I'm just a little bit in love with you.

I have the answer! TCHD gets some funding from Samaritan’s Purse, and that wasn’t cut. The main sponsor, the German based institution- EED, is in the process of refocusing their attention. Here’s what they say.

“Africa is currently in a state of radical change and transformation…Civil society institutions cannot not replace functioning government structures, However, they can be effective motors of innovation and mobilization of self help potential and thereby contributing to establishing public institutions and facilities. Therefore, EED focuses its efforts on establishing and strengthening civil society institutions, especially those involved in the provision of and lobbying for basic social services, and promoting democracy and human rights.”

That last part is the key, although it does not really begin to explain their switch. In the past, EED provided money for immunizations, subsidized mosquito nets and water filters, etc. (just read back). They are no longer providing money for “primary” care. Instead, they will provide money for CHD to go into a community to educate and equip the people to demand these things from the government. It’s a really good idea and long over due. I have no problems with it. These are things (HIV/AIDS awareness, food security, immunizations, clean water) the government is responsible for and has neglected in the past. If organizations continue to just dump aid on countries, governments have no problem sitting back and doing nothing and stealing money. Their new way is a much more (to use the hip word) “sustainable” way of providing continuous help.

So what’s the problem? They aren’t providing any assistance in the transition from primary care to their new plan of attack. They are going cold turkey with one, to start up a new one. Leaving many, especially CHD hanging. CHD is more than willing to include an “equipping people to demand their rights” or some sort of “government focused” department, but CHD can not stop (immunizing kids, providing HIV testing and awareness, etc.) in the process!! Also, in Kenya specifically and some other countries, there is no stable government to demand these things from.

It begs the age old question, do you help some people immediately or focus on the bigger picture, not help as many people now, but change things long-term. Isn’t there some way to do both? Help the people dying now or prevent people from dying with immunizations, and challenge and encourage the government to get involved? I believe there’s a way even if I haven’t figured it out yet.

In Kenya right now, it’s more complicated than that. In a lot of the regions TCHD operates in, there is no government present. It’s not even that it’s not stable, these places don’t exist on any maps. There is no government official elected to make sure the people are represented, and many tribes are slow to trust people. CHD goes into these rural tribes to provide invaluable services to the community, and it can’t just stop! The results have been outstanding. For example, with measles, the hospital used to see more than 500 cases a year, soon after CHD started going and giving immunizations, the number of cases was reduced to less than 20 a year. This is true for all diseases. Even the percentage of people testing positive for HIV/AIDS has decreased.

As John Wright, the CEO of Tenwek said over lunch, “This fund raising stuff would be very interesting to study academically, if there weren’t real people, right now, dying. If there weren’t real diseases that will kill kids.” To give you numbers on average, we immunize 120,000 kids a year. This year, with no funding, the number has dropped to 60,000.

Do you want more numbers? Whooping cough, that used to kill at least 30 kids a year, (and there would be epidemics where 100’s of kids would be sleeping on benches or under beds at at time being treated for it) has practically been eliminated!!!! Now, the hospital sees one or two cases a year. With the clean water bio-sand filters, diarrheal diseases went from 1101 to 147 (and that was back in 2004).

Back to the “slow to trust” thing. Sam, at lunch, explained how among many tribes, especially the Maasai, trust has to be built up slowly. He worked here for thirteen years and spent six of them very slowly building up that trust. He’ll go in with CHD and set up a tent, and provide his medical services to patients (most of the time for free- especially for women and children. The men think of them as property, and a cow is certainly much more important than a wife or child’s life). A lot of times, “I can’t even get a bracelet for restoring a person’s eye sight. The man looks at me and shrugs ’she’s just my wife- don’t do the surgery, she’s not worth it.”

One time the WHO (World Health Organization) came in with all these as Sam describes them, “fancy trucks with fancy equipment.” And they were there to take a survey and treat a specific disease- they found hundreds of people with (a disease that is part of the gonorrhea family but is not sexually transmitted and causes the eyelashes to bend in and scar the eyes eventually causing blindness. It’s very prevalent in dry places where people can’t wash their faces.) Then, they disappeared without doing anything except writing down numbers. They returned three weeks later and could not find anyone. The WHO, without knowing it, had ruined the trust Sam had spent 6 years building up. When Sam returned, no one would have anything to do with him. It didn’t take him long to figure out why, but it’s taken years to build back up.

This is kind of a mid-day update. I have to get back to the office. We’ve gotten the go ahead to put up a “volunteer ad” (Tenwek does not usually actively recruit any volunteers) for someone who can come and write up proposals to send out to potential donors. I spent the morning writing that, and now it’s time for editing and uploading. PEACE!