like the refrigerators in large motor homes. These are ideal for self-sufficiency. An inverter will be used to convert low voltage to 110v to run other appliances.

The homes will run on 12v/24v electrical system. This will run lights so that children can study after dark. Also the animal pens can be lighted with 12v/24v. This system offers no danger of electrocution to humans. Small 12v TVs will also run on this system as will cell phone chargers and some electrical power tools.

Alcohol can be distilled from grain produced on the farms and used to fuel gas motors. The by product from the still is a rich feed for animals.

Photovoltaic cells can be used to power water pumps and backup wind systems.

There is also the oil from peanuts that can be used as diesel fuel.

PRODUCTS FOR SALE

To be truly self-sufficient we must have products for sale to pay for the items that we cannot produce and to pay taxes especially school taxes for the children. The original idea for this community came from my sister and I helping the church in purchasing a plot of land for the purpose of growing a garden for the people of the slum, and from an article that I read at http://www.farm-africa.org, about their success with a goat farming program that was helping starving Kenyans.

The land will be planted with a truck garden with the perimeter planted with fruit and nut trees. There will also be peanuts because the tops can be feed to the goats and the peanuts sold at market.

A goat dairy is central to the operation. The goats produce milk on less feed than cows and are easier to keep. Young male goats not sold for breeding will be used for a meat source and some sold for meat. The milk will be used to produce cheese for consumption and market. The hides can be tanned and made into leather goods for sale.

Bees can be kept for pollinating the vegetable garden and their honey sold as a product.

Chickens and rabbits will be kept for meat and egg production. The rabbit pelts can be turned into saleable items.

The rich feed coming out of the production along with some waste vegetables are good feed for pigs. The pig waste is a great producer of methane gas.

The community will learn marketing skills, product handling techniques, farming skills, water conservation, animal husbandry and other valuable skills.

Some in the community may become lay vets helping other farmers.

When building the community we will need to construct furniture and cabinets which will give some of the people another skill and perhaps provide another product for sale.

A sewing center will be set up to make products and provide income for the community.

EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES

In the startup phase we will not need initial large equipment to deal with such a large project. The equipment needed for this project will be two walk behind tractors and some hand tools which will later be placed in the co-op for use by those families that can start their own farm.

A major piece of equipment is a one ton diesel pickup to haul supplies and produce to and from town. The pickup will also be used to transport farm members.

However any used vehicle that can transport people and move food and supplies is more than they have at present.

We could use a mixer for the concrete to build the houses.

We need wind generators, photovoltaic cells, batteries, windmills and pumps.

This community will have to help its neighbors if the Kenyan people are to survive the droughts and learn a different way of farming and ranching.

WALK BEHIND TRACTOR:

CO-OPERATIVE

The community co-operative will be at the heart of the self-sufficient independent farming program.

The small farmers that move on from the community to their own farmsteads will be able to sell their goat milk, cheese, breeding and meat goats, farm produce, and other products through the community co-op and can purchase and or rent items and equipment that they could not otherwise afford.

This will help to create an extended community and be a support system for the independent farmer.

By having larger quantities of product for sale more bargaining power will be created and a steady supply of product assured. The co-operative will be able to develop better markets also.

The co-op is a place where ideas can be exchanged, questions about market conditions can be answered, and disease, pest, and critter control can be discussed. Request for help and veterinary services can be voiced. Questions about breeding stack can be answered. Labor request can be posted on bulletin boards.

LAND REQUIRED

The initial farm community will be started on the two and a half acres that the church currently owns and is using as a garden.

Additional land will be necessary to support the completed community of about 30 acres total.

This land must be free and clear in order to assure success and never mortgaged. Additional acreage may be leased or purchased a needed.

The land is in a rural area has access to a main highway for market purposes. It would be great if there were a well or two already on the additional property but not essential.

Most of the land does not appear to have an excess of rocks yet the land must be arable in order to successfully farm it.

We have the technology and means of making arid land bloom and produce good crops now it’s time to use this knowledge.

One can see a great example of converting dry land into a garden by just looking at what Israel has accomplished.

CLINIC

The onsite clinic will not only serve as an urgent care facility but will be a tuberculosis and aids screening site for new people coming into the community.

It will also serve as an AIDS education and treatment center.

People will be taught hygiene, disease control, food safety, illness prevention, sex education and basic first aid.

Basic first aid supplies should be in stock along with aids medication.

There needs to be sterilization equipment, a couple of beds, and an exam table.

Doctors without borders will be invited to come in and treat people in the area.

The clinic should be available to all of the neighbors in the surrounding area as well.

SCHOOL

The community school needs to be open to all community members, young and old alike. There should be no difference in education between boys and girls. These children are the future of the nation. Who knows if a national leader might come from this community?

The adults need to learn farming principals, simple accounting, business and farm management.

They also need to know what is happening outside of their world so that they will understand if their child wants to become something else.

The children need to learn about AIDS and other diseases and how to live with people who have AIDS in the community.

They also need to have a good formal education. Most of these children have never seen a computer.

There are excellent teaching programs put out on C.D.s now. Learning 2000 has an educational program that assesses where a child is education wise and designs a curriculum for them. A satellite system would give the students access to the internet as well as history channels and programs like “beyond 2000” and other educational channels.

A small number of computers would be great educational tools but there is a great need for books, paper, and pencils also. The only computer games I think should be allowed are those that teach things.

There should also be time for games and fishing trips and site seeing. Moral values and discipline also need to be taught.

Family values, sex education, money management, parental roles all need to be taught.

These children are orphans from AIDS, war, disease and now starvation. Most have no family role models

PROPOSED START-UP BUDGET

Three houses and a store

1 greenhouse

LAND existing

ONE WALK BEHIND TRACTOR w/attachments used $ 1,100.00

WIND GENERATORS (commercially produced) $ 1,645.00

BATTERIES $ 750.00

HOUSING $ 22.500.00

BUILDING FORMS $ 6,890.00

BLOWER $ 561.00

PHOTO CELLS $ 1,500.00

PUMPS $ 600.00

REFRIGERATOR used $ 7,700.00

STOVES $ 13,600.00

TOILETS $ 3,600.00

12V LIGHTS $ 800.00

WATER TOWERS $ 4,800.00

SINKS $ 400.00

SHOWER HDWR. $ 700.00

CABINETS $ 2,100.00

TABLE SAW $ 750.00

DRILL PRESS $ 250.00

ROUTER $ 600.00

18V TOOLS $ 450.00

CARPENTRY HAND TOOL $ 3,000.00

DISHES POTS PANS $ 800.00

FOOD SUPPLIES $ 800.00

FEED $ 300.00

SEED $ 75.00

TREES $ 70.00

GOATS $ 160.00

RABBITS $ 75.00

CHICKENS $ 75.00

MACHANICS TOOLS $ 500.00

VISES $ 50.00

GARDEN TOOLS $ 200.00

IRRIGATION SUPPLIES $ 1,500.00

MASONTRY TOOLS $ 150.00

ELECTRICAL TOOLS $ 50.00

PLUMBING TOOLS $ 100.00

PLUMBING $ 2,500.00

CAGE WIRE AND CLIPS $ 100.00

LUMBER $ 500.00

CEMENT $ 500.00

SAND $ 200.00

GRAVEL $ 200.00

MAIN AND INDIVIDUAL DIGESTERS $ 1,800.00

GOAT DAIRY $ 500.00

WHEEL BORROWS $ 80.00

PAINT $ 1,400.00

TREADLE SEWING MACHINES $ 150.00

MATERIAL AND SUPPLIES $ 250.00

MATRESSES $ 1,400.00

DOORS AND WINDOWS $ 3,150.00

BUILDERS LEVEL $ 600.00

COMPUTERS $ 300.00

SCHOOL SUPPLIES $ 280.00

SHIPPING $ 1,000.00

TRAVEL $ 4,800.00

ADMINISTRATION COST $ 5,000.00

TOTAL $ 115,254.00

When I heard about Pastor Jacob’s work in the slums in Kenya, and how my sisters church was supporting him without getting to know about the people. I thought,” Why do some people give funds to feed the poverty stricken people of the world without trying to help fix the problem that caused the situation?”

That’s when I knew I could help change things for people around the world and designed the self-help village program. Three months after developing the self-help village I read an article about Jeffrey Sachs. I ordered and read his book and discovered that it paralleled my vision. The book is called “The End of Poverty”.

It is our hope that I can develop this foundation into a worldwide organization and help people in all countries.

We appreciate anything that you can spare to help our efforts in Kenya. Even the change in your purse or pocket taped to a post card and sent in an envelope will help. Pastor Jacob is feeding 690 people on $270.00 a month. That breaks down to less than two cents a day per person. Each person gets only a handful of corn mush for breakfast and a handful of corn mush for dinner. However there are millions that have nothing to eat.

We appreciate your time in considering this project and anything you can do to help the people in Kenya.