The first Afrocentric School of Africa is growing rapidly

Since the British colonists left Kenya in East Africa, very little has changed in education. That’s the perception of Utheri and Oku Kanayo, who have set up Africa's first afrocentric school: the Children in Freedom School in Nakurum Kenya.

"We want the children to understand that it is a privilege and an absolute honor that they are African."

To read the story I wrote for de Volkskrant newspaper, click here. To listen to the story instead, you can click here for the radio reportage I made for VPRO programme Bureau Buitenland.

Libération: pictures from Somalia

Worrying report written by Patricia Huon from Somalia, where a humanitarian disaster is still unfolding as a result of the worst drought in forty years. “We have lost everything.”

Today, her story (together with some of my photos,) can be read in the French newspaper Libération.

New work for the New York Times: a story about a bicycle protest in Nairobi

For The New York Times I rode with Furaha (11), Samora (6) and Cyrus (11), who are campaigning for more rights (and bike paths) for cyclists here in Nairobi during the monthly Critical Mass Nairobi demonstration. The story can be read on Sunday in this colorful edition of The New York Times for Kids. You can get your hands on a copy by ordering one through this link.

In Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, Jeevanjee Gardens is usually a bubble of calm. But on the last Saturday of each month, the small park transforms into a buzzing gathering place when hundreds of bicyclists roll in.

Cyrus, 11, steers his black mountain bike over the garden’s cracked paving as he greets some of the other people who have arrived with their bikes. “This gathering is called Critical Mass,” he says. “It’s fun, and it keeps me fit.” More than 300 people, including about two dozen kids, gather here each month to ride through Nairobi’s city center and neighborhoods. They shout, blow whistles and wave flags. Their goal is to make cycling safer for people. They want the city to make bike lanes on roads and to pass stronger laws to protect them while riding.

Nairobi is big and hilly, and almost all the roads were built just for cars. People who want to ride bikes (or even walk) have to pedal next to or in between cars, motorcycles and huge buses. “Cycling in Nairobi isn’t safe,” says Samora, 7, who goes to the rallies with his sister, Furaha, 11, and their aunt and uncle. Samora says he is sometimes pushed off the road by cars and buses, because they veer toward him.

The Critical Mass rides, which also happen in other cities around the world, started in Nairobi in 2014. So far they have created some change: The city has added a few bike lanes to busy roads. Cyprine Mitchell, an adult who organizes the @criticalmassnairobi gatherings, says that there have also been talks in national government meetings about making roads safer for people on bikes.

Furaha says she will keep joining the rides, “because it’s a real community — it brings bicyclists together.” She hopes that as the city becomes more friendly to riders, more people will opt for bikes instead of cars. Until then, she and others will continue fighting to make it safe. 🚲

Migrant stories: three testimonials about working in Qatar

For de Volkskrant, El País and RTL Nieuws, I interviewed three migrant workers. Two who have come back to Kenya, and one Kenyan who is still stuck in Qatar (who is working there illegally). Their painful stories shine a light on how poorly many (black) migrant workers are treated in the small Gulf state. To read more, tap on one of the links below:

• El relato de tres inmigrantes africanos: “En Qatar la gente literalmente trabaja hasta la muerte” [El País]

• Het WK ging beginnen, dus arbeidsmigrant Maina moest plaatsmaken voor de voetbalfans [de Volkskrant]

• Gastarbeider Malcolm werd opgepakt in Qatar: 'Ik had kritiek' [RTL Nieuws]

• ‘Ik moest doen alsof ik gek was om terug naar huis te kunnen vluchten’ [de Volkskrant]

• Activist Malcolm Bidali werkte als beveiliger in Qatar: ‘Er kleeft bloed aan de stadions die je op tv ziet’ [de Volkskrant]

• Nepalezen zien hun arbeiders met veel geld terugkeren, slachtoffers zijn dan even vergeten [de Volkskrant podcast ‘Elke Dag’]

A column about Joram, the app developer slash farmer slash Uber driver

Many hundreds of times over the past five years I have ordered an Uber taxi, but never have I been picked up in Nairobi by a driver dressed in a three-piece suit. Joram, he must be in his mid-20s, even has a freshly picked rose tucked into the lapel of his suit jacket. Does he always go to such great lengths for the people he drives?

He smiles. ‘No sir, this is not for you. I have a meeting with some investors later and I want to look smart.’ My driver turns out to be an app developer and hopes to raise some investments to grow his business. ‘I thought I'd take a few more rides before my meeting starts, get myself some pocket money.’

In the conversation that follows, it turns out that Joram also owns a shamba, a farm, in his parents' village, that he actually graduated as an accountant, but also owns a small vegetable stall in Nairobi and that he builds apps in his spare time. How did he manage to do the latter? He just watched some explanation videos on YouTube.

When I had just moved to Nairobi, I was often perplexed by these kinds of stories from multi-tasking Kenyans. I now know: Joram is one of Kenya's many hustlers, which is best translated as 'hosselaars', but without the negative connotation that the Dutch translation often has. Kenyans are proud of their hustlers – in fact, the country now even has a president who proudly calls himself the hustler-in-chief.

But will William Ruto's new government stand up for the hustlers who elected him as promised? Read the column in today's paper edition of de Volkskrant, or here on the website: https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-van-de-dag/op-president-en-opperhosselaar-william-ruto-hoeven-kenianen-niet-te-rekenen~b6106162/

A conversation with migrant worker turned activist Malcolm Bidali

Qatar is very content with how their World Cup tournament is going so far. The Qatari government has even said that they would like to see if it’s possible to host the Olympic Games of 2036. But not everyone is as excited about another big sporting event in the gulf country.

Qatar, for instance, heavily depends on migrant workers  in sectors all across its workfield. But these migrant workers are treated poorly, some of them even die when working in construction, domestic work or other sectors. During the World Cup event, El País interviews three Kenyan migrant workers who have worked in Qatar. 

Today, Malcolm Bidali, who has worked as a security guard in Qatar, shares his story. El País met with him in a coffee garden in Nairobi, where he often brings his laptop to work on the small human rights organization he has recently set up. Together with Aidah, who worked as a domestic worker in Bahrain, they try to prevent further abuse of migrant workers in gulf countries and the Middle East as a whole. 

Bidali, dressed in a hoodie from Hamburg soccer club St. Pauli, is still quite vocal about the position of migrant workers in Qatar. His efforts to raise awareness to human rights violations previously got him in deep trouble. When he was still living in Qatar, he wrote about how he and other migrant workers were mistreated, which led him to get arrested by the Qatari security service. Still, Bidali says he regrets nothing. “I will not be silenced.”

— by Joost Bastmeijer, Nairobi, Kenya

“Before I left for Qatar, I was broke. Financially speaking, but I was also broken mentally. I was unemployed, so I tried to make ends meet with all kinds of side jobs and hustles. Life in Kenya is tough for many people, there is not enough work for everyone and if you don't have connections, you won't get a job anywhere. 

When I met up with a childhood friend who had worked in Dubai, he saw that I was completely exhausted. He arranged work for me as a security guard for a company in Qatar's capital, Doha. The two years I worked there were good. I stayed with other migrant workers in a gated residential area. We lived in a big house and could make our own ugali in the kitchen. 

After my return to Kenya I left for Qatar again, this time for a different company. Now everything turned out to be very badly arranged. We were put in a labor camp in the industrial area of ​​Doha, which are pretty much the slums or ‘informal settlements’. Living conditions there were appalling. For example, the food was very bad, there was mold on the walls and there were bed bugs living under the mattresses. 

We were crammed into four-by-four-foot rooms with six men, leaving almost no space between my bunk bed and the man next to me. I tried to isolate myself at night by keeping a diary about how badly we were treated. 

Although it was not originally intended, I have published those texts under a pseudonym on a blog. Among other things, I wrote about how many security guards work twelve-hour days, how we pass out because of the extreme heat in which we have to work. In Qatar, people are literally worked to death. 

There is a lot of talk about the number of guest workers who have died. Are there six thousand or ten thousand? I then say: how many people have to die before you care? Is one life lost because of negligence not enough for you?

One day I wrote a critical blog about the former first lady of Qatar. I didn’t know this at the time, but it apparently had put me on the radar of the Qatari security services. A few days later, my phone was hacked after I opened a strange-looking link, revealing my identity to the authorities. 

I was arrested and thrown into solitary confinement, and a month of interrogations followed. I had no contact with the outside world and was not given a lawyer. I was very scared; everyone knows what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. There were three different occasions on which I was sure they were going to kill me. I was only released when human rights organizations put pressure on me. 

But I will not be silenced. Now I’m back in Kenya, I have set up an organization called Migrant Defenders, to help other migrant workers and step up for their rights. If we can empower them and educate them about their position, we can work together as one group and stand up for our rights. We are focusing on all countries in the Middle East, as human rights violations also happen in other places than Qatar. 

I like football, so I do watch the World Cup in Qatar. It depends on which team is playing, though. There's no point in boycotting the event - do you think Qatar will lose any sleep if they miss out on money? Governments still do business with Qatar. Only they can bring real change. 

It’s mentally difficult for me to watch a match played in a stadium built by someone who has not been paid, who has been away from his family for five years, who has been discriminated against or who may even have died during construction. Because that's the reality: there's blood on the stadiums you see on TV.”

This interview has been published by de Volkskrant and El País.

"We can't wait to see the ball rolling over the Qatari soccer fields"

How do people from different places around the world look at the contested World Cup soccer game in Qatar? I interviewed Senegalese sports journalist Babacar Khalifa Ndiaye about how the Senegalese think about human rights violations and deceased migrant workers. To read his insights, click here.

Climate activists from Somalia want to share the children's perspective

Life in Somalia’s largest camp for climate refugees is tough. Here, in the south of Somalia, nearly 360,000 displaced people live in 500 locations around the small town of Baidoa. And that number keeps on growing: every day, new IDPs or ‘internally displaced people’ come to Baidoa to seek shelter, medication, food and water.

Yet for Shukri (14), Mohamed (14) and Fadumo (17), this has been their home for years. They all came here during previous droughts, and have never returned to their original homes. To let people know how children are impacted by the effects of climate change in Somalia, which is going through the worst drought of the past 40 years, they have decided to team up and become climate activists.

Shukri: "I wanted to understand what is happening to Somalia, to know why our country is facing this heat. I then found out that the climate is changing, not only because of the cutting of trees, but also because of pollution of cars and factories. I have also learned that in our country, we don’t even have that many dirty cars and factories compared to the rest of the world. This makes me sad. It feels very unfair to me that we are facing the consequences of climate change. We are paying the price for something we have not caused."

Mohamed: "The drought affects us all and the drought is here because of climate change. We had to leave our homes and come to this settlement. Even here, the heat is sometimes too much. At times, it is so hot we cannot stay in our classrooms, and we have to go outside. When the winds are coming, even our houses that are made of fabrics are not providing enough shelter. There is sand everywhere, it is hot and it can hurt your face, your eyes. There are many children that have to work for their parents to earn some money. They do odd jobs like collecting firewood, or washing other people’s clothes. That is also a result of climate change, as people have lost their livelihoods."

Fadumo: "As Somali children, we don’t get a platform to share our perspective. We can never raise our concern, it’s like our voice doesn’t matter. Parents or teachers often make decisions for children, even without consulting them. I believe that change can come if we raise our voice and come up for our own rights. That’s why I want to share my stories about how climate change has affected me and other children like me. I believe that through my activism, change can come for the children of Somalia."

Read the full story (in Spanish) here, on the website of newspaper El País.

Youths are regreening their Nairobi neighborhood, one park at a time

In Nairobi, I spent some time with Evans Otieno who used to be a gangster of Dandora, making money with robberies and muggings. Now, he is a successful entrepreneur and a pioneer in community-led projects. I talked to him about his transformation, and how he now transforms his neighborhood by collecting garbage, recycling, planting trees and creating lush public spaces for his community members. You can read my reportage story for De Volkskrant here.

On 'climate adaptation': an interview with Ban Ki-moon for De Volkskrant

Africa hardly contributes to climate change, but is severly hit by its negative consequences. At a climate adaptation summit in Rotterdam (skipped by most European leaders), African heads of state asked for Western support, because there is an increasing gap between the money available to limit and prevent the consequences and the amount that is actually needed. For De Volkskrant newspaper, I answered five questions (and interviewed former secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon).

New work for The New York Times: a story about how the drought in Somalia is affecting kids

For the first story I have written for The New York Times, I followed Abdulkadir (8) and Amina (10) in the camp for internally displaced people in the south of Somalia. With 30,000 other people, they live in a settlement near Luglow, where the conditions are dire. You can read the full story below, or click here to buy the August edition of The New York Times for Kids, of which my piece is part of.

The New York Times: Kids in Somalia are facing a water crisis

Amina Yonis Abdinur, 10, was one of the lucky ones. She didn’t have to walk for days to get to the camp near Kismayo, a city in Somalia in eastern Africa. She had lived nearby in a small village, with her mother and five siblings, until drought forced them to move. Others had to travel for miles, taking only what they could carry on their backs. ‘‘People have told me horrible stories,’’ Amina says.

Somalia is experiencing an awful drought, which is an extended period when there’s little or no rainfall. Typically, the country experiences two rainy seasons every year. But climate change is making them less reliable. The droughts have become so long and frequent that farms have dried up completely. ‘‘There was no grass left for the animals to eat,’’ Amina says. Her family lost 50 cows and 150 goats. Once all the food was gone, they had no choice but to leave.

Amina is a climate refugee, or someone who has had to leave their home because climate change has made it unlivable. In her camp of 30,000 people, aid organizations give out food and water. People live in shelters made of tarps, fabric and sticks, and outside kids play soccer in the dusty, rocky soil. This camp is one of many in the region: The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that more than 750,000 Somalians have had to leave their homes this year because of the drought.

The camps are helpful, but life is still hard. Many kids don’t get enough to eat, says Abdulkadir Ismail Bilal, 8. In the camp, there’s only enough food for him to eat one plate of rice each morning. ‘‘At the end of the day, I’m quite hungry,’’ he says. Mohammed Ahmed, who works for the aid organization Save the Children, says that there aren’t enough funds and supplies to help everyone. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next.

The problem is much bigger than just this village, or Somalia. Linda Ogallo, a climate scientist, says that all of eastern Africa is experiencing extreme weather, and that it will only get worse over time because of climate change.

Amina has seen it firsthand. ‘‘The land has dried up,’’ she says. ‘‘The small plants are dying, then the trees lose all their leaves.’’ After the rains, Somalia used to be green. ‘‘But the last two years, everything is orange. There is only dust. It’s getting hotter and hotter.’’ And for her and hundreds of thousands of other kids, the heat is becoming inescapable. ◊

Odinga goes to court: what does he want? New work for De Volkskrant and VPRO

ODM opposition leader Raila Odinga has gone to court to challenge the result, describing it as "fraudulent", as he alleges there was a pre-planned effort to alter the outcome. Four of the seven electoral commissioners refused to gather behind the outcome of the elections, saying that the way the final results were tallied was "opaque".

What happens now? How do Kenyans feel about Odinga’s move? And what proof does the ‘opposition veteran’ and his legal team have? That’s what I’ve tried to explain to Sophie Derkzen, host of NPO Radio 1’s radio programme Bureau Buitenland - click here to listen to that conversation. For more on the Kenyan elections, you can also read my latest article written for De Volkskrant.

New work for The Guardian: how the Russian war in Ukraine is pushing up the price of emergency food

Frontline medical workers say the latest impact of the war in Ukraine is a dramatic price rise in an emergency treatment used to save the lives of starving children. A high-calorie peanut paste called Plumpy’Nut is used by medical staff across the world as the first response to save a severely malnourished child.

But rising prices, scarcity of ingredients and problems with distribution mean that the red and white bags are becoming increasingly expensive just as need is rising, with millions of children facing hunger in east Africa alone.

Read more about the paste and the challenges of producing it (even within Africa) in my latest piece for The Guardian. A Dutch, more in-depth version of the story appeared in newspaper De Volkskrant.