CHILD DOCTOR PROJECT

Child Doctor Project was founded as part of the fundraising and awareness-raising initiatives to support Child Doctor Japan — an NPO dedicated to providing free, quality healthcare to children living in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, through the distribution of ‘medical vouchers’ sponsored by individual supporters in Japan. What makes Child Doctor particularly unique is its system of support; the interaction between the supporter (called Doctor) and the Child in Kenya does not simply end with donations, but continues through the online letter-writing program that creates a deep emotional connection between the two. To facilitate their communication, Child Doctor asks for volunteer translators to translate the exchanged letters, from English to Japanese and vice versa. My involvement with Child Doctor began when I first became a volunteer translator in 2020, and later a Doctor of an eight-year-old girl named Angel. 

In the hope of promoting the work of Child Doctor at school, I started the Child Doctor Project in October 2021, which began with the fundraising activity of creating handmade bracelets with my friends (woven with hundreds of beads in customizable designs) and selling them in front of the cafeteria every Friday lunchtime. Thanks to the warm support from our school community, we were able to raise a total of over 120,000 JPY through the bracelet sales, all of which were donated to Child Doctor Japan to 1) cover the dialysis cost of one child, 2) purchase fire extinguishers for the residents of the slums, 3) become a Doctor as a school for two children — Dwayne and Abraham, and the rest dedicated to enhancing the healthy lives of the local children supported by Child Doctor.

While the main objective of this project was to broaden the support for people living in the slums of Kenya, I also hoped to paint a broader picture of their life, and provide more nuanced, authentic narratives beyond the often misleadingly-simple media stories that portray negative, reductionist images of people in poverty. I figured one way to make such a difference was to enter their lifeworlds and see their lived experiences from their own perspectives. So last December, I was inspired to host a live event on ZOOM to connect my school community with the people in the Nairobi slum. It included an interview with a 14-year-old student named Grace, and a virtual visit to the community she lives in, through which we saw how people were going about their lives in real-time. Virtually walking through the streets of the slum, we saw people living without running water and reliable electricity supplies to their houses, which demonstrated the hardships imposed by limited infrastructure and public services. Though, as much as it was informative of such challenges, it was a profoundly inspirational and moving event, for it presented people as active rather than passive actors in their daily lives. We were also able to make a genuine human connection with humor and friendship; at the end of the interview, with Grace leading, we all sang together a verse of ‘If You’re Happy and You Know it’. Such an interaction provided an insight into the reality of their narrative by making them the center of their own story, making visible their challenges, resilience, hope, and individual happiness through an unfiltered experience. 

Anyone with bilingual/multilingual skills in Japanese and English is welcome to become an online volunteer to translate the letters for Child Doctor — or even a Doctor to support a child. It is my sincere hope that this project will establish a long-lasting bridge between our international community and those in Kenya, build a more balanced picture of their lives, and serve as a stepping stone to bring us all together in our common humanity. Please feel free to reach out to me at tamamio0443@gmail.com with any questions. Asante!