Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
JAMES HENNESSY STANDS in the doorway of Mama Matthew’s rented two-room hut on the outskirts of a small village in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, surrounded by tall maize crops.
The two are conversing in Swahili about the trouble Mama Matthew has been having in securing the smallest bit of government support for her disabled son, Matthew.
Hennessy – who is originally from Glenville in Cork – speaks Swahili fluently, and listens as Mama Matthew tells him her troubles.
At 28 years old she is disabled herself, cannot read or write, has no discernible income, has been a victim of serious domestic abuse and is extremely vulnerable. She lives with her three children in a rented two room hut made from sticks and mud with an iron roof.
Mama Matthew is what Hennessy – who has worked in the area for nine years – terms a “hard case”. She is highly vulnerable, uneducated and has no social supports. The future prospects of her and her children are bleak.
She has been trying to get Matthew registered with the county government, so that she will be entitled to the equivalent of about €17.50 a month – the only benefit of any kind she is eligible for.
Tired, demoralised and with hungry children to feed, Mama Matthew looks to Hennessy for help.
She is just one of the hundreds of Kenyans that he and his colleagues assist through their organisation Development Pamoja, a small Irish charity dedicated to providing rural communities in Kenya with the tools and assistance they need to make better lives for themselves.
Hennessy (left) sits with a local woman Evelyn Chelule (centre) and Mama Matthew (right).Source: Ciara KilbrideA country of contrasts
Kenya is a country of deep economic contrasts. With a population of over 48 million, it is one of the more secure and established states in sub-Saharan Africa, with a growing middle class.
In the main metropolitan areas, in one of the many shopping malls that have sprung up on the outskirts of cities and towns, you can buy an Americano and avocado sandwich for about 1,000 Kenyan shillings (Ksh) - the equivalent of €9, not too far off Dublin prices.
Meanwhile, in nearby teeming slums and in isolated rural areas, millions eke out a living on less than €2 a day, struggling to feed themselves and their families.
Despite a massive swelling in urban population (mainly in the ever-growing slums on the outskirts of major cities) the vast majority (close to 75%) of Kenyans still live in rural areas, many in highly isolated, inaccessible places cut off from any services or supports.
A recent report from the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics found that in total 16.4 million Kenyans live in poverty across the country - with 11.4 million of these in rural areas.
Lack of basic healthcare and sanitation services, no electricity, no running water, poor transport access, high rates of disease and infant mortality and no access to finance are some of the main issues facing large swathes of the population.
An Irishman in Kenya
Hennessy first arrived in Kenya in 2007. Fresh off completing a master’s degree in International Development in UCC, he travelled to work with an Irish charity operating in the area.
Friendly, energetic and quick to smile, 35-year-old Hennessy talks easily with whoever he meets and quickly has people laughing.
Hennessy speaks with a local woman as he goes to buy groceries for her and her daughterSource: Cormac FitzgeraldHe left the charity he had worked for after becoming disillusioned and in 2009 formed Development Pamoja with three Kenyan colleagues: David Okinja, Masai Kipruto and Mary Waruguru.
They set up operations in the villages around the town of Mogotio in northern Nakuru county, about 90 minutes north of the major urban centre of Nakuru, where Hennessy lives, and just a few miles south of the equator.
People living in this area are for the most part subsistence farmers – growing just enough to feed themselves and their families. But a semi-arid climate, lengthy periods of drought, and poor land and farming techniques mean that food poverty is an issue here.
Hennessy is candid about why the founding members chose that area: "It was where we saw the need and felt we could be useful."
Development Pamoja (Pamoja means "together" in Swahili) is committed to providing communities and families with the tools and the know-how to help themselves. "Trade without aid," is the motto on its banner.
It also does a lot more than this, providing free medical care and assistance to the disabled and elderly in the region.
Mama Matthew stands outside her home with her children and local kids from the villageSource: Ciara KilbrideThe operation
TheJournal.ie joined Hennessy and the Development Pamoja team for a few days last month to see the work they carry out across the region.
The group has as its base a model farm located in Sarambei, about 25 minutes on motorcycle from Mogotio town. On the farm, a medical dispensary - where locals can come for check-ups, consultations and to buy medicine like antibiotics - was built and completed in 2015.
Every day begins with tea at about 9am in a small shed that also serves as a sort of mess hall in a corner of the farm. The team gathers to drink tea and eat some food, laughs, jokes and discusses the day ahead.
This year saw good rains, and the farm is bursting with vegetables. Avocado trees, fresh coriander, banana trees, sweet potatoes, cassava, oranges, tomatoes in a greenhouse and more are all growing.
The farm is fully self-sustainable, requiring no donations to function.
Food is sold at market and handed out to families with the greatest need. As well as this, the team dug large ponds and invested money in a giant underground tank for storing rainwater, to give themselves a constant supply which they sell at a low cost to villagers in need, as well as using the water all year round.
It also serves as an example to locals on what can be done with the right farming techniques and investment in the right areas.
On the Monday we are with them, people start arriving from the surrounding countryside to use the clinic generally at about 10am. A doctor and lab technician are employed to carry out consultations and provide prescriptions, while a physiotherapist also works at the centre.
People pay a small fee to see the doctor and physiotherapist, while the elderly and anyone with a disability are given free care by the team.
On other days, Development Pamoja operates a mobile clinic, while on two Saturdays every month large communal events are held for the disabled and the elderly from surrounding areas – some of the most marginalised groups in Kenya.
A typical day
On the days we visit, Hennessy and Masai wind on motorcylces down dusty, unpaved roads, passed fields of maize and grass, over bumps and through waterlogged stretches, up hills passed goats and cattle grazing on the roads in order to check in with their clients.
Like Mama Matthew, most families live in one or two room huts made from mud and sticks, with iron roofs on top, miles from any services. The houses themselves are sparsely furnished - many lacking even beds, most having no couches and almost all lacking electricity of any sort.
Local women in one of the villages visited by the Development Pamoja teamSource: Ciara KilbrideThere is no running water in most homes, with people instead drinking water from dirty streams where cattle are led to drink.
As a result, water-borne diseases like typhoid are common. Many houses now have rainwater tanks installed by either Development Pamoja or other charities in order to provide them with a better source of water.
On Monday, Hennessy is delivering solar panels that can be used as lights and also to charge mobile phones - a vital lifeline for many of the people here, due to the lack of electricity.
As it is so close to the equator, it gets dark at about 6pm all year and stays dark until 6am. The lights are of great use to villagers, and were donated by Afri Ireland.
The plight of many of the families and people we visit - living with no government support in areas cut off from main roads - is severe.
One woman lives with her severely autistic daughter in a small hut. They have no bed, no income, and the mother is an alcoholic. Hennessy brings them to buy food so that the daughter will be able to eat. In the past, she has been raped by a man the mother had been seeing.
In another home, only reachable by walking through thick plantations of maize and grass, a disabled woman is asking for help to raise the money for an operation. Helen walks with the aid of a stick, has four children and lives cut off even from the isolated communities of this area.
Helen takes a chair for herself outside of her homeSource: Cormac FitzgeraldElsewhere, an elderly man lives in a small, crumbling shack and sleeps on soiled blankets. His exact age is unknown, but Hennessy estimates he is older than 85.
Hennessy speaks to Arap Agogo outside of his home.Source: Ciara KilbrideWhen we arrive, Hennessy is frustrated as the local community was supposed to have carried out repairs to the man's house, but nothing has been done.
"Members of the community approached us and asked if we could help him out and get a bed," he explains.
"We agreed to get a bed, if they took some share of the responsibility and fixed up his house.
"But look," he says, pointing to areas where sticks are poking out of the house. "They've done absolutely nothing here."
The individual hardships and problems multiply as we drive miles from area to area:
A young girl who lost her foot after being attacked during the post-election violence of 2007; two brothers whose parents died years ago, who had leprosy, one of whom lost his legs; a woman who had a stroke and lives in a small hut with no support.
Arap Agogo's bedSource: Ciara Kilbride"Teach a man to fish"
Community efforts, self-sustaining initiatives, education and support without giving unfiltered aid are the practices at the core of Development Pamoja.
"As you've seen, there are certain things that are purely charity-based... But we're also interested in having like a social enterprise here," says Hennessy.
People who come here they do pay to get treatment. If people want to get water off us they do have to pay for that.
Education and no free handouts (except in cases where people are disabled or elderly) is a constant theme of the charity's work.
Teaching farmers about better techniques, helping them dig their own ponds for collecting rainwater, encouraging them to grow grass which is easier to cultivate and fetches a good price at market – these are just some of the practices used by Hennessy and his colleagues to assist the locals.
Learning from past mistakes
Development Pamoja also has as one of the core points of its mission statement to "learn from past projects and experiences".
For example, the group used to give out micro-finance loans to locals for various reasons at low-interest rates, but a high rate of repayment failures meant that they had to stop.
Instead, Hennessy and his team now oversee small community credit groups that save with the charity and through which someone can get a loan only if it’s guaranteed by the group as a whole and has the support of someone who has shown themselves to be trustworthy in the past.
Already, the method is seeing more success than the previous approach, with people more quick to repay the loan if they are answerable to their peers, rather than the charity.
Aid organisations come under frequent criticism in Kenya over what positive impact they have on the groups they are supposed to be helping. In some of Nairobi's slums, some charities have developed bad reputations as places to go for free handouts.
Hennessy says that Development Pamoja is committed to focusing its efforts to where they will have the greatest impact, to not spreading itself too thin on the ground, and to keeping costs to an absolute minimum.
He and his colleagues are committed to leading by example to show how much good work can be done for a fraction of the budget of other organisations.
Last year, the total expenditure was just over €66,072. Of this, the vast majority (80%) went on project costs. Just under €13,000 (20%) was spent on the yearly salaries of Hennessy, a security guard and the other three founding members (one of whom, Mary, has since left the organisation).
The medical dispensary more or less pays for itself with the small amounts it charges for medicine and consultations, as does the cost of running the farm.
Other projects - like the disability programme, the elderly programme and an education programme that helps local children though school - are all funded through specific donations and support from other Irish and international charities and funds, like Electric Aid, the Caring and Sharing Association (CASA), the Davis family and friends, the Irish embassy in Kenya and others.
On the Irish side, all the operations - from fundraising to administration - are carried out on an entirely voluntary basis.
The Irish connection
Standing in the heat on Development Pamoja's model farm, surrounded by avocado and banana trees and listening to Kenyan workers speak to each other in Swahili, it's hard to imagine it as an Irish charity.
In fact, without Hennessy's presence here it would be hard to see anything Irish about the charity. But this would disguise the efforts of volunteers on this side of the world to keep things ticking over.
Development Pamoja is registered as a community-based organisation in Kenya - meaning it can only operate on a local level in a contained district, and not nationally. In Ireland, it is a registered charity with seven board members.
The group is supported by fundraising efforts in Ireland, particularly in and around Hennessy's local area in Cork. Notably, his aunt is always active doing car boot sales and other buy-and-sell initiatives to raise money for the Kenya operations.
Giving back
Hennessy's relaxed nature and easy-going demeanour masks a fierce commitment to his work and to the Kenyan people Development Pamoja is trying to help.
On one of the days we visit the centre, he finds out that an elderly man the charity had worked with and who Hennessy had visited in hospital had died.
"That pisses me off now," Hennessy says, visibly angry.
He had an operation three weeks ago. We had a harambe (community fundraiser) and everything. I visited him in hospital and all they said was that they got the growth on his neck.
"They said it wasn't cancerous. But it fucking was."
He is also realistic about the impact Development Pamoja can have on the lives of the people they assist.
For people like Mama Matthew and her family, it’s about working hard to ensure they are given support to enhance their quality of life, while also recognising that her case is highly complex and may never be resolved without increased government help or more sizeable support from other groups.
Masai Kipruto speaks with Mama MatthewSource: Ciara KilbrideBut Hennessy also points to families whose lives have improved measurably since Development Pamoja started. In relation to the girl with autism who lives with her mother, Hennessy says:
“When I see that girl I know there is a difference. She's cleaner because we give her the clothes, she's less sick because when she comes here we give her drugs and that and we'll do proper drug tests on her.
“Unfortunately with someone like that I can't ever see a situation where she'll be living what we would call a middle-class existence. It's just not going to happen.
“At least last night I know that child ate yesterday, she'll eat today and at least she's away from that man.”
In another case, a local woman – Mama Sabina - was able to secure a series of loans from Development Pamoja and now lives a far more comfortable existence in her home with her family.
As opposed to the “hard cases”, these are the ones that show that the work done by the team can have a positive impact on people’s live.
Mama Sabina sits on a couch in her homeSource: Cormac FitzgeraldThat impact – trying to improve the lot of people less fortunate – is what motivates Hennessy, who says he can’t seem himself leaving Kenya any time soon.
"I'm a fairly privileged person. I'm white middle class, was educated privately by my parents... Never had to worry about anything really in my life.
"I would regard my politics as left of centre and I just think if I can give something back it's a fairly good position to be in.
"And someone can ask well why don't I do that in Ireland but I know that I can have a bigger impact on people here. Less money goes further and that's what would motivate me.
"I know we will never solve the problems of everyone we work with but we can make their lives a bit easier.
"And it's good to be able to do that."
To learn more about Development Pamoja, visit its website here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
What an amazing man .. a true human .. puts a late of people to shame me included..
@Ronan Dunne: Why shame? If someone is cut thousands of miles away do you bleed too? What In reality do most of these charities do. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he can feed himself for life. The majority of these charities give the equilvent of a fish per day but do nothing to train the people to fish for themselves. And thus they become reliant on hand outs. The countries in Africa are a mess because of their own people. And no amount of bleeding heart charity workers will change that.
@Mick Jordan: looks like this charity is aware of the results of giving a fish a day, there is a striving towards s3lf sufficiency
@Mick Jordan: That’s exactly what this small charity does, train them to fish for themselves except in the case of the disabled people they help.
@helen walsh: Its the equlivent of trying to hold back the ocean tide with a teaspoon.
@Mick Jordan: That’s exactly what this small charity does train them to help themselves except of course for those disabled and elderly
@Rachel Gordon: Until such time as the natives themselves get their houses in order, assistance is pointless. It’s pouring money into a bottomless pit. Africa as a continent is fabulously resource rich and the vast majority of the lands fertile if managed properly. Yet the nations of Africa are basket cases. Zimbabwe a prime example. Pre Mugabe it produced food enough not only for its own people but had surplus for export. Today people go hungry, once productive farms are now scrub land. The Congo massive amounts of mineral wealth, but one of the poorest countries on the continent. And the list goes on and on.
@Mick Jordan: because he’s a genuine guy who cares about humans .. learnt they’re language .. lived with them .. helped them .. more than that fella from Argentina that disrupted a lot of people’s life this weekend in Dublin … and still hasn’t the humility to apologise for the organisation he represents to say sorry..
@Ronan Dunne: What he is, is a middle class white boy in Africa, trying to make himself feel better by pretending to himself he is making a difference.
@Mick Jordan: that’s a very negative outlook you have there. He could be living a privileged middle-class existence but has chosen to forfeit this to do some good in the world and yet you criticise him for it?
@Lorna McC: No just being realistic. Until the locals get a grip of their own destiny, all he and all the others are doing if making themselves feel better.
@Mick Jordan: What do you do to make life easier for other people . The only thing here is that you’re nagging constantly about someone who at least is making an effort.
@Mick Jordan: One life changed makes a difference, you on the other hand do SFA except knock a man who is actually trying to help his fellow human beings….you’re a dick Mick.
@Mick Jordan: correct. The use of the Live Aid money was a classic example of money that evaporates and does not produce maximum benefit when not used correctly.
@Mick Jordan: mouth off all you want but it is obvious that you did not read the article and about the approach they take to aid the community they are in.
@Daveinson: I suggest you read my comment re: Teaspoon and Ocean.
@Mick Jordan: what if you don’t like fish
This is the man that 130,000 people should have been turning up to see speak in the Phoenix Park. What a hero!!! Plus I see that young Hennessy is the only man to have ever been allowed say “f0cking” spelt correctly on the Journal.
Well done James. Excellent work you are doing. A true inspiration to everyone.
On a serious note fair play to him. Africa needs to sort its self out and not expect europe to bail them out and take there unwanted.
You can’t save these people from themselves
@Rob O’brien: look at zimbabwe when they threw out the europen descendants the country was called the bread basket of africa with big exports. Now see what it is like…
@Rob O’brien: That’s what you took from this article?
@Rob O’brien: so what do you do, let them die?
@helen walsh: If that’s all they can achieve when they manage their own affairs, then yes.
Thus far Africa has taken far more in help of every sort than Europe took from the Marshal plan. Yet Africa has only gotten worse.
Our charity only serves to artificially inflate their population so they have even more people suffering. Time to get the hell out of Africa and stay out. Give them nothing, take nothing from them. Just leave them to their own devices and see what comes of it. That includes repatriating the ones who’ve spread across the world, setting up their own little corners of hell where they settle.
@Rob O’brien: Racism at its purest.. Shame on you ..
@The Viking: if you’re going to be such a petal then perhaps calling yourself ‘The Viking’ is a bit misleading. How about ‘The Castrato’ or maybe ‘The Androgen’
Hack of ye.
@Rob O’brien: Overly simplistic nonsense. “Don’t give anything to Africa, and don’t take anything”…… Except the natural resources that the Belgians, Germans, Dutch, British and French spent a few centuries stripping from the continent. Socially, Africa is so underdeveloped because it was convenient for colonisers to have it that way.
Do I think we should we should accept unfettered economic migration into Europe? No. Do I think we should hope that monetary and food aid will solves Africa’s problems? No. Do I think that the world should help Africa to help itself with social initiatives, promote fair and open elections, prevent corrupt politicians funnelling state funding into Swiss and Cayman Island accounts and try to foster trade? Bet your ass.
@Shane McGettrick: Unclutch your pearls Shane, they are still be far the most mineral and resource rich continent on earth, the colonials only scratched the surface of what they can use to their betterment if they had the ability. Africa has destroyed almost all of the development the colonial powers gave them. Railroads, local infrastructure of every sort has been broken down and sold off. You’re peddling a version of history that doesn’t exist. Before the colonialisation of Africa it was the most underdeveloped continent on Earth and post colonialism it has kept that title. People make nations what they are, Africa is what it is because of it’s people. Ireland was colonised for longer and arguably far more harshly and yet Africans flee here to avail of what we’ve built since then, in spite of the church hobbling our efforts. If we ‘take nothing’ from Africa that would include their politicos sneaky money transfers into western banks.
Leave them alone and unfettered to make or break their own destiny. then we’ll see how much they can truly blame everyone else for their own failures.
The truly greatest crime the west incurred against the Africans was to expect them to live like us. Let them live their own way. That includes not fretting over them with your charity, pushing their population up to catastrophic and unmanageable levels so the levels of suffering are also magnified.
NGO’s are the new colonialists, scourging Africa with their faux charity.
@Rob O’brien: Oh don’t worry Robby, my pearls are locked away, I don’t to break a sweat to dismiss your brand of nonsense. No national guilt here, but as a member of the species Homo sapiens its all our responsibilities to elevate ourselves collectively.
Libertarian types (the ideology of greed) tend to dismiss others in general, but Africa in particular as not our problem. Give it a little thought and its easy to draw numerous parallels between Africa now and Ireland of the 1920s/1930s, right down to lack of population control. Its OK, you can do it.
@Rob O’brien: maybe not the parents but you can work with the children and educate them. They will see with hard work a better life is their’s!
@Shane McGettrick: we have no idea blanket responsibility towards all other homo sapiens, that’s a witless sentiment. Any correlations between Ireland and Africa are weak and relative and you would be making a special effort to relitavise the two. Libertarians are indeed greedy, I’m more of a fascist though. Shane you’re suffering from stupidity, low testosterone and Marxism.
@Rob O’brien: Aw bless Rob, I’d almost be insulted if I believed you had an IQ that exceeded 80. Low testosterone and marxism are the kind of half baked insulted I’d expected from the beta males of the conservative right and their pseudo intellectualism. Seeing as you haven’t managed to come up with a single factual argument I’ll leave it at this.
The differences that you choose to define people by, culture, religion, skin colour etc. are entirely superficial. The differences between a child born in Cape Town or Dublin are miniscule. Facists (I’m presuming you’re joking about being one, who in their right minds would admit openly to that) bow down at the altar of the nation state, one of humanities great artificial constructs. Why should we ignore people whom we share a species with but feel a kinship for others purely because of where they happened to be born? Surely the definition of witless sentiment is believing that geography confers some sort of innate bond between people.
Africa is at the level of Ireland c. 150 years ago. Endemically corrupt, highly religious and conservative, uneducated, distrust of authority and government, social cohesion undermined by civil war/tribal lines, and an incredibly high birth rate. The differences is, we had some more structures in place from colonialism, and as an agrarian society with a decent climate, feeding families of 12 was manageable.
NGO intervention has both enabled corrupt African dictators and left the people dependant and comfortable with foreign intervention, an unintended side effect of charity. Fact is that Africans have to help themselves but without providing money to embezzle, or food aid to slap a bandage on decades old problems there are things that the world community can do to improve things. A rising tide lifts all ships after all.
If you ever find that second brain cell feel free to respond with a cohesive argument minus the ad hominem insults.
@Shane McGettrick: Well lad, you’ve just managed to post the single most stupid post I’ve ever read. Ever.
Africa is nowhere near Ireland a hundred and fifty years ago. First of all it has far more resource wealth, far better farming potential. Rhodesia produced enough to feed the entire continent, Zimbabwe can’t feed itself, interesting what a change of management and working population does eh?
The biological differences between an Irish child and an African child are so varied and considerable that the colour of their skin is almost an afterthought in comparison.
I feel no kinship based on where someone is born, but the stock they were born from, if it is the same as my own it makes us literally kin. Juxtapose that with people from a continent thousands of miles away who’s common ancestor with ours separated at least 70k years ago evolutionarily then there’s a very real separation within our species. these separations are called ethnic groups and races, and their very real differences are easily seen through the outcome of their different cultural and academic expression, not to mention their scientifically proven differences both physically and even more crucially, mentally.
I said I’m more like a Fascist, not exactly one. But I have little fear of being associated with the label either way. Fascism observes natural law and survival of the fittest as it’s basic tenets, Italian Fascism elevated the State above all, National Socialism elevated the people for example. You know these basic differences if you weren’t an imbecile.
You absolutely take the cake on this one Shane.
Very admirable work and not a sniff of religion or god anywhere ! This is a man of action not just words and prayer !
These people are so poor , it’s beyond imagining, , what this young man is doing is well thought out and constructive, he doesn’t have a Messiah complex, his approach is practical and humane, he knows that many will never be able to help themselves, the same for such people here too, he understands the needs of the elderly and respects that, the able bodied can learn and produce, build knowledge and create sustainability. Maybe they will always need a leader to keep them going, to keep corruption at bay but that is pretty universal too. The level of poverty is should destroying, the minimum basics of life are needed. I shall d3finitely help the helper.
Fair play
It’s far cheaper to look after them there, if they came here it would cost a fortune in welfare, housing etc.
Fair play James. Fantastic effort. I think the comment section should be excluded from such articles because the platform is wasted by trolls and worse, exceptionally ignorant people who look for any chance to knock others. I guess it’s a coping mechanism for them on realising there isn’t much worthwhile they have ever achieved in their lives.
A serious individual. Well the fcuk done my friend
Nice article. Kenyans are amazingly warm and kind people. They work hard and they are immensely proud. The Irish have a strong bond till this day, as does UCC who have a history of sending students form Int Dev and Social Work. This guys work is very noble! “Hongera boss”!
Of note, 10,000 KES is about 84€, not 9€.
No words can describe the dedication of this man, so many forget those in these poor areas because we are not actually in the middle of it.Such admiration and respect to all who work along side those in need .
What an idiot…Why not set up a ‘charity’ in Ireland and pay himself €1.5mil a year!
It wasn’t just the Church, this is from a 2003 interview of “Magdalene Sisters” director Peter Mullan.
“A group of boys were driven into countryside outside Dublin in a school bus,” he recalls. “They stopped alongside another bus wherein stood several young dental students who proceeded to remove all their teeth without any anaesthetic. I’m sorry, but that is Dr Mengele stuff. Where are those young dentists now? Why didn’t they say something 20 or 30 years ago about this? Why keep silent all this time? How did they rationalise that to themselves?”"
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/feb/07/artsfeatures
@Edward Smith: Oops, wrong thread.
have your say