Author Archives: daveboni

With minimal warning government plant has unceremoniously razed to zero scores of the tin shack dwellings to excavate a two metre diameter trench along the slum perimeter outlined by the foul water stream.  Flying toilets, (excrement in a bag, centrifugally launched post use) is the preferred method of waste disposal as visiting the few pay-as-you-goContinue reading “Underground Overground…”

The finer points of the community health care (CHC) training can, on the surface seem mundane and obvious and although gaps in knowledge and understanding are unpredictable and astonishing it is the application that presents the challenge. Couple this with ‘traditional’ knowledge, the witch doctor and ‘mother knows best’, progress can be asthmatic at timesContinue reading “Toothpaste…”

The recent whiff of alleged financial impropriety and questionable integrity clearly does not limit itself to the upper echelons of English soccer. The demand for the Kibera football academy for coaches was outstripping supply and meaningful progression under the capable boots of our UK trainers. Rumours abounded of personal financial interest and darker motives by theContinue reading “Beautiful Intentions…”

Subject overview matrices, lesson planning, development and learning outcome assessments are in integral and important part of ensuring consistency and quality of delivery and learning in any teaching environment. Predicting the likely turnout in Kibera across the three teaching streams is a conundrum of Rubik proportions. The micro enterprise development team forged on valiantly withContinue reading “The Number Games.”

Public services and useable utilities in Kibera are patchy at best and realistically none existent for most. Africa’s largest ‘informal settlement’ is acknowledged in part as a source of economic labour for the Nairobi metropolis, and as a persistent migraine by the overstretched authorities. Ignore it long enough and it might go away. The recentContinue reading “The Wifi Revolution…”

Just how a country with a GBP of 500 US dollars per capita and whose economy is nearly fifty percent rooted in agriculture supports the largest airline in Africa remains an enigma.   Boasting several new plastic Dreamliners and one of the youngest fleets of any airline, the “New Spirit of Africa” sports a livery thatContinue reading “Ethiopian Spirit…”

An invitation to a home on Kibera is a huge honour, although both humbling, and daunting. Visitors from the many other defined Kibera sub-districts are easily identified by gait or language, and are often targeted; Mzungu skin simply negates the guesswork. Our hosts, having earned their respect through their demonstrable commitment to coaching of theContinue reading “Security Cheques…”

  Nairobi’s 3.3 million residents commuting needs are no different to any other nation capital.   Twice a day the entire population has the urge to move and the ensuing gridlock has little respect of socio-economic status. Granted the middle classes have the use of private vehicles of varying abilities, but they have to vie withContinue reading “Matatu Bling…”

The term ‘Micro-Finance’ is not as ubiquitous as it might seem. In some developing countries its reputation has dived subterranean with interest rates and conditions that would make a loan-shark blush. The term ‘Micro Enterprise Development’ is not just a rebrand; it is an attempt to look at business development holistically, with support and adviceContinue reading “Hi Speed Chapattis…”

Coaching the coaches in Kibera does have its own unique set of challenges. The territorial baboons who have the propensity for acquiring anything colourful or edible on or off field soon becomes an irritation. A chance face to face encounter with a full sized adult wild warthog had recklessly been left of the risk assessment.Continue reading “The beautiful game and the warthog…”