Try this for a days work....

A couple of years ago I was challenged by a colleague who asked me would I be able to live a 'local' life whilst out in Kenya. Would I truly be able to give up my own bed, a fan in the room to keep me cool, having to sit on the floor to eat my meals, having a single ring gas cooker to cook food and having no place private to read or write.

On this trip I have tried to push myself as far as possible in this regard (admittedly its driven by the fact that I am broke!). I am staying with a young family, together with their house help, in an unfurnished apartment, with one ring to cook on and no fan. I do have my own bed however...;)

The experience has really opened my eyes up to just how hard it is to get by out here.

The young mum is considered to have a very good job. She works for a budget airline that is trying to capture market share from the state carrier Kenya Airways. To cut costs the company exploits their staff dreadfully. Consider this for a typical working day:

The young mother of two gets up at 5.00am in the morning, dresses in the company uniform (that needs to be clean and ironed every day) and is picked up at 5.30am and driven to the airport for 6am.

She works till 9pm that night and is dropped home getting in at about 10.30pm. Thats a 15 hour shift excluding travel time.

She works two shifts like this and then gets a day off. Even on a day off she can be called at 5.00am in the morning and told to get ready for work if somebody reports in sick (a regular occurence).

If she herself reports in sick, the time is deducted from her salary at the end of month.

If a delay in the flight schedule occurs over the day she stays late (sometimes till after midnight) for no extra pay, no compensation  - not even a bite to eat or a free cup of coffee to keep going.

Even if she gets back late she is still expected to be available at 5.30am the following morning in a washed and ironed uniform.

Her duties include checking passengers in for upto 10 flights a day, meeting aircraft on the runway, ticket sales and reservations, complaint management (and there are lots!), passenger manifests, handling cash fares and so on. Beyond flying the aircraft, she is involved in everything at a ground staff level (troubled European airlines should hire her immediately - a couple of staff like this and they could half their operating costs;) - Ryanair beware...)

If over the course of the day she makes a mistake by charging a fare that is too low it is subtracted from her wages at the end of the month.

And her wages?

The equivalent of 250euros per month.

She has no health insurance - if she gets sick she loses her job.
She has no pension.
She is not allowed claim any expenses. For example, when she has to travel to Nairobi for obligatory training, the company flies her there but she has to look after food and accommodation herself.
She works Christmas eve and Christmas day and all bank holidays like any other day.

With this salary(about €8 a day) she has to support two young children, a house help, rent, food, clothes, school fees, transport to markets and so on.

She only sees her children on her days off - times when she is so exhausted she spends much of that time sleeping.

And were she to quit the job it would be taken by a long list of people far worse off than herself.

This is considered a good job by Kenyan standards.

And in there is the crux of the problem. As long as there is desperate poverty and high unemployment, companies can exploit workers like this young woman. The airfares for this airline by the way are more expensive than fares back in Ireland for the equivalent distances. So its not like they do not have the money!

It makes me so angry that people are exploited like this. I suspect I feel the exact same way people felt before the invention of unions.

I would love to do something about this but as soon as I interfere I run the risk of the young woman losing her job.

If anyone reading this has has any ideas about how to expose this practice whilst protecting the staff let me know....

Regional Hubs

One of the biggest issues Camara faces in Africa is how to support very remote regions that require computer technology. Its a key issue because there is serious educational disadvantage in the rural areas (albeit there is probably more poverty in the cities - I acknowledge that this is a contentious point to make!) and obviously where there is educational disadvantage, computer technology can play a profoundly positive role to address this.

The main issue is not how to get computers to the remote regions, but more about how to support that region if something goes wrong, as well as providing on going training. There is nothing worse than going to all the logistical trouble of getting computers to a remote area only for them to break down because of no support mechanisms in the area capable of fixing or maintaining them properly. This is a truly bad outcome for everyone concerned.

Over the last couple of years a model has begun to emerge that might tackle this issue. We are running a pilot on Lamu island.

Last year we managed to secure a marvelous premises in an ideal location on the island. The hub  in Mombasa equipped the Lamu premises with a maintenance centre, a refurbishment centre, an open source internet cafe and a training centre, essentially duplicating all its own key operations on a smaller scale.

The Lamu facility has spare parts (including a small stock of machines) and is run by two trained volunteers from the main Hub in Mombasa  who have moved to Lamu permanently. They in turn have recruited a number of local volunteers to help them manage the operation.

The operation has required some capital injection from the Mombasa hub but has managed to cover its basic operational costs through Internet Cafe revenue and training courses revenue.


The Lamu hub supports 12 schools in the area. It provides ongoing maintenance and training  to the schools as well as offering computer courses to local people wanting to further their education.

What remains to be done is to put in a fully functional community led governance structure that drives the initiative forward.

I am really impressed by what they have achieved in such a short space of time. It has the potential to be the way we support the rural regions as Camara grows in Africa. In Kenya alone over 150 schools now have Camara labs and de-centralising the support structure to a local level is going to be key for the project to scale. Its also great that key enabling resources for the Lamu hub to happen like community support (providing the premises) and expert volunteers (who have been trained in the main hub) are readily available. Obviously these volunteers take an allowance to support themselves and so are effectively now employed as technical trainers and technicians.

A win win for everyone in my mind.