Burkitt Lymphoma - Health Talk by AYV Team

Creating a Media Eye in the Society

The 2012 Adobe Youth Voices training once again hits a new dimension as we integrate the youths with professionals of diverse calibers in their information search and dissemination training  The integration of these ages has largely changed the approach of the under mentioned ideologies of issues happening in our society hence resulting into great results of the end results.

For those of us who might not be well informed of what Adobe Youth Voices is all about, here is a brief over the same: Adobe Youth Voices aims to empower youths in under served communities around the globe with real-world experiences and 21st century tools to communicate their ideas, exhibit their potential, and take action in their communities.

In that regard, Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre, ALIN, was mandated with the responsibility of empowering the youths and encouraging them in the use of cutting-edge multimedia tools like Adobe premiere, Adobe Photoshop, camera skills, Picasa 3, windows movie maker among other editing and sharing softwares. This is marked our second phase of training a previous group of 30 in the year 2011 and for 2012 again we have overseen another group of 30 youths equipped with the same skills; they shall remain the eye and voice of this community through video and photography documentations sharing. Watch out for their video projects in a weeks time.

First Aid Africa Does it Again in Ndhiwa

 I tend to believe that the year 2012 was a great year for the Ndhiwa community and a lucky number of 30 people dominated the other supportive programmes hosted by the centre. Our interest and sharing today is on First Aid Africa’s training on the first aid skills and administration to the casualties. This time too we had some lively trainers by the Lindsey, Rebecca, Sophie and others.

The team trained 35 First Aiders on basic and advanced first aid skills from which a good number of them were issued with certificates of merit after critical  examinations. The team expressed their excitement on how the trainees had always been ready to deeply learn of anything new that seemed to be of any developmental value with whichever challenges that came with it.

We were curious too to have an understanding from one the trainers, Lindsey, if they had realized any impact of their 2 months (July-August) training from the people and this is what she said: “Yeah of course there is, think of this, you are travelling and then you suddenly come across a scene of motorbike accident and when you stop at the scene, the person you find to be rescuing and offering first aid to the causalities is your trainee, how would you feel? I was as so thrilled and motivated as a First Aid Trainer. This showed me of how the people here are ready to utilize whatever capacitation they get so long as it’s of help to them.

Otherwise the group learnt a lot on how to handle Minor and major injuries, Burns, Fractures, Blood lose and shock, foreign objects and Bites among others.

ICT TRAINEES PASS OUT

 It was pride and jubilation in the faces of 78 community members after completing their basic ICT training at Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre. Just like any other road to prosperity, the group faced a lot of challenges especially on the frequently interrupted power supply; making their session to run for nine weeks instead of six.

Having patient to the end, the team saw the need of organizing a small get together bash for their four classes whereby they presented their appreciation both to the organization and specifically to their beloved trainers. A number of them gave out their brief testimonies of how much they had grown to believe that they would never have a touch on a computer due to their ages but now that was a bad dream gone soar.

As an organization with high interest on impact, we highly encouraged the passing out team to keep us abreast on the impacts of the services they received and continue to receive in this centre no matter how minor it may appear since it will enable us make easy follow ups on them.

Otherwise so much was discussed in terms of daily life positive living, both from the guests and the trainees themselves. They day seem to have bond them well with the cool music since the morning sessions had never had a joint meeting with the evening team until then.

Hope as Hon. Martin Owino Visits the Maarifa Centre

On the 23^rd March 2012, Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre was privileged to host Hon. Martin Owino, a medical expert and political aspirant for Ndhiwa constituency parliamentary seat 2013. To us it was another mileage because rarely has the politicians paid a visit to this centre for the past six years of its service to the needy community of which they refer to as the electorate.

Someone once said that ‘knowledge is to know that tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is not to use it as a pudding’. We are not going to take this privilege to blame any of the politicians for the past but I believe that Hon. Martin Owino has created a turning point to the kind of political consideration in the projects that are/will continue to assist and improve the livelihood of its people.

Hon. Martin Owino was able to address the 120 attending electorates who are trainees and partners of Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre on the need of them voting wisely and peacefully. He highly appraised what ALIN has done to this community in the past years despite the challenges it has gone through as a rapidly growing organization.

He was quick to say that as to the reason why most politicians might have failed to visit and support this centre was because a good number of them preferred leading ignorant electorates who barely have room for listening to policies. His urge was that it would have been a great idea to have such centres in all the 6 divisions of Ndhiwa to empower the people. Otherwise our guest had very good policies that we may not be able to highlight here due to a number of reasons. In his final remarks, Hon. Martin Owino promised never leave the centre the way he found it and he pledged to support it by donating  a few computers for the ICT training and books for the community library.

Heroes Day Celebration

Kenya marked her 49th year of independence on Saturday, 20th October 2012, colorful celebrations all over the country. Kenyans of all designation came together to celebrate yet another Mashujaa day in recognition of the achievements of our freedom fighters. This day also affords us the opportunity to celebrate the post independence and modern days’ heroes and heroines who has brought this country the pride and the joy that we enjoy today. 

In Ndhiwa district Wananchi were also up in arms to celebrate this big day with hopes of a better tomorrow. The event took place in Ndhiwa Grounds.

From the presidents speech which was read by the District Commission of Ndhiwa, Mr. Omoding, the president urged Kenyans to take charge of their social, economic, and cultural and political affairs to ensure significant progress. In relation to many challenges ahead namely, high cost of life, high inflation rate, insecurity just to mention but a few, economy of this country has grown by 4.5%, as inflation fell about 5%. This was as a result of impressive agricultural activities, expansion of finance and banking, I.C.T, infrastructure, Tourism and hospitality. 

Residents too had their plea placed before the government in an organize manner. During his speech,  the chairman of Ndhiwa Business Community urged for development of the market to ensure proper layout of structures to enable especially the micro-business entities e.g. mama mbogas to have a good place for their businesses since they are the most affected. 

In line to this, Mr. Omar Were, who is a Muslim Sheikh from Ndhiwa Muslim community, blamed the administration offices for lack of modern public toilets in the market as a way of improving the environment around the market. He questioned why Mwananchi are ever taxed for services yet there is nothing in return.

In his speech, the DC Mr. Omoding also insisted on environmental management starting with noise of which he cautioned religious organizations and the residents to ensure they don’t disturb others in their activities. He praised the work of security personnel in ensuring peace within the entire district and urged the residents to give security agents maximum cooperation to ensure the region is peace and through such investors will stream in, otherwise In his closing remarks, the DC concurred with other speakers and promised proper market planning and structuring as well as promise to safeguard rights of every resident.