One evening in December, during the post-election violence in Kisumu, Western Kenya, Dennis Otieno was walking down Tom Mboya Street with four other friends. Once a busy thoroughfare, he was now walking past empty stores with their windows smashed in and their goods looted. Suddenly, a police car pulled up and two policemen spilled out […] More »

Birthplace to some of the continent’s most varied and breathtaking landscapes, Kenya is also facing one of the highest deforestation levels in the world. Between 1990 and 2005 alone, the country lost 500,000 acres of its indigenous forests. Famous for its white beaches and warm ocean, Kenya’s infamous coast is particularly hard-hit. Faced with few […] More »

The drought in Northern Kenya this year is severe. Farah Olad, the Deputy Chief of Party of Education for Marginalized Children of Kenya (EMACK), an organization which works with Somali pastoral communities, tells me grey is the “color of death” in this rural region. And the whole landscape is grey: from the ground to the […] More »

The Obunga Youth Group sits on the edge of the biggest slums in Kisumu, the main city in the Nyanza Province of Western Kenya, and the epicentre of post-election violence. This week they held a forum and how to move beyond that horrific episode. With 12,000 people living on less than $1 a day, the […] More »

John Mathenke was once arrested for being gay but, after failing to pay the customary bribe, was forced to have sex with the policeman. He had an orgy with a priest who publicly excoriates homosexuality, along with five other Masaai boys. And his Arab trader clients curse him during the day, but come back looking […] More »

The idea of supplying hydro power to poor communities came to Nyaga Ndiga after hours spent by the river grinding millet. He was inspired to try the same concept—friction—to produce energy. In a country where only 4 per cent of the population can afford electricity, Ndiga was uncovering an untapped market: cheap, sustainable, community-owned rural […] More »

Year-round, Mama Agnes feeds a family of six with a comparatively 100 square-metre plot of land. She stands in her backyard garden, an oasis of green in a landscape left yellow and cracked by the hot sun. She points to tomato plants heavy with still-green fruits, sukuma (kale), onions, and spinach. Mama Agnes is currently […] More »

In North America, text-messaging has a reputation for being frivolous, used to spread teenaged rumours, or the recent mania over “sexting.” But in developing countries like Africa, cell phones and text messages are the primary means of communication. And, not just for gossip. Information and communication for development or ICT4D, isn’t just another fancy development […] More »