CAFOD’s Film & Photography Officer, Thom Flint reflects on the trip to Marsabit County in Kenya. He met some of the most hard-to-reach communities, but saw the potential that our global Church network has to reach out.
We jump into the back of the Caritas Marsabit 4×4 and hit
the road, film equipment safely stored behind us. And under us. And on top of
us. We’re in north-east Kenya, and we’re on our way to meet the communities
that we’ve been giving food aid to since the drought hit in 2016.
The going is initially easy. A little too easy. We zoom up a
very smooth, newly-tarmacked main road with only the occasional camel for
But the communities we’re visiting don’t happen to live on a main road.
Dadirai Chikwengo is CAFOD’s Governance Advisor supporting work across Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is currently in Zimbabwe ahead of the first elections since former President, Robert Mugabe – who had been leading the country for over 30 years – stepped down.
In the last five days, I have been taken back to my childhood days. The days when I was a little girl in Gweru. The euphoria and the excitement in the country have taken me back decades to 1980 when Mugabe came into power. It is winter in Zimbabwe. Not that our winters are grey and wet as some place in the North where I now live. Here most of the vegetation looks brown like fields of wheat ready for harvest. But this winter, the colours on the brown barks of the trees have been unusual. From green, yellow, red, blue, you mention it!
In case you think I am out of my mind – surely who has seen a blue tree? I am not. These are all the colours of posters tied up or pasted on the trees. The colours of posters that are lining the streets or on walls whenever you go. Posters of political parties, the Church or the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission about this election. I meet people in the streets who are fearlessly open about their candidate of choice. Clad in the colours of their party every time they see someone in the same colours they acknowledge them and loudly say out the slogan ED Pfee (ED enters) or Chamisa chete chete (Chamisa the only one).
Runa volunteers for CAFOD. She tells us why a CAFOD beekeeping project inspired her to want to fund raise.
I recently helped my niece and nephew bake a honey cake for a bake-off challenge for their charity school fair. A lot of families attended the event and it was a real success. It is great to see supporters looking to have a party-like experience while raising some money, although our cake wasn’t the winning cake (I am still sad about that). I believe creating a fun atmosphere is the key in raising money for CAFOD this summer.
I was inspired by reading about CAFOD’s overseas projects, and I came across the story of Bharoti. Bharoti lives in a village in Bangladesh with her husband. They are poor parents that led a very hard life and struggled to pay for the basics. CAFOD’s beekeeping project gave Bharoti an alternative way to earn money. The project provides training on bee cultivation and advanced bee keeping techniques. They learn about proper nursing, feeding, treatment, and how to make a new queen cell to grow the bee colony. It is great to hear Bharoti is now an expert on advanced bee keeping technologies, and she also provides technical support to others in the community.
Stories like Bharoti’s prove how beneficial raising money is to families that need support. CAFOD Beekeeping projects provide an income and can create business opportunities.
The project is a source of hope for women where paid work is hard to come by and working with bees has helped build confidence and self-esteem within their communities. That’s surely motivation to want to do fund raise this summer.