House of Courage: An internship in Mombasa, Kenya

Kazi is kiswahili for work.

My work at the House of Courage Initiative (it’s full title as registered under the Ministry of Social Services of Kenya) is challenging. It's not a challenge in the sense one might think of western work that can overwhelm an individual with multiple tasks and cause one to keep long hours. The challenge is finding a place within an organization that has established itself as well as my organization has.

I believe one of the common misconceptions about organizations in what one would determine as developing countries is that they don't have the knowledge or expertise to communicate messages to people of the area. This is far from the truth. Many of the organizations I have observed along with the House of Courage are exceptional at creating engaging presentations of information on such issues as HIV/AIDS, and have first rate information on addressing community concerns and questions about content. I was fortunate my first week with the House of Courage to watch them perform at an Islamic primary school called Qubaa Academy. The group was very professional in its preparation, going through nearly 20 minutes of verbal and physical warm-ups in which I participated. The group put on a show of fantastic revelry and relative simplicity. For an hour and a half the combination of actors and puppets kept nearly 400 children entertained and informed.

Along with the performance aspect of the full group, the members also train people across Mombasa on reproductive health and safe health practices. For this purpose there are multiple programs in place that are funded by numerous NGOs and government entities of Kenya.

Coming into that situation, I am impressed but also pushed to explore what options are there for me to create an impact. I believe I have found that through looking at some organizational structure of the organization. As they have grown the House of Courage Initiative has had to keep up with the demands of growing as an organization. Finding sources of funding to keep up with growth and even creating income-generating activities (IGAs) are difficult in an economically depressed area.

This could perhaps be best illustrated by the current situation at the community center the group owns and operates. Up until last November the facility maintained electrical power connection through an agreement with another partner in the community. When that partnership dissolved, the center was without power and unable to continue activities in which it used technology such as TV/Video programs and computer tutorials for youth. To get a new power connection would cost 35,000 Kenyan shillings or rough $540 US. This money is not easily available for the organization as they focus most of their money into sustaining current projects and compensating members. Even if the group were to look at saving money for an extended period it would be several months, perhaps years before they could arrange that amount of money.

For my part, I am going to focus on an FSD challenge grant that is available in the next few weeks. With this new power connection we, House of Courage members and I, hope to recreate an atmosphere at the center that was present before the loss of power as well as create new sustainable programs that could create income for the group to establish greater independence and not rely on foundation grants in order to maintain its programs.