The Odede Women's Group

- As told by Marilyn Chambers

This group started quite simply from me running a Water Treatment Program on the same day as our Medical Camp. From that meeting the women of Odede wanted to form a group and meet on a weekly basis of which we had our first meeting today, under a tree at the site where we are building the Child Rescue Centre. Veronica the Community Nurse and I put together a program that provides information and support for the women of the community. The program today covered Water Treatment. From the previous meeting we asked women to test the process and present to us at this meeting their findings. Well as I might have mentioned that the reason for women not treating their water are many, one of which they believe God has blessed all water and the other main one is that they don't have time to treat it. So today they presented their findings and were just amazed at how dirty the water was that they were drinking. Mind you when you look at it is the colour of clean mud. A part of the treatment process required them to sieve the water through a cloth so I had 110 cotton cloths made and distributed them.Some of the stories were wonderful especially the one where finding a clean cotton cloth was not possible so she used her shirt. As I have said before, these Africans are resourceful. I can't tell you excitement in their eyes when they saw the cloths. They were so grateful.

From there we voted for a Chairperson, Assistant Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer. We then proceeded to elect 5 people as our Water Treatment Management Team who would go into the community and assist and encourage the women to treat their water. They were all so supportive and excited about our plans they kept thanking me. They also decided to commit to saving 20 shillings each Tuesday to buy drugs to form a mobile clinic for their members. Today we raised 780 shillings which is amazing. Once we raised 5000 shillings we would be able to buy a good stock of drugs and run a clinic each Tuesday. Remember these people can't afford to travel to the closest clinic so often never seek treatment for their illnesses. There were even comments about the fact that some had even started feeling better from drinking clean water.

This idea of putting groups throughout the community will also cover areas such as HIV Positive people who are isolated within their home. They will be supported in coming out and being treated. There will be a group for the elderly people, to work at supporting the widows on their own and also a group for pregnant women and who knows what other group will be suggested.

It is an amazing site to see all these women come together and build relationships in supporting each other. The African communities have lost that so I hope and pray that this will be the beginning of a new era. I talked to the women about this support and how important it is that they help themselves, not allowing the 'mazoongoos' (white people) to give them a hand out. I talked about the power that comes when people unite. I talked about anything is possible if we all believe in ourselves and have plans for the future. I talked to them about Africans living longer lives.

I did a very brief survey of 20 women asking if they had lost children and there was not one that had not lost a child, one had lost 3, one had lost 4 and the balance was in between.

November 2010 ... What an amazing sight. Over 80 women meet every Tuesday to discuss general health issues i.e. Water Treatment, Malaria, Typhoid, Health and Hygiene and many more planned for the time that I am away. I told them today of our plans for next year (2011), when I return from Australia and one of the plans is to run a Birthing Program to educate women of the stages involved when birthing. 70% of births are at home and often without any assistance therefore the death rate is extremely high. One of the main reasons women don't go to hospital is that if they cannot pay the bill and are then detained until they can. Some have been in hospital for up to 5 weeks and of course the bill keeps rising .Another one of the major program I will be running next year is HIV/AIDS Awareness and support. Today I overheard women talking and appeared to be concerned. I asked Veronica to interoperate and they were talking about a young man suffering and infact dieing with HIV. After further investigation Veronica and I went to the home where this young man was. He was extremely ill, hadn't eaten for days so here we are in a village, no transport and a young man dieing of AIDS.I knew we had to do something so I managed to find a motor bike, his aunt went with him and I sent him to the closest hospital and prayed the hospital had drugs. Veronica the community nurse purchased two very important plants called Amaranthis and Moringa that boost the immune system of HIV sufferers and will take to the young man tomorrow as they work extremely well. This leads me to mention that next year I will be looking at a way I can purchase a vehicle for the community. These incidences happen every day where people just die in their homes as they have no way of getting to hospitals. One of the most disturbing stories was told by one of the women today whereby a woman was in labour with twins. The only way her husband could transport her to the main road was by a wheelbarrow. By the time she reached the road and got a Mittatoo within a short time she and both babies died. So as you can imagine, next year when I return, it is going to be very busy but with the support of these wonderful women, as I told them today, anything is possible if we work together. In fact one of the comments from one of the women who spoke today was that she thanked me so much for bringing the women of Odede together and to encourage the support that they are now giving each other.
Feed a Family

Tuesday was our Women's Group presentation of 130 Bags of Maize Seeds and 130 Bags of Bean Seeds donated to the women from Buy 1 Give 1.This organisation gave funds to "Feed A Family" so I decided rather give each family money, I bought seeds for them to plant but they were not given freely. Each family once they have their first harvest must return 2kg of Maize Flour and 2kg of Beans to the Child Rescue Centre. Tuesday was an interesting day as issues had been raised throughout the women. The previous week we distributed seeds to 20 familles. This was all I thought I had so I suggested to the Executive Members to choose the neediest. This of course was done and distributed accordingly. However over the next week there were many many stories throughout the village about favouritism etc with the distribution of the seeds so this week we all decided to allow the women to choose who gets the 130 seeds. This was announced to the women that they got to choose who received them. They were told to go outside and form groups and each group to decide. As you could imagine, it was mayhem. None of them were prepared to stand back and allow anyone else to receive them so I spoke to the Secretary who told me there were only 120 women present. Yes you're right. None had to choose and everyone received seeds but it didn't stop there. We went inside and I proceeded to express my concern about the gossip, told them a "TALL POPPY SYNDROME' story and talked about THEIR selection of the Executive Committee. How their judgement must be trusted etc. Anyway a very good lesson was learnt by all as they discovered when given the opportunity to make a decision collectively, it was impossible as one of the comments from a woman was that they need someone to tell them what to do.

Unfortunately I had to show a side of me that they said they didn't like to see. A beautiful old mamma stood up and said that she was very concerned that I was so upset and wanted me to go back to the way I was and have always been. I confronted them with what is so destructive in the village and that is jealousy. Hence the Tall Poppy story. It is such a dangerous thing so I was honest and open with them and explained just what it can do and already has been doing to their community. I took a big risk as Africans don't confront issues, they just pretend it isn't there but at the end of the day women came and hugged me and thanked me so I breathed a sigh of relief.
An Amazing Thing Happened

An Amazing Accomplishment a whole 150 women helping women. Our goat cooperative needed their Shamba weeded and it was too much for our group so the women collectively chose to assist with the weeding. AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENT. It has never happened before here in Odede. It seems that these women are beginning to understand what it means to help each other.

Here are the wonderful women working so hard to help other their women mates.
Alex and I were walking through the women and an old mamma came over and said to Alex that it is wonderful what we are doing here for them and the women are prepared to do what ever it takes to make this project work. It bought tears to my eyes. All the women as they were working were talking and laughing with each other, performing for me when I had the camera.
The beautiful old mama who owned the Shamba made tea and beans for all the workers. I assisted with buying sugar and milk but the rest would have cost mama quite a lot.
NOW THIS IS ANOTHER FIRST Here is the husband of a wife that came to assist his wife with the work. Yep I cried this time; I was just so overwhelmed it took my breath away. Here in Kenya men do not normally work in Shambas It is considered to be 'Women's Work' so to see this was the most wonderful feeling.
In reality unless the women have the men on their side, often projects don't work so I think we are on a good thing here.