First Opportunity

Last year in May, I had a valuable experience participating in a virtual slum tour to acknowledge the living conditions in some cities of Kenya. When the viewers had an opportunity to communicate with a girl from Kenya, I asked if she had any wishes and her answer was to buy a smartphone. Her willingness to have a smartphone was based on her dreams to interact with technology and become an engineer in the future. This was vastly fascinating and has inspired me to organize a similar event online for SOIS. 

Working with the Child Doctor Organization

As part of the fund-raising initiatives designed to support ‘Child Doctor Japan’, I created hand-made beaded bracelets with my friends and sold them near the cafeteria every Friday. The main purpose of this project was to support Child Doctor and bring awareness of the reality of poverty/limited access to healthcare in the slums of Kenya. In the end, all sales from selling the bracelets were donated to support the work of Child Doctor, as well as to purchase necessary goods for families and cover the costs for emergency surgeries for children. 

Virtual Slum Tour (Overview)

The tour was held in two different languages (Japanese and English) since I wanted the whole SOIS community to equally have an opportunity to experience the interaction with Kenya.

We had an interview with a 14-year-old girl named Grace (whom Child Doctor supports) for the first half of the online tour. She introduced her culture, described daily life in Kenya, and answered some of our questions with friendliness, while I spoke as a moderator. Afterward, we had Catherine, a Child Doctor staff member in Kenya, as a guide to take us through the area where Grace lives (Southland slum in Nairobi). I believe it was a rare and meaningful opportunity for all of us, as it was not a recorded video from the past but a live event where we saw in real-time how people were going about their daily lives. 

Message

While the main goal of this Child Doctor project was to support children living in the slums, I also hoped to paint a broader picture of their life in Kenya. What we generally see about Africa in the news media are the stories that often only portray how poor or tragic their circumstances are. However, as an international community, I believe it is truly important to recognize our common humanity and become aware of such harmful stereotypes against these communities. Just as we saw through the slum tour, there is a life there that is just as nuanced and colorful as ours here in Japan; I’m sure many of us remember the smiles of people and that moment when Grace told us about her dream of becoming a doctor. Even though many challenges and hardships remain, poverty does not define a person’s life or happiness.

For further details, please check the Slides.