Back in Kenya

I arrived just this past weekend in Nairobi to start a new assignment with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. CRWRC has been doing both relief and development work throughout the world since 1962, making this year the 50^th anniversary. However, according to the United Nations this year also marks one of the worst droughts in East Africa in the past 50 years. Climate change and the effects of human induced environmental degradation are taking its toll on many regions of the Horn of Africa and specifically in Kenya.

Due to the severity of the drought this year and inflow of funds, CRWRC has expanded their relief projects with the aid of donors from churches and consortiums like the Canadian Food Grains Bank. My work will be specifically cooperating with the International Disaster Response (IDR) arm of CRWRC and will consist of a mix of different research projects and support roles. Along with assisting communications and reporting, I am also working on a report to document best-practices for the organization as in times of rapid change and disaster, lessons can often and easily be forgotten.

I will also be researching some of the more alternative modes of relief and humanitarian intervention work. Here, CRWRC is engaged in a large mix of projects which touch on four key themes: food security, water supply, livestock assistance, and conflict management. Each of these four areas look quite different depending on each project and region. (The relief work of CRWRC includes many regions including Kilifi and Taita Taveta near the coast, Turkana and Isiolo in the north, Narok and Kajiado in the south, and others.) My research will be specifically examining different asset and work programs, which includes food for assets programs (where, in exchange for food supplies, food insecure households participate to build a water pan, plant trees, or other disaster risk reduction activities), or in other cases goats for work, cash for work, and similar voucher programs.

For more details you can watch this video (a first of four parts):

I joined in a meeting at the start of this week with over twenty staff members from both the relief and development branches of CRWRC. The far majority are Kenyans who are both skilled and motivated in the work they are doing ranging from veterinary work, engineering and more. Over the next few months I will be joining with many of these individuals on their projects and learning more about the communities who are benefiting from these programs .


So far it has been a bit overwhelming at first to wrap my head around all of the diverse projects and keep track of the staff coming in and out of the office to go to their field sites, but this will certainly be an eye opening experience. Disaster response differs from development in a number of ways, and is fundamentally a fast paced and quickly changing environment. I will already be visiting a food distribution a few hours from Nairobi early next week. I am looking forward to contributing to the widely skilled group of people here in CRWRC's response to the famine and drought which is affecting millions here in Kenya.