Monday night, May 25

Frank, this one is a "news report" for you! (at least mostly)

First day! Solomon picked me up at 7:30 for the 15 minute trip to the HOPE office. Wish I’d had my camera to document the traffic…. We are on a main road, near downtown and the magnificent Presidential estate – and this busy road is unpaved, rocky, full of pot-holes and just barely wide enough for 2 cars. To avoid potholes, cars were frequently traveling on the wrong side of the road. Bumper to bumper… how there were not dozens of wrecks, I do not know!

The HOPE main office is a converted 2-story stucco home in a residential part of town. It is quite beautiful – and every inch of space put to use! As a “faith-based organization”, the day began with a devotional (a regular Monday event). Jimmy, the financial manager for HOPE, talked about walking places you had never walked before (from the story of Joshua and the children of Israel crossing into the Promised Land over the dry river bed of the Jordan River) and related it to both personal challenges and challenges faced by HOPE. I could well relate to finding myself in the middle of a river bed & wondering how in the world I got here – it was a great lesson.

From there I went through some basic paperwork and then spent the rest of the day meeting with each of the HOPE program directors to learn about the programs they oversaw. Very briefly:
· CPP: Comprehensive Prevention Program. HOPE’s largest program. Overall goal = HIV prevention. Includes multiple programs (7), each with slightly different strategies or target groups.
· NPI: New Partner’s Initiative Overall goal = HIV prevention. New program modeled after CPP, but with different funding scheme.
· OVC: Orphaned & Vulnerable Children. (HOPE’s first signature program – nutrition, shelter, education, psychosocial counseling for OVC’s… works at individual child level – as well as capacity-building projects for families & communities).
· KenyaKids (individual sponsorships of vulnerable children)
· ICOH: Industrial Centres of Hope (Vocational training, HIV prevention & OVC support program sponsored by Wal-Mart – in their factories!)
· Blood Safety Program (Began after 1998 bombing of US Embassy in Nairobi. Lack of available blood cost many lives that might have been easily saved if blood had been available. HOPE , the Red Cross and a third Kenyan program are the only agencies in the country which coordinate blood drives).
· IPESS (Education and prevention services for commercial sex workers)
· TACKLE (program to address abuses of child labor)

Also met with members of the finance, procurement, administration, and M&E (monitoring & evaluation) teams. Over & over, their themes were accountability, careful documentation, and strict adherence to program funding guidelines… HOPE has instituted evaluations that are stricter than many of the program requirements, just to insure they are adhering to every requirement mandated by the funding. I was extremely impressed by the level of professionalism and the pride and enthusiasm each staff member display for his/her work. Some programs had even experienced funding cuts, which necessitated cutting positions. I met one gentleman whose job had been eliminated, but who was continuing to work as a volunteer, so the program would not suffer (hopefully new funding will be found soon!).

I spent the most single time with Makena (a beautiful woman, whose name means “happy” – it was perfect for her!) who works in the Dandora project where I will be. She described the work they do at the individual child level, the family or care-giver level, and at the community level… so much to describe! (I’ll have to save that for later). I’ll actually start at Dandora on Wednesday & confirm my project and schedule at that time.

Got home a little after 5, had tilapia for dinner and am ready for bed! (I have been fine, but maybe a delayed jet-lag has crept up on me today). Tomorrow Charlene is taking me to do all the errands I need to do to get settled (food shopping, exchange currency, buy a local phone…). Biggest challenges? water & transportation.... but I am happy & doing great.