Reaching Out in Kenya
The Africa Center for Engineering Social Solutions

Spencer Kuchle
Woodstock Academy 2008
Woodstock, CT
Hampshire College 2012

This summer I spent two weeks in Kenya as part of a team which included faculty and students from Brown University, the University of Hartford, and the Big Picture Schools, who were working with the Africa Center for Engineering Social Solutions (ACESS). The ACESS team visited seven different communities in the Western Kenya Lake District to do field work and Participatory Action Planning. The goals of their project are to alleviate poverty by promoting environmentally and economically sustainable agriculture, while improving health and promoting a healthy workforce through safe water and a secure and nutritious food supply. A further goal of the project is to provide U.S. and Kenyan students with opportunities for international learning by collaborating on solutions to problems identified by the communities.

In addition to working in villages around Lake Victoria, our team traveled to Nairobi to meet with the Minister of Medical Services, Peter Nyongo; the Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga; and the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Rannenberger. Planning meetings for a USAID grant were also held at Mount Kenya, an alpine rainforest region, and at Masai Mara during the famous wildebeest migration.

The spectacular beauty of the Kenyan plains was in stark contrast to the overwhelming poverty experienced by some of Kenya’s poorest residents in the Lake District. Nevertheless, there is a fierce determination on the part of these residents to work toward a better life. One of the most compelling cases I learned of was that of a woman we visited in Gem, Jemima Odo. Upon the death of her husband from AIDS, and HIV-positive herself, Jemima organized a group of 32 HIV-positive women into a collective called “Living Positively,” and took in 26 HIV-positive orphans. These women, accompanied by two widowers, are managing a self-sustaining farm that makes a profit by selling produce to a local school. Despite living in mud huts with thatched roofs and the lack of running water, electricity, or equipment other than hand plows, they are thriving. They serve as a model to all of us on showing how we can find meaning in our lives through our work and a commitment to helping others.