S1B021K
<$A> I am Goro Kamau Welcome Well to begin with I would like to ask Dr Gikenye to tell us something in brief what <./>ma medicine is all about
<$B> Thank you very much Medicine is an aspect in life that deals with those areas that are concerned with the health delivery to the community Now this service is provided by various types of persons who were trained in their own right In this instance I have in mind doctors nurses uh pathologists and many more others
<$C> Okay uh to talking about medicine well you are you've defined medicine but you focused more on the on the modern doctor Well could you please tell us something about uh our <-/>our traditional the traditional basis of modern medicine 
<$B> Well I really am not anywhere near an expert in traditional medicine and I think I would not be doing the traditional <./>med uh medical man medicine man a service but uh suffice it to say that there is a difference between the delivery of health care by the medical by the modern medical man and by the traditional man traditional medicine man uh now the traditional medicine man did his training by apprentice He learned from his predecessor and so forth The <-/>the modern doctor if I want to talk about the modern doctor has to learn his trade formally through a medical school and he is not able to offer services in isolation All these other cadres the nurses the radiologists etcetera have to help the modern doctor to offer his services So where else the traditional medicine man could offer services alone uh the modern doctor cannot do that in isolation and he has to get services from other trained cadres 
<$A> Yeah it's uh interesting to know uh what medicine is Now I'm just wondering is there something maybe the modern uh doctor 
<$B> doctor uh has over a period of time evolved his way of treating maybe by herbs roots etcetera Now there are hardly any roots or herbs being used in modern medicine But over the centuries a few of the active ingredients have been identified which were in plants and are already being used in modern medicine in modern possible modern tablet form etcetera In that way maybe you can say he has borrowed But in terms of scientific analysis uh there is quite a lot of difference between the traditional medicine man and the modern doctor 
<$A> Okay Doctor uh talking about traditional medicine and modern medicine well I do not want to go back to <-/>to that but uh there's this question of culture and uh we found that uh in most cases modern disciplines or even when you talk about development in any other way field you find that uh you can't really operate without uh taking into consideration the <-/>the cultural environment I do not know how maybe you should tell us this how modern medicine operates in a situation where it's a <-/>a relative newcomer 
<$B> Thank you very much Now modern medicine has you could say has a few disadvantages and I'm <./>su and uh you might not be aware that modern doctors also try to study uh what we would call medical sociology in which case they try to understand the community in which they operate They try to know the background of the individuals they treat Now it's quite <-_>it's quite<-/> uh uh possible sometimes that the modern doctor will go against some cultural beliefs without his knowing now something the <-/>the traditional doctors would not have done But as <-/>as I said before the modern doctor tries as much as possible to understand the community in which he operates in which he treats and even further to try and understand the background of the individual he's treating Now that way he is able not to uh to annoy or to fail because of cultural <-/>cultural misunderstanding 
<$C> uh it's interesting uh that particular cultural dimension but I'm just wondering of course there are some cultures which uh some people have grown through and what they see is that uh they stick on them so much But some of these cultural beliefs might be detrimental to the health of the of the person For example somebody could be suffering from an ailment an ailment which is curable by modern medicine and this person refuses or would like to go against the advice of the modern doctor Now in such a case if it is a life-threatening ailment you as a doctor what is your responsibility Do you just leave the person to die I mean because of his cultural beliefs 
<$B> Well of course there are very there are very uh some there are very difficult situations sometimes where the individual holds so dearly to his cultural beliefs that go against the practice of modern medicine but that in itself should not be a deterrent by the modern doctor to try and understand and convince the individual Now talking about culture it's as if it's with assumption that the modern cultures if you want to call them so modern cultures are themselves without any detrimental mental effect to health of an individual which is not true So each culture has its own detrimental effects to the health of an individual uh whether it's modern of the so-called modern cultures or Western cultures and <-/>and the traditional <./>me traditional cultures too have their own detrimental effects onto the modern medicine So none of the cultures you would say is without fault looking at it from a medical point of view 
<$A> Well now in that situation as a doctor how do you synthesise these two cultures Because especially for <-/>for a doctor who is a an African and who is uh himself uh kind of stems from these contradicting cultures Well as an African culture you have the traditional culture to an extent and of course the whole education system you have imbibed the modern culture so these kinds of conflicts you also experience them I should suppose even at the personal level So how do you kind of strike this <-/>this balance 
<$B> Well thank you very much <./>For Fortunately if I'd put it this way Fortunately no culture is static And over time you find people gradually accept things they would not or their grandparents would not have accepted uh since cultures are evolving in their nature you find that the doctor has to face these difficulties that's for sure and some of them some of the <./>diffic how you overcome some of the difficulties is more by the experience You cannot even when you talk about African cultures you find that the practice some of the practice you find in say Kenya or in parts of Kenya are totally different in another part of Kenya in the same Now of course that is multiplied many times over if you're talking about <./>Af the whole of Africa so if you are transplanted from Kenya say to Lesotho I have not been there it's possible that the difficulties that you meet would be totally different and you have over time to gradually align yourself to the new uh difficulties and find new solutions 
<$C> uh maybe uh something that's also very much related to culture is uh religion or religious beliefs I don't know how you would uh deal with somebody who uh is a religious fanatic who believes that uh for example maybe it's just prayer that uh will bring about uh the healing of that particularly ailment I don't know how you would comment on that 
<$B> Well it's I must admit it's a very difficult question Now it's difficult because if for instance the individual has an illness that is communicable that can transmit from one individual to the other then I think that individual by law should seek treatment Now if on the other hand it's an illness that is not communicable now you find that you're kind of walking a tight rope uh whether to force the individual to take to seek medical attention or otherwise Now of course there are many religious situations one that comes to mind is Jehovah's' Witness Now the individuals in that faith believe that it's wrong to take blood either by mouth or by vein Now when an individual like that comes and tells you Doctor please don't give me blood it does not matter whether I die or I don't Now I think it's all proper to respect the wishes of that individual and find alternatives if there are any I don't know of many alternatives where blood is concerned but you must find alternatives and you must respect the wishes of that individual and not give him blood if so if he so desires 
<$C> uh maybe just to add on that You see here are the prime uh the prime uh reason uh of a doctor I mean the prime uh what a doctor is trained in is actually preservation of life and I would not really uh I'm not really I'm wondering if uh by leaving that particular person I mean his wishes to prevail and those wishes uh are <-/>are life-threatening for example if you the wishes are granted uh the person will of course die Now you as a doctor I mean how <-/>how do you come 
<$B> Well I let me <-_>let me<-/> come in here 
<$A> Yes 
<$B> Yes I don't think it's a question of leaving the individual to die Like I said it is <-_>it is<-/> uh not necessarily that the individual will die It's possible that he'll survive but have the illness prolonged 
<$A> Which of course will eventually lead him to 
<$B> maybe 
<$A> his death 
<$B> Now but that's not all I must first correct by saying that a doctor although trained to save lives that's not all There are some patients that doctors will not be able to treat There are some patients who will be <-/>be far gone Now if you if your illness is so such a in such a state that you cannot be treated you cannot be cured of the illness now does that mean the doctor has no role No of course not The doctor has a role to make that individual comfortable to end to the end So it not excuse me it's not just that a doctor must or is trained only to preserve or to <./>con uh life No he is also trained to make life a little more comfortable And in actual fact maybe more than anything else every doctor should be able to try and make life comfortable for his patients So that's not all the prolongation of life is not all Now let me give you an example and this calls for uh other arguments When a person or an individual is so ill that he has got actual brain damage uh to a point where you could actually say he has got brain death and he is being supported on machines now how long do you want to prolong that life You could possibly theoretically prolong it for a long long time Now does one want to preserve that kind of life That is not seeing that is not thinking that is actually not essentially perceiving anything and is not appreciating anything So it's difficult and <-/>and you cannot quite say that doctors are only trained uh to preserve life Now that is one The other one is like we previously discussed about cultures a doctor has also to practise medicine to individuals who have their own cultural background who have their own beliefs and personally I believe that uh an individual is not just a body is not just a life One has one has <-/>has his spiritual beliefs and I think they are part of him as much as the physical life we as we know it Thank you 
<$A> Thank you doctor but uh I think the question that uh I would like to maybe deduce from the discussion is uh the question of <-/>of authority vis-a-vis the <-/>the patient Well the doctor's authority over the <-/>the patient if any because like uh my colleague here is saying sometimes it's like the doctor in trying to accommodate the <-/>the wishes of the patient Well does he compromise maybe his uh professional obligation and then of course there is also the question of uh does the doctor have the authority to <-/>to <-/>to demand of a patient or somebody who is ill to <-/>to seek attention from <-/>from uh <-/>from a doctor 
S1B022K
<$A> we call them street children And what do you have to say about this
<$B> Okay you see these are not only street children They're the most neglected in the community Why should they be neglected why 
<$A> This uh this is an issue uh a parent can be single yeah Maybe a mother gives a child birth to a child out of wedlock This is a case that can arise where the mother can throw this kid away maybe through abortion where this kid is eventually brought up in that kind of rubbish way whereby the kid just walks around the streets 
<$C> But the rubbish what do you mean You know that <-/>that they actually live near the rubbish heaps That's where they learn how to <O/> 
<$B> That's not the issue The issue is why should we live in such good homes and why should they live in such in the streets why 
<$A> I think the problem here is society particularly if <-/>if a child is brought up in uh a well-off family where the uh <-/>the parents can take care of the child Why should this child end up in the slums in the streets
<$C> No I <-/>I think it's because I think you know some parents they don't have money Others you know <./>oth other people The these children are usually get <?/>thrown maybe because <-_>maybe because<-/> they <-/>they <-/>they don't have any money okay their parents didn't have any money to take care of those children That's the main reason 
<$B> So are you trying to say it's <-/>it's 'cause of family planning that some children are there out in the streets 
<$C> Yeah it's because of that 
<$B> These years there's a family which can have maybe twenty children ten boys and ten girls <$C> Excuse me where is the lady that can have ten girls
<$B> Yeah it's possible Maybe uh uh a man has three wives yeah each of those wives has four children 
<$C> Yeah it's
<$B> She can come to and you end up by ten So you find these children in the streets So what has this what role does the government has towards those children Because it's the responsibility of the government to take care of those children 
<$A> I don't think it's the government only I think it's society too that is to blame
<$C> No there it's you know I think it's okay it's the society to <-/>to some extent But you know the government also should look for uh uh a home for these children 
<$A> But you see there are various homes in the city uh nursing homes are there Children's homes are there <ea/>Mama Ngina children's home Don't <./>do <-/>don't you think it's also not possible because there are so many thousands and thousands of street children If this won't help 
<$B> But see the point still stands if society <-_>if society<-/> paid enough taxes to facilitate such homes I think then there would be no kid in the streets What do you have to say about that one
<$C> I think Austin is right because the society also here is to blame The <-/>the people who throw out these children if they're found I think they should be dealt with
<$B> How about maybe chasing these <-/>these street children there back to school or away from the streets What <-/>what could
<$C> I think chasing them away from the streets would work It would really do some good The police should be put on the streets 'cause these children are a <-/>a real problem 
<$B> But when you chase them off the streets where do they go 
<$C> That is Okay if they are chased from the street they just have to go to they have they'll be disturbing people in <?/>essence So I think what should be done is the police should be put everywhere So if those children start running everywhere they should be stopped
<$B> So in other words you're saying it's the children to blame 
<$C> No it's not the children to blame uh
<$A> Don't think also if you also chase away these kids from the streets then this problem of crime drug abuse and whatever what-have-you
<$B> My friend this problem's already there What are you trying to say
<$C> Yeah <$A> No I'm trying to say yeah if just someone okay I'm a street child yeah they thrust me out into the street I eat there out of those dustbins and I even sleep there When I'm just away from that street I'll go to maybe a village somewhere or I'll rest somewhere I start maybe uh stealing things from there I steal the food I do all that Okay imagine I'm only one What about the numbers that will be chased away from the street 
<$B> But don't you think this still happens until today whether they're chased or not They simply going to steal Yes
<$C> They there there's still a lot of crime and they've been pickpocketing people and so the crime rate will still be there But I'm just telling you that it's a good way to keep them out of the streets At least they should be taken to a home somewhere or at least they should just be kept off because the streets are certainly not a good place
<$B> But you see every start has to have its end If you throw them out of the streets where do they go Where do you put them Do you have a place where you're going to keep them while you're throwing them out you see what happens 
<$B> Yeah there should <-_>there should<-/> be some organisation which <-/>which can <-_>which can<-/> provide a home for these children 
<$B> So mainly it's the government which has still to <-/>to provide this organisation
<$C> Right yeah
<$B> Okay
<$A> Don't you think there are organisations even up to now and they
<$C> But there are not enough that's what I'm trying to tell you 
<$A> Okay I know there are not enough okay I understand there are not enough But even if you brought up hundreds and even if the world bank came around to assist in this project 
<$C> uh
<$A> it would not still work 
<$C> why
<$A> It's that parent who is supposed to control the child 
<$C> no it's not
<$A> and it's that teacher at school who is supposed to educate the <-/>the children about family planning
<$C> I don't think so because you can't just talk like that You know this problem is not exactly family planning problem Some people they <-/>they get okay they get children out of wedlock and they're forced others maybe they're forced to throw those children It's not 'cause of family planning only 
<$A> But it's 
<$B> In that case it's still family planning You're getting those children who you <$A> whom 
<$C> Okay you don't have to raise your voice when we're just talking 
<$B> Okay It's okay fine 
<$A> Now uh uh only let's address ourselves to the legal part of it Why don't we establish laws which govern these uh the retrieval and maybe punishment of these street children because some of these children are under eighteen and you'll find that when they're taken to court <O/> just allow them to go or take them to juvenile prisons which I think is not helping much
<$C> I think the <-/>the law is not the <?/>case The law is there But you see these children they cannot There is nothing else they can do because it's not their fault 
<$B> Yeah
<$A> That one we know
<$C> The children if they're being taken to court I think it's help they're helped I mean if they're arrested the ones who are arrested Because there are some children they're going uh uh Those are kids uh uh uh It was in the papers There was a car passing okay 
<$A/<$B> Yes 
<$C> And then there are these five children They looked as if they were about fifteen years old 
<$A/<$B> Yes 
<$C> They came and tried to <?/>move There was <-_>There was<-/> traffic so this car had stopped It was a newish car it was quite new So now these children tried removing the <-/>the wheelcaps from the car and the car was moving Don't you think that's dangerous for even the children 
<$A> What
<$C> Then 
<$A> What I strongly think is it's not only the children I think it's the coins that that society gives them and which influences them to buy drugs They smoke glue and
<$C> Yeah I think that's right 
<$A> all the bad things that distorts their thinking ability What do you think about that <ea/>Bwana 
<$B> Me I <-_>me I<-/> feel if we are responsible citizens yeah the best thing is to do if you're aware of just pick this child and try to see if you can guide and even 
<$C> excuse me
<$B> and even maybe give <-/>give that child some advice 
<$C> Excuse me <ea/>Bwana it's not <./>eas <./>diff easy for people to come and pick children from the streets because those people also have their families You can't talk like that I think what you should be talking about right now is trying to form some organisations to help these children
<$B> But who is supposed to form these organisations 
<$C> The government 
<$B> not
<$C> No 
<$B> Okay the government made out of the people is not a government So it's the person who's supposed to be dealing with the problem 
<$C> Because <-/>because you know people cannot people You know everyone is also looking for money No one can start saying people should go there and should pick children from the streets to take them home Now how many folk can afford to do that Can you go and take a child from the street and 
<$B> Okay let me give you a case in question If you come across a very good young girl in the streets picking that bread that uh fermented bread to eat So you feel mercy for this child
<$C> You mean the rotten bread 
<$B> Yeah you feel mercy for this child You <-/>you don't you think you'll have some kind of kindness in you to pick this child and take it to your home maybe <-/>maybe even the chief's camp and try to assist this child You won't do that
<$C> What do you mean I won't do that 
<$B> You cannot be able to do that I'm asking you a question
<$C> But uh I've not said that I cannot do that But what do you think about that uh <ea/>Bwana
<$A> No what I think is you're being very <?/>busy Do you know what happens is when once <-/>once you take these kids to the like the chief's camp What can the chief do with them 
<$C> 
<$B> The chief has a responsibility to <-_assists><+_assist> the whole locality 
<$C> uh can I please interrupt You know what the chiefs here in <./>Nai in fact I don't think there are any chiefs here in Nairobi 
<$B> There are There's a chief in <?/>Kasaranie
<$A> There's a chief here in <?/>Kasaranie Or here opposite for example
<$C> Okay yes but the chiefs I'm sorry to say the chiefs are very busy with other things They cannot start helping those children Then
<$A> Yeah I strongly agree with all this 
<$C> Then the money that those children are given by the society the people you think should help them That money it's not enough to do anything They simply take that money and go and buy rubber the rubber that they start <?/>sniffling
<$A> You mean the glue 
<$C> the glue
<$B> You see I'm <-/>I'm not suggesting that these kids are supposed be given money These kids are supposed to be brought up in a responsible way
<$A> But by <-/>by who
<$C> By who the government
<$B> It's the chief and the uh the chief represents the government and the top yeah
<$C> But the chief cannot do much 
<$A> Yeah you cannot expect the chief to remove money from his own pocket 
<$C> From his own pocket that's what I'm telling you 
<$B> Okay for example it's like maybe a relief fund yeah Maybe in Kitui So do you expect that chief in Kitui not to be uh knowledgeable about his people 
<$C> Excuse me <ea/>Bwana you're going around the question
<$B> Yeah
<$A> You Before you said that you bring the children from the streets 
<$B> Yes
<$C> To the chief The chief cannot remove money from his pocket What can the chief do 
<$A> What can the chief do with these children
<$B> Okay the idea is we're going to decentralise this problem
S1B023K
<$A> and it has not <-_>it has not<-/> been expounded probably by uh <./>wh people who talk about African socialism but I don't think Africans most Africans understand what actually somebody means by African socialism 
<$B> <-/>mhm
<$A> Do we have 
<$B> You see many people tend to think that uh it is that many of the ideas used in Africa socially politically are borrowed ideas There is a really bit of truth of that but not the whole truth You see some of the <-_thing><+_things> you are saying are borrowed ideas things like democracy <-_thing><+_things> like this are not necessarily borrowed Maybe you are using the Greek term that's right but the <-/>the practice itself is human
<$?> 
<$B> And to say that therefore they're foreign is that that is academic imperialialism you see 
<$C> But professor 
<$B> Now uh yah 
<$C> Professor uh uh uh I <-/>I still want to probe the African focus I still want to find that this conference is going to be there and will be utilised to the full by the African thinkers And again I still want to fall back to the unfortunate fact that Africa at the moment is marginalized What <-/>what are some of <./>wha what is it we expect to get out of this conference in terms of thematic interests 
<$B> <-/>mhm
<$C> Yah <./>wha <./>wha what themes are we addressing that will bring Africans not only as a problematic continent but as a continent that has got a future a continent that has got a past 
<$B> When you say that Africa is being marginalized I don't agree with that wholly but maybe Africa is being marginalized economically We can say a lot later but I don't think that Africa is marginalized politically Africa is still a very important force politically in the world Ah I don't think that Africa is being marginalized intellectually if we take ourselves seriously Africa is still a force academically and there is lot of potential we have However certain things are happening for example some of the African academic intellectuals may be leaving their own country to go and live outside
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$B> But that is because of economic <-_reason><+_reasons> perhaps But uh in terms of ideas in terms of scholarship I don't think that we should reconcile ourselves to saying that we are marginalized and that we should wait for lead from abroad 
<$?> But I think 
<$?> let me see uh 
<$?> I would tend to uh have a <-/>a different uh uh understanding of that uh especially in the sense that the kind of uh technology that we are trying to uh uh <-/>to copy or even to harness for our own development has been developed on a philosophy that was developed uh outside of uh Africa and therefore even when we are saying that uh we have lots of uh intellectuals that have uh that are homegrown and that could actually in fact uh turn around uh the <-/>the uh <-/>the <-/>the events and the situations in Africa so that we can catch up are we not really jumping onto the bandwagon too long uh uh long after the engine is has gone uh 
<$?> uh 
<$?> Is that really possible for us to say we'll march on to this philosophy 
<$?> uh 
<$?> and hope maybe to better the uh <-/>the situation of the African 
<$B> Yes yes this is fact is the right time because uh I think that the philosophies of the west of the <-/>the so called developed countries are collapsing I think that Marxism is being seen to be collapsing isn't it And I <./>tha <./>tha that is hiding another fact 
<$?> 
<$B> uh yeah that's not that <./>tha <./>tha <-/>that <./>tha <-/>that also the <-/>the <-/>the western type of laissez-faire capitalism is also collapsing but because marxism
<$?> <./>Ma <./>ma
<$B> is collapsing faster this is all <O/> we need the new philosophies
<$?> <./>Ma <./>ma
<$B> and Africa is in the best position to help produce this 
<$?> Yes Professor Marxism is not collapsing and in fact as a philosophy it's not collapsing it <-/>it 
<$B> uh 
<$?> it is <-_>it is<-/> a mode of thinking 
<$B> yeah 
<$?> and it can't collapse and it will remain Marxism Uh what is collapsing perhaps are those who have tried to use it in terms of uh uh technological advancement 
<$?> Yeah 
<$?> but Marxism remains with its rich philosophy it remains with its in fact inherent body of <-/>of knowledge that can be useful 
<$?> Yes 
<$?> forever so it can't collapse Uh but the point that perhaps we should focus onto now is my interest on the themes of this conference in terms of bringing up Africa on top of the world if you like And I <-/>I have in mind this conference happening when we have refugees uh uh uh uh all over the place when we have uh good people dying in Sudan and in Ethiopia You see them on the screens you see them in magazines and in newspapers dying because of the <-/>the environmental hazards that are coupled with politics So are we going to sit in Nairobi philosophize and <-/>and exchange of views and not address such grim realities in Africa That's why I'm pushing onto this thematic interest of <-/>of the conference 
<$?> the general theme of the conference is <-/interdisciplinitary> and we say the <-_problem><-+problems> of environment are not only physical uh <-_problem><-+problems>
<$?> Yes 
<$?> They're also a human problem 
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$?> and the refugee problem is an environmental problem 
<$?> Yes 
<$?> and should be addressed by scholars 
<$?> Yes 
<$?> and it's not just sitting to philosophize it's sitting maybe it's philosophizing on the practical <-_problem><-+problems>
<$?> Yes 
<$?> Yeah
<$?> so I cannot suggest for you here what kind of answers or 
<$?> Yeah uh indeed indeed indeed 
<$?> but such <-_problem><-+problems>are relevant to the general theme 
<$?> So how much have you involved uh your partners in i<-/>n this field because you have you're talking about philosophers who are practical and that would be the direction of the thinking of that day What <-/>what <-/>what involvement have you uh arranged for governments for NGOs and and such like organisations that may be useful in terms of translating some of the <-/>the views into tangible reality 
<$B> Oh yes we have a connection with a number of NGOs who are lending us support either in kind or materially We have support for example from Rockefeller <+_a> little support from Foundation We have the support from Codesria
<$?> Yes
<$B> <O/> know them uh we are uh uh having some bit of promise <./>fr of support from UNEP we also have invited their director to give one of the uh to talk We have uh support from uh organisation in Nairobi like Initiative which is African Centre for Science and Technology We have support from Ford Foundation We <-/>we <-/>we <-/>we have support from African Insitute in New York We have support from Kenya National Academy of Science We have some kind of support from University of Nairobi Press and so on <$?> Now Professor the uh I'll probably uh ask Dr Mbai the general I wouldn't say the general probably the normal view of the man in the street of the African philosopher is of a person dabbling in high theory and mostly at the university uh and with very little to do with our ordinary lives uh or even I mean there is no coordination between those who implement like the leaders for example Do our philosophers actually have both the clout the because you need that to tell our leaders where they go wrong for example Can the philosophers aware our leaders in Africa all over Africa I mean because something must be wrong when a continent is beset by so many problems Are the philosophers in the forefront of pointing out these problems and probably providing solutions or suggesting solutions 
<$?> Added to that Mr Chairman if I may put a footnote There was as <-/>as uh I think recently there was a meeting a conference in Nyeri of uh <-/>of <-/>of <-/>of scientific uh researchers And one of the <-/>the complaints was that uh research has has now moved away from the old pedestal of where you research and publish and once you've published you sit back and say yes I'm a researcher and I'm a thinker uh so so that <-/>that links up to what he's saying uh to what extent are we going to do this and <-/>and <-/>and fail to in fact impact 
<$?> Yes
<$?> write books and advise our leaders in <./>whate whatever 
<$?> Yes 
<$?> areas socially politically and otherwise I mean are the philosophers actually taking the lead to advise us on what to do
<$A> What do you mean I mean if you ask whether <-_philosopher><+_philosophers> are taking the lead to advise us philosophers are taking the lead in what is philosophical Yes they're doing that
<$?> What is philosophical 
<$A> and <-/>and <-/>and when you talk of advising our leaders uh who are your leaders I mean <-_>I mean<-/> uh I 
<$?> Leaders in various fields
<$A> D'you mean <-_>d'you mean<-/> 
<$?> I mean you can have scientists for example 
<$A> Do you mean only political leaders 
<$?> No no no both political leaders uh 
<$?> decision maker
<$?> decision maker
<$?> Yes 
<$?> Yes yeah yeah 
<$?> people who 
<$?> I mean do you involve when you when you <-_>when you<-/> 
<$?> the <-/>the <-/>the philosophers 
<$A> as far as the leaders in their duty have certain problems which they need intellectual answers to They need academic solutions to
<$?> Yes 
<$A> and in so far as those problems are known to philosophers and scientists uh the <-/>the philosophers and scientists do discuss this usually 
<$?> Among 
<$B> at two
<$?> themselves 
<$A> among themselves at two level I say 
<$?> Yes
<$A> among themselves and get what they think about them At the second level where if the leaders are willing to engage these <-_philosopher><+_philosophers> these <-_scientist><+_scientists> and throw the problem to them they also engage in that and respond to the leader's request 
<$?> Now <./>Mis uh Professor I think uh uh as a follow <-_>as a follow<-/> up to that there is always this uh uh conflict of uh possibilities when a philosopher is supposed to be the person operating on rational uh thinking and rational solutions But in certain situations we find public opinion that uh takes uh uh the day that carries the day And I do not know whether you'd agree with me that uh sometimes uh public opinion may not be uh <./>alw may not always be right Well how does a philosopher get uh around that?
<$B> Mr Chairman this is a very interesting question and it is interesting because I think that uh philosophy has been regarded with suspicion And the people have thought that philosophy must be uh it it creates trouble 
<$B> that philosophy uh makes people riot or things like that which is not really what philosophy is all about Now that <-/>that view is as mistaken as the view that philosophy is just an abstract you know kind of subject I think that a good philosopher is not that one who simply thinks and then goes to bed after thinking but a man who not only thinks but also acts You see Having thought and having come to certain conclusion do you do something about it Now it is one thing of course to give good advice but what people do with that advice is a different thing 
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$B> The philosopher will <./>lea will give his <.-/>his opinion sometimes you know expert Just again expert for example the economists will give you advice on how to proceed If you want to go there this is the way to get there but now it's up to you whether you take that advice and do something with it or you just sit on it But the problem is that I think the philosophers very often are not actually listened to 
<$> But I would ask a question for example uh both Plato and Aristotle are <O/> They not only enunciated a philosophy they also oh and even Marx afterwards Marx and Hegel and so on they not only enunciated philosophies they also uh set out prescriptions on how to implement those things 
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$?> say forms of government for example what forms of government are relevant in order to achieve whatever they had enunciated as as uh a political philosophy 
<$?> Uh in our African context I haven't seen that I mean we miss that that not only I mean they write about theories and so on and so on but nobody actually tells us okay in Africa probably uh we had societies like this like uh in Meru Njogu Chagga or something like that and uh
<$?> Ah that cannot 
<$?> uh that uh operates in this way and that maybe we could widen 
<$B> That <-/>that cannot be very true if you say in Africa you haven't seen that I think uh you just don't want to see that 
<$B> I mentioned here some of our philosophers and I hope by philosopher you're not just meaning somebody in the classroom in the University of Nairobi teaching but we mentioned people like Nyerere <?/>Senghor Kenyatta all these nationalists writing books 
S1B024K
<$A> you know they <-/>they argue that when a woman passes and a man passes there is a distinct difference in the corridor I mean my office is situated but when a woman passes she wants to be noticed so there <-/>there is this woman the woman and her mirror which is trying to suggest Maybe it's not yet been developed but we'd suggest it but you know the women in this feminist movement are just trying to assert in words what has been refused and rejected by society in deeds How do you react to that <./>Be <./>be because you put on flamboyantly and walk on Fridays You know the streets are normally a fashion show especially for women But <-/>but no man cares how he put on I can repeat my dress my coat seven times Nobody cares 
<$B> You know what is amazing is that after all this discussion you still seem to be putting the blame on the woman I find this very strange because when you say that the woman you know has her mirror Who has given the woman this value you know that's what I really like to take you back to 
<$A> She picked her mirror herself
<$B> No no no she didn't Who even told the man that he could get away with a dirty shirt for one week It's the society and what we are saying is that right now there's a sense in which we might want to start shifting the blame from the woman's shoulder and in fact what I was saying is We don't even want to put the blame on the man's shoulder We want to be in this together and we want to say that as much as we value our customs and our beliefs if we are to recognise changes that have taken place where we are here and now We need to readdress and reconsider some of the things that we have said And I would say that for example I wouldn't myself be worried if a man said that I had my own mirror and I want him to notice me I think this is all right We are not renouncing our femininity Some women I'm a woman I'm happy being about being a woman And if I had a colleague who treated me as if I was a man I think I would to some extent be offended The point is when does my femininity come up and when does my professionalism come up I would expect my colleague to realise that just like I as a woman can be seen from two points of view the woman in me that is the biological female and then the whatever status I have he also has the same and the society tends to try to get the woman to choose between these two Why should I have to choose If I'm a professional woman if I'm in the women's liberation I'm still a woman I should still dress and look nice If the society has said and put a lot of premium on the women's appearance what who is the woman to fight against the society 
<$A> Yes there <-/>there I think you have a point
<$C> Well Mr chairman I think that what Doctor Oduol is saying is all right but I think uh we should not look at society in that impersonal sense because when we look at society and the <-/>the values and norms which it uses to <-/>to <-/>to pattern the people's conduct still they're made by human beings And I'm wondering whether the difference in the biological sense between male and male I mean female and male have not implications in the <./>da I mean the <-/>the role <-_>the role<-/> differentiation because I think some of them when you look at the socialisation process it is somehow based on the physiological differences surely I'm wondering whether the <./>na the biological nature of a woman does not in any way make her suitable to perform certain functions in society as well as men
<$B> Would you like to give some examples
<$C> Well I'm wondering for example whether it will be suitable for example for a woman to go hunting and even why some take to boxing Well I think uh <-_>I think<-/> this 
<$?> <O/> Australia
<$C> I can't take a woman to box uh uh in the ring and start boxing her as Even me I'll probably be having a punch in the breast which is very sensitive in the way of pressure 
<$B> You know what I would say is that you are actually displaying the very very you know biased sexual custom and your beliefs and this is what the feminists are fighting You should give everybody a chance There are women out there who I think would crush you They're body builders they have muscles you know All they need to do is they have to break the societal norms They would defy what is seen as feminine The society has said that to be a woman you're supposed to be you know much more conscious about your beauty your appearance You're supposed to be delicate be a little weak Don't be You don't be fit don't have muscles the society has said that 
<$?> but
<$B> But if a woman opts to and we do have women wrestlers We do have women you know weightlifters There are women who even now in Nairobi if we were to maybe call them for an announcement there are women who'd come up The question is why are most of the women not doing this Most women are not doing that because the society does not expect women to do it Brings us back to our very argument Feminism is saying look you society there is male and there is female Then there are activities and roles in this world You have decided some are masculine others are feminine Why have you insisted that they must remain like that There is nothing other than just biological like lactation and pregnancy This is what nobody is going to complain about Motherhood that you cannot complain about but beyond that all these things we are talking about are just patronising When you tell a woman that you most likely will land a blow on her breast she sees your patronising attitude You're just thinking about her breast You didn't have to think about her breast 
<$?> because you're a man you are not going to land it anywhere
<$C> Look what I am saying is look I think it is it is a biological fact that given the biological sex of the woman and even the <-/hormonic> the hormones you know I think the <./>hor the hormones prepare the body for certain particular functions and for example even if you look at your skin and mine surely Doctor Oduol I'm sure you <-/>you can see that mine is rough 

<$C> and this is not that I took not to care for it It is because my hormone does not 
<$A> allow you to
<$C> yeah to be softer skinned This is
<$B> You know beyond saying I would say myself that as far as the limitations would be in regard to pregnancy and <./>lac lactation for example that you're not going to do anything about But all these things you are talking about you can go and play a ladygame
<$C> It won't work What happens there is Don't you I think there is the biological structure of the sexes I think prepare them for particular roles
<$A> Okay we'll leave that we can't solve it It's so tough 
But let us talk about this uh It's a social issue a question of segregation You know it has been argued that feminism is a <-/segregative> movement you know In America recently I'm having in mind this particular case where women got married to <-/>to <-/>to other women to avoid male dominance for example I think you are aware of it You know they <-/>they argue that you see I have to get married to <-/>to my fellow woman who we are equal and I mean we shall play complementary roles in the in our house in our home you know they call it home but I call it home in quote Now what would you say about this that it is a <-/segregative> movement It is only caring about uh uh female issues female affairs and if to <-/>to some extent and uh very patronising extent children affairs
<$B> I would say that uh it is a movement that is looking at those who are being so far mistreated by society who in their perception feel that they are the underdogs and I would compare this to maybe racial liberation you know when you think of the Americans when the Blacks were fighting against the Whites It's usually the ideological power structure that is presented by society's values that makes those who are subordinate or who feel that they are subordinated to fight back and I was going to say that with regard to this issue of women marrying other women I'm aware that that is happening for many women and this takes us back to the question which I pointed out at the beginning that the general aim or goal of all feminists is to change the angle of perception so that women are not just looked down upon because of their biological distinction because women don't think this is fair Society has demonstrated that it is not fair The manner in which they do it vary There are those women who say now that there is feminism I can be a woman and proud of it I can be a mother and I can also be a professional and I can be proud because nobody is going to say you are just a mere woman you can't do this On the other hand there are women who have said now I don't want to be a woman because being a woman is in terms of the society humiliating exactly what you were saying before a woman is a woman These other women are saying whatever I do even if I should I mean I weightlift even if I become a prime minister even if I become what this is what people still say a woman is a woman so this one say now I don't have to be a woman anymore I need never be a mother They say that I need never be somebody's wife I am going to be something less humiliating because they are saying being women has been humiliating and I think that we people in the society are responsible for this And what we need to do is to understand what is involved and maybe create an atmosphere where this woman doesn't have to feel humiliated by being a woman
<$A> Then you bring me to this <-/>this question Can feminism be <-/>be compatible with motherhood and <-/>and to what extent and uh uh <-_>and to what extent<-/> <./>ha <./>ha have the married women married mothers you know it's funny married mothers 
<$C> Lesbianism is it lesbianism 
<$A> No I <-/>I just got I want to use the married mothers only in the real sense Yeah 
<$C> Okay married mothers in that sense
<$A> yeah
<$B> And not those who are not single mothers
<$A> those who are not single mothers yeah To what extent have they contributed to this low status of women that uh you know feminism is fighting to this negative image that feminism is fighting to what extent is this housewife uh what role has she played in this negativity of the feminist
<$B> Okay what I would say is that if we look at feminism and see it as having different faces you know it could be the face of a woman who wants to present herself as a woman and who says I am a woman and I'm asking for respect and I'm proud of being a womanThen you can look at it with the other face The feminist face that says being a woman is humiliating I am glad that feminism is around because the concept woman was my slave name and was used to mitigate against me and I'm going to go all out to make sure that I free myself from it 
S1B025K
<$A> just taking drugs you yourself how <-/>how do you feel when you just use your money to buy a drug just because you want to feel good or just because
<$?> give me a beer
<$A> even a beer 
<$?> let's have a beer
<$?> because you're not going to actually sell 
<$?> Take this one 
<$?> even in the bar
<$?> even in the street exactly
<$A> From uh from a different point of view uh Here we're talking about just the drug But there are also those people who prepare that drug For example if I'm thinking of <ea/>chang'aa You see <ea/>chang'aa is uh is actually an illegal you know 
<$?> brew
<$A> brew in the country So the fact that people are still engaged in uh in doing it means that you know a lot of our resources human resources are not being diverted to useful economic activities
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$A> you know they are used in <-/>in <ea/>chang'aa brewing and in <ea/>chang'aa brewing you have the raw materials you know the maize or the <O/> or the millet So again they are you know diverting these resources to this you know illicit brew So this <-/>this in itself is an economic question
<$?> just a minute
<$A> Even though even uh just <-/>just uh a moment There is also the question of uh you know the youth We should not only <./>thi that uh maybe that person who has got a job is the only one who is economically productive Because even the children probably they are very <./>eco economically productive at the domestic 
<$?> <-/>uhu
<$A> uh subsistence level Because these are the people who work to the farms to wheat to harvest to they really 
<$?> They even look after livestock
<$A> yah look after livestock So if <-/>if your children you know are users of drugs this means you know they are not going to be helpful to you uh in that sense so there'll be an economic uh uh what
<$?> retardation
<$A> retardation yeah 
<$B> What I think is also this <-/>this question of economic is quite a pressing one because I don't know how to put this because when KBL prepares beer they know very well that it's a drug of course And they are using raw material They employed so many people to work there There are farmers who are producing I don't know what <?/>stabilizer/fertilizer they are producing <O/> Now do you expect that when we say these things are drugs let's ban it now Just a minute just a minute
<$A> Just a moment! We had agreed earlier that drugs can be put to good use It's when you do not use them the way they're intended to be used 
<$?>Let's say we cannot manufacture medicine because they're not
<$?> we agreed from what <name/> told us last time 
<$A> Okay let's not go back to that
<$C> people are allowed to take this thing as a relaxation The moment you take it more than that limit today then definitely you are <O/>
<$B> Look my issue was not the my issue was not the consumption my issue was 
<$A> the economical
<$B> the economical aspect because even the <ea/>chang'aa brewer who is brewing that <ea/>chang'aa he is doing it for a purpose somehow to make you know to bring up some kids up You know somebody else somewhere who is selling <ea/>bhang he is doing it for a specific purpose But then how do we balance the two You see 
Yeah
<$A> It's like saying this It's like this one saying this If I can use heroin you're telling me if I can use heroin or cocaine or <ea/>bhang and pay for it the person who is getting that money is benefiting So the country should justify it because there is some economic activity going on
<$A> is benefiting from that
<$B> No no it's not that I'm saying some of the things that are used to making these drugs somehow if somebody decided they'll produce this to make drug somebody somewhere is going to suffer Even <O/> the whole country might suffer But what I was asking is how we ourselves like the way we are the four of us five of us How we can balance between the two The economic aspect
<$C> No No The problem is really uh 
<$B> The thing is to whom this drug is going to and the use it is going to be put into So if Kenya Breweries uh manufactures ten crates of beer a day and this beer is tended into one person one person takes the whole thing at a go then to me that's an abuse
<$?> It's an abuse
<$?> No no let me say something 
<$?> Just a minute
<$?> Okumba you
<$B> Yeah The point is uh the Breweries has benefited in getting the money but somebody else had spent so much money for something that is not economically beneficial to them
<$A> Let's not go too much into aspects of brewing and why it should be brewed Let's look at what is happening What effects are these drugs having on the youth Especially when we consider that it's a big big problem It's getting lethal It's worse It's bad <-/>huh
<$D> I think uh what I may say here is uh one of these facts is definitely that the drug reduces your life span You die early And when you die early that means you know the country has lost a resource you see So if <-/>if we multiply the <-/>the number of people using that drug you know you know in a local area by the area of the whole country the population of a whole country then we find that we may be losing a lot of people And we are talking of schools
<$D> yeah you're talking of school children you're talking of people who are <O/> sports you see what's promised using drugs 
<$?> Exactly
<$?> They can lose their ability to run
<$?> Exactly
<$?> And the fact the dangerous fact is 
<$?> the dangerous fact
<$?> Exactly and the fact that this <-/>this drug makes you really run faster It now goes to interfere with your 
<$?> Natural abilities
<$?> Yes exactly If you don't have that drug you're not going to run as fast And that way we're going to produce an addict who could otherwise excel even better than <name/> you see So actually it is a question whereby the usage of this thing has got numerous you know disadvantages in our society not forgetting the other socio-economic factors like divorce and uh violence at home because we have come to know drug users as people who are generally violent 
<$?> Drunken husbands
<$?> Exactly
<$?> Even drunken drivers
<$?> Exactly The sense of reason that will not really arise in your head anymore for so much of
<$?> You mind gets <O/>
<$?> Exactly
<$?> To support it you can say that most of uh most of the accidents that you are having nowadays are caused by drugs There have been cases of these Aids you know This one thing is so prevalent and which people tend to ignore but it's a reality anyway We find that somebody somewhere <slang/>'cos he has taken some few drinks he feels now you know I don't know
<$?> You can become reckless
<$?> You can become reckless you know you just be quiet and say who cares <O/> Maybe the drug is changing you In fact <O/> I don't take the drug
<$A> In fact <name/> you have said a point that is quite pertinent because most Aids victims are also drug addicts 
<$?> I believe that's true 
<$A> They are drug addicts The way they inject themselves with the drugs exposes them to Aids And like you've said when you abuse a drug too much you tend to take too many risks You kind of throw caution to the wind so you <-/indelve> yourself in some maybe actions that may lead to diseases and things like that There are road accidents because of people maybe not being careful after having taken one too many
<$?> And there is a breakdown also in the in the social in the social fabric you know people lose <-/>lose respect I mean you know you don't care who is around you can say anything you know So that there is that loosening of uh uh and this is something which is 
<$?> of morals
<$?> yeah the morals and it's not something which only occurs with the youth You find even parents you know adults who have gone and <-/>and had one too many you know come back <O/> They just don't give a damn I mean they don't care what they are saying
<$?> There is one aspect that always tends to be invisible but if plays a very major role okay take for example a taxi driver okay He has to bring in so much money at the end of the day okay And the only way he can do that is properly stay awake What does he do He takes any kind of drug
<$?> Even drunk
<$?> Even drunk yes
<$?> So here you are telling this guy must This is not right you know this <-/>this shouldn't be he shouldn't take this Well this guy knows I have to earn a living I have to get so much money to my boss you know Because what I feel is that the innocent ones the guys that have always said that they don't touch the alcohol like the guys who own <ea/>matatus are the ones who are actually leading the <-/>the minor victims into the touts
<$?> We are talking about uh the question of uh pressure I mean people are under pressure 
<$?> which is unavoidable
<$?> which is unavoidable And they take these uh these drugs which even increase pressure you know even then because they work overcapacity you see so there are people who just find they can't <-_>they can't<-/> live they can't lead normal lives Yes it's just something which they <-/>they have to do
<$?> <Uha>
<$?> Actually your lifespan is curtailed because you have been using these drugs for such a long time and the fact that you don't sleep yourself doesn't actually entitle even your thinking 
<$?> Yeah I suppose because It's not only <ea/>matatus or these other people
<$?> You know you find that most of the people who work maybe during the night let's say for instance watchmen See to stay awake they need a drug or something Others need something to keep them going Truck drivers you know it's quite a lengthy lengthy process
<$?> So what we do okay the effects are numerous Most of them are all of them are uh disadvantages
<$?> Disadvantages
<$?> Exactly
<$?> Yes
<$?> It is no good benefit for drugs unless it's prescribed it's used for the purpose it's supposed to be How about what you can do Okay the problem is enormous I don't think that we can start to believe we shall stop it But I think we could suggest ways in which you can prevent it from getting worse
<$?> you know actually
<$?> especially for our youth 
<$?> Exactly as far as I'm concerned as I said last time I'm against the fact that the law should be put into force you know complacently 
<$?> No we're talking about the youth
<$?> exactly
<$?> What can we do in schools
<$?> yes
<$?> on the streets
<$?> Like what we have in schools is known as state education to also go hand in hand with counselling on drugs 
<$?> The problem now exactly the problem now this one is just touched in <-/>in <-/>in that whole uh subject But now a special chance to combat this drug business In fact there is a counselling tonight
<$?> There is there is there's a special one
<$?> People sit down in a in a classroom and they're talking about drugs the effects how to stop them and that kind of thing 
<$?> What I what I believe is
<$?> What can I advise what can they do about themselves without having to wait for counsellors to come around and tell them
<$?> The first thing before we go to the source I think the first thing that parents themselves should take that as an issue As a youth grows up try and talk to him so that later as he also grows up and needs the counsellors <name/> was talking about then he'll ask himself Why <-/>why am I doing this But we can't just let a kid just go ahead growing up 
S1B026K
<$A> continue the discussion on youth and religion And to discuss this topic further on my immediate right is Kamau
<$B> hello <-_viewer><+_viewers>
<$A> and extreme right is Makhoha 
<$C> hello viewers
<$A> On my left side Mkarasi
<$D> hello viewers
<$A> Nyongesa
<$E> hello viewers 
<$A> and Ruth
<$F> hello viewers
<$A> Now the first question maybe we should dwell with is the increase in the number of religions we have in Kenya There is a constant increase in uh religion What response is there from the youth Does it mean that uh the interest of the youth to religion is on the increase or is it the reverse Ruth maybe you should start us off
<$F> Okay I would say that it's both The youth the interest of the youth largely has reduced has decreased The modern youth these days are kind of removed from religion because of various reasons which we saw earlier on But I'd also say that uh to an extent their interest is also increasing because we can see by the fact that the youth these days are coming up with uh their own religion for example non <-/>non <-/>non denominational religion I don't want to call it religion but this is because they are they are not satisfied with uh the main the church whether it's catholic or Protestant So they feel there is something lacking so they'd like to <-/>to start up their own uh we would call it sect non-denominational where they don't attach themselves to any particular religion But they <-/>they just pray and uh they rely on the on the Bible So I'd say yes I think the increasing number of <-/>of religions it is to an extent the youth their interest is increasing and also decreasing
<$A> What would you say to that Nyongesa
<$E> Uh well according to me I would be I will agree with her of course uh but uh on one hand we'd better look at the reasons why uh we're having an increasing number of religions Uh if you look at the reasons they won't have to say uh to point out that actually the interest is uh decreasing uh because look at the nowadays what you have is church wrangles and all that They are having leadership struggles such that we have so many sects breaking out of the streamline churches and you can't say this is because of <-/>of religion in itself but <./>some sometimes the <-/>the reason is not the church or they cannot be considered to be very fertile So what you have is if we have the number of sects increasing they're being broken off by who are already in churches You cannot say that this shows that there is uh that the interest of the youth is increasing because they may be out of the game all the time On the other hand if we look at it uh closely you might see that uh as she has said that uh with the increase of non- uh <-/>non denominational churches we are getting the youth breaking off from the streamline churches the most of these established churches like uh like uh you can say uh the African Catholic Church What you have is that uh after feeling that there is something missing in these streamline churches what they do is to turn to these other churches because some of the other churches offer a wide range of activities There are sports a lot of social activities what the other churches don't offer So what you have is an increasing number uh an increasing interest in religion but on the overall I would say that the interest is decreasing rather than increasing we have a smaller number of the youth in churches other than before 
<$A> Well maybe I should put this question to you If uh the youth are breaking away from you know from the churches to form their own uh sects doesn't that mean that their interest in religion is becoming more because they're turning off from where they feel they're dissatisfied and they're starting up where they think they're going to be satisfied
<$E> Well like I've said you've got also to look at the number of the youth who are actually in churches nowadays Well let's say we may have a small number of the youth in churches and then if they decide to get dissatisfied and break off into small groups You have to consider there are many other youth who are dropping actually from churches and going nowhere So you cannot say that on the overall the interest is increased but you can say that the interest has become more diversified for the people already in churches 
<$A> Makhoha what would you tell us about that 
<$C> I would not like to think that uh the youth are breaking away as such These break-away groups are led by people whom I believe are adults grown-up people who have their own interests in breaking up and that youth what the <-/>the youth merely do is to join up these groups The youth don't actually break away If the youth break away at all it is because they are going to join up some already formed uh sect or some sort of religion or they are completely divorcing themselves from religion completely I would not like to think that the increase of sects and other such religious groups is the result of youth deferring from what the general trend is
<$A> So you maintain that uh interest of the youth towards religion <-/>religion remains the same 
<$C> It does not remain the same I would like to think that in fact it is decreasing The youth are tending to go away very much from religion uh especially because you know to some of them religion looks very irrelevant and it does not offer any excitement you know it looks like it's some barrier to them enjoying life in quotes of course Yeah and I would like also to think that they will they want to go away from religion because it is a restrictive yeah it keeps them curbed be it Islam be it uh Christianity It <-/>it stops them from doing things they really want to do They are like uh there's some church somewhere You are not allowed to have a girlfriend that would be a sin a thorough sin So in some way he sees now he is somewhere around eighteen twenty and he is he has got his sweetheart somewhere and he would like to <-/>to move around with her freely and here is a pastor who is stopping him from doing that uh he makes a choice and the choice normally is not very much to the benefit of uh religion 
<$?> religion because we allow it
<$A> Kamau what will you say to that
<$B> Well I think I wouldn't quite agree with you on that point that uh Kenya you know in Kenya we're getting more and more denominations because actually Kenya has the largest number of religions or other denominations and the government has been quite reluctant on registering more groups So to me what is happening actually is that more people you know due to the explosion of the population people are getting excited and actually like what we are seeing in town It's not that new groups are coming In fact most of these groups I think are illegal according to the law because what happens that a person comes you know like the <-/>the Saved People He comes and you know he makes his own group like these people who are meeting at Jeevanjee You know what happens you know confusion There is this at this corner this group at this corner not actually that these groups are registered anywhere It's just because people feel I think it's caused by the frustrations in life you know in our life with the increasing problems like unemployment You know the youth are really out there to look for places to keep themselves going And I think what's happening is not that people are getting more close to religion but what people want is something to keep them busy They're frustrated they don't have jobs in the streets you cannot keep on you know if you 're begging for food you can only afford to beg you know for few hours and then for the rest of the time you're bored and you don't have a job so you've got to keep on looking <?/>excited all the time
<$A> Mkarasi what would you say to that
<$D> Uh what I have to say is that okay I agree that in Kenya there is an explosion of religions that's coming up A real explosion because okay as Makhoha has put it our population is really increasing And especially the youth who really want something which <-/>which can cater for our spiritual and material needs And we usually notice that the main churches really don't cater for both our spiritual and material needs at the same time So we find ourselves breaking out so that we find something at least a place where we can we can be accommodated spiritually and materially because if you join a sect which does not cater for your material needs I mean I just find that this is useless and that I just form their own church where I can collect some money and <-/>and have a good life at least yeah So that's why we have such an explosion we want to find somewhere where we can flee to
<$A> Absence of which will mean that you divorce yourself completely from religion
<$D> At times
<$A> Yes Nyongesa
<$E> Yeah it could be at times at all Uh we what we are all pointing out is that the interest is decreasing
<$A> is decreasing
<$E> rather than
<$A> Yeah maybe that maybe we should tackle that Uh do you think the youth now the number of youth in religion is it going down or is it going up for whatever reason whether I mean whether it is going up for any reason or coming down for any reason Is it going up or is it coming down 
<$F> decreasing 
<$A> It's decreasing for very many reasons 
<$F> Yeah very many 
<$A> Do you think promiscuity is a one of those reasons
<$F> Yeah to an extent yes
<$?> sexual promiscuity
<$?> Yeah let's just say promiscuity
<$A> Okay <./>let let's look at this other issue which I'm sure is really disturbing the minds of the youth Let's <-/>let's look at the cults uh something like devil worship is really you know is really eating through the minds of the <-/>the youth Now there is a feeling you know that the increasing number of cults is also boosted by the number of youth who are falling out of church
<$A> I mean what do you have to say to this Makhoha let's start with you
<$C> Well about these cults What I feel is that you know people when they are looking at religion first in the first place we should take at what people look in religion You know is it to put themselves right to God you know when you look at the youth today it's not because they want to put themselves in right with God whatsoever it is These people are frustrated people They have nothing to do and loathe doing nothing So they just want to get to church and forget about the misery which is which <-/>which they are living uh they are living in You see these cults they come about due to people who are hungry for money leadership what We found quite a number of them in town not to mention names and whatever You find that people who want to come up with their own cult They want to have their own uh codes of behaviour You know actually it deviates from the main the main line the Bible the way the Bible puts it You find that these cults they've got you know a <-/>a distinctive kind of mode of whatever and they wouldn't actually tell you the rest You know each cult has its own way of doing things It's not because it's the way it's been put by the Bible It's just because people want to have a group they want to some people are hungry of leadership So they want to make a living out of this you know lack of things in the absence of jobs and such things So people actually they are <./>look they are looking for means to <-/>to go about in life and that's how we're coming up with very many cults 
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<$A> and if uh in any way this person transgressed or contravened the laws of the of uh of the society then uh all manner of unpleasant things would be following Now there were very strict moral codes there were very strict codes of behaviour that had to be adhered to and uh there is no way that anyone would rise up in society to any position of prestige if they did not conduct themselves if they did not conduct themselves in a way that was becoming and even beyond that if they died and uh uh one thing that will one thing that we'll mention uh as we go along is that there was a very uh great importance attached to the spirits of dead people or in African tradition that's the so called ancestor If one who was of poor conduct and then even after they had died uh they would be they would not be held in a position of esteem so that even uh their after-life would be viewed upon uh it would be viewed uh with uh 
<$B> you had a bad light
<$A> yeah but by the people left behind
<$B> by the people left behind
<$A> you would not have a situation where there was a tradition saying if <./>bec because your conduct was like this in life after death then you would go as the Christians would say or so the Judeo-Christian tradition has it one would go to hell or anything of this sort Was there anything of that sort of tradition
<$B> No not as such because as we shall see later on people liked to come back into the world that they have been living to work out those problems that they've set into motion in their past lives but while we are still in this aspect of cause and effect where to place justice you all know very well that when the African child was born he was reminded continually both by precepts and by actions that he does not only belong to himself but he belongs to the whole community and therefore never ever should he ask his rights at the extent of the obligations or duties that he has towards the whole community and he was made to understand that whatever actions he set in motion will not only affect him but will also affect the rest of the community so much so that if someone had transgressed any of the laws of the community when they called in a diviner or a medicine man to come and exorcise him the whole community had also to undergo purification so that there will be no <./>calamit calamities to <-/>to break down the community in which he was living you know to blacken the community in which he was living and as a result of that he was reminded continuously whatever he does if it is good it will bring out a lot a benefit for the whole community and if it's bad it will bring out a lot of calamities in the community such as plagues which are almost incurable devastating of <-/>of farming because of drought and cyclones etcetera etcetera But this concept of cause and effect or <?/>due justice was not only confined to the social structure The African had also to relate with the natural environment in he lived in which he lived in For instance according to Zulus they said that it is only a silly bird that messes its nest meaning that if you destroy the natural environment in which you live in then of course you have messed the nest in which you are living And as a result of that the African was a great conserver or preserver of the <./>nat of the natural environment He could not destroy trees or animals in the jungle unnecessarily
For instance as a psychological device he would be told that if you go around killing animals in the name of sport as a punishment from the god you'll die of starvation one day or if you run around destroying trees unnecessarily as a punishment from the gods you'll be struck down by lightning and as a result of that lose your life Now these may sound as facetious but these psychological devices helped the African to maintain the natural environment that they lived in <./>in the right state and therefore not causing imbalance in the environment Even they believed that wind transports our thought for instance they will tell you that if you think wrongly or if you curse someone your thought will be transported by the Southern wind to its target and if you want to bless someone then the thoughts of blessing will be <./>transmor transported by the wind or from the north to <-/>to its targets or to its of course aim This indicating that he had not only to watch his actions physically but he had also to watch his thoughts and today we know that We are reminded by psychologists that there is a science of telepathy that your thoughts will find their way to the goal that you're aiming at so you have to watch your thoughts very very carefully That as you can see that the African knew that this law of cause and effect to produce justice was expected to help them to relate harmoniously with the social environment as well as the natural environment in which he lived in so he was a very very careful person He would never ask his rights at the expense of the obligation that he had toward the whole community
<$A> Was this law expected or taken to be immutable in the sense that uh it had consequences respective what you did Once you did the you took the wrong step there would be reverberations from that wrong step If you took the right step there would be therefore the <./>re the requisite reverberations from the right step
<$B> Yes and that is why all the time he was reminded of his obligations knowing that once the law had been set into motion there was no possibility of calling it back You had to go through the whole consequences and that's why I said the other <?/>role that it's not only that <?/>individuum who had to be exorcised or purified but the whole community had also to undergo the process of purification to ensure that there would be no calamities to overtaken the community to overtake the community and even the <-_offsprings><+_offspring> of that community
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$A> So there was a very great emphasis on communality and responsible collective responsibility for the actions of everybody
<$B> and everybody was very accountable for what he did
<$A> It's not a question of I'm not my brother's keeper No I am my brother's keeper
<$B> Yeah let's go on to the next of the basic concepts This is a question of Reba which a lot of Africans today think as very alien is <-/>is a hocus-pocus
<$A> Yeah uh this is a concept that is held on to my very many African communities and uh it is believed in many African communities that once you die you do not depart altogether that the real person is survives death so to speak uh The real person is said to be a spirit and after die and after death the spirit joins the other ancestor spirits and waits for some future time to come back most likely within the same family So there's a threat uh there's a strong feeling that spirits uh survive uh the physical death as we know it and waits for some <./>fu future period to be to <-/>to get reborn and uh
<$?> uh
<$A> that is illustrated even in the <-/namings>
<$?> all the naming is that a 
<$?> an indication that this was the reason why you're naming somebody after somebody who was earlier born before
<$?> Yes there is an expectation in many communities and uh that is why certain names uh are named that way uh very often after someone who had gone on uh <./>be before that so the expectation is that the new child that is coming into the family is <-/>is a previous member reborn
<$A> I want to tie this scene we're running out of time Rubin I want to tie this scene to life after death the concept of life after death in the African tradition uh what was the concept?
<$?> Uh uh as a matter of fact just before we go to that we know for sure that for instance amongst the Yoruba of West Africa when a boy was born he was greeted as <ea/>babatunde that father has come back If it was a girl she was greeted as <ea/>Iantundi that's mother's come back And the Ghanaian would just greet a boy as <ea/>abadios that means he has come back and among the Luos of Kenya we are taught that in certain communities when the mother is expecting a baby a few weeks before the baby is born a certain spiritual entity in dreams approaches the mother and gives a certain name to the child and when the child is born if that child is not given that name the child develops queer characteristics like crying incessantly or contracting diseases which are almost incurable until when a diviner is called in to detect what ancestor was to be born and if the mother now gives the name as was suggested in the dream by that spiritual entity then the boy of course or the child assumes the right state of life as far as good health is concerned and good characteristics suggesting that that ancestor now had been recognised as having coming back Even among the Lamba of Zambia who are Bantus by their tradition I was once talking to a teacher who said that his wife who was a graduate six weeks before giving birth her grandmother had approached to her approached her in dream and the grandmother gave her a name which was female and when the child was born it was female its in its gender That as you can see this idea of reincarnation is not strange to the African culture and the most important aspect of it is that since we believed that our relatives come back to life there was no possibility of great <-/impoverty> Everybody was looked upon as a relative and therefore he could he had to be helped whatever state he may be in this world so it had to go he had this implication of cementing the social structure for helping each other as such as such Now coming to this concept of life after death the Isanusi say that is the wise ones say that man is composed of a physical body a soul and a spirit and when the physical body died the soul or Ibilozi hovered around the physical body for some time and then after that it went into a <ea/>isilueni A <ea/>isilueni is a place where <O/> or the soul assumed both human and animal state temporarily in an invisible state and then after some time the animal form was dissolved and the Ibilozi went into another place where it underwent a lot of rest and a sleep for quite a long time until this soul or Ibilozi dreamt of a certain service and knowledge which he had not acquired in the world Then the soul would awaken from that blissful sleep come to a <ea/>isilueni back in the physical body of a baby to get set in the mother's womb and help the birth of that child and develop that body and acquire certain knowledge and render service useful to mankind But you may ask this process of going in to the invisible world of the soul and coming out going to the physical world was it endless No after many <-/>many births and deaths when Ibilozi or the soul had rendered all the services required and had acquired all the knowledge required in the world When it left the physical body for the last time it became absorbed in the universal spirit namely Itongo and therefore did not have to be born again in the world Thus as you can see life after death was not a source of terror because everybody knew that when he died he will still come back into the world to render more service and to acquire new knowledge 
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<$A> which we've been doing in secondary school is a completely different discipline Just for example for those who want to become doctors you must be good in mathematics chemistry physics biology Obviously you cannot be a doctor if you are not good in those subjects uh Then if uh you want to become a lawyer one thing you've got to be really bright indeed because uh the Law Faculty at the university uh takes only very few and because of that the point of entry uh the marks are rather high So that's why you need to score very high marks in order to get a place at the Law Faculty at uh your local university And then you don't need really to I cannot say you must be good in this subject or that but I think it will be appropriate to emphasise that that uh you should be very good in English uh good in geography good in history and uh and uh general knowledge So those are the subjects that you must really excel in 
<$B> <-/>mhm
<$A> But I have also examples in fact some of uh some of them are my good friends My very close friend we were once schooled together here in Nairobi and I <-/>I went to do arts that's why I took English history and geography and religious knowledge and this friend of mine took mathematics chemistry and physics and he decided also to do law and is a very successful lawyer because law is complete different discipline as you go to university So you need to do well uh in all those subjects and then when you come to when you go to university you'll be introduced to a new discipline and it'll be very interesting for those of you who are interested and I'm sure you will not find it very difficult if you are really serious uh in concentrating on your work as I'm sure you are
<$B> Do <-/>do <-/>do <-/>do you have to be a person who likes to read a lot 
<$A> Oh in fact you've got to be a person who reads a lot because law involves a lot of reading
<$B> <-/>mhm yes 
<$A> Uh you cannot uh be a successful lawyer if you are lazy in reading
<$B> There you are those of you who don't like your books You'd better start pulling up your socks Any more questions related to law as a career You know uh if you got any questions related to what you would like <./>wh what kind of person you are supposed to be if you going to be a lawyer yes
<$C> Your Lordship who should educate the people who should educate the people of <-/>of their rights and privileges
<$A> <-/>mhm okay that is a bit off <O/> but it's okay
<$B> No it's all right 
<$?> question
<$A> Yes in fact this programme is part of an answer to your question so in fact the government is doing this through programme like this one So what we are doing here now we are talking to you and other members of the public who are watching this programme are also learning something about law I hope next time a doctor will come
<$A> When <-/>when you are at Muthaiga you are <-_>you are pupils at Muthaiga Primary School?
<$A> yes yes this is Muthaiga Primary School
<$B> yes
<$A> yes because I pass through it every morning You should know that yes uh because I give lifts to some of you every morning So you must know <-/>know that uh your teachers will of course tell you what it entails to be this and that And then also through programmes of this nature you are also being told some of these uh uh things and uh then there's also careers uh masters who are in <-/>in upper well secondary schools where you have careers masters who will explain to you exactly what you should do if you want to become a doctor or surveyor or engineer all right
<$B> You had a very interesting question related to the character of a person who wants to be a lawyer What was the question
<$D> Yes uh what character should you be Should you be a specific character to be a lawyer
<$A> No It's not really a specific character to be lawyer but let me say that uh after you go and study at the university and you get your degree which is a LLB a Bachelor of Laws you will then that is after uh three years at the university you will then proceed to a Kenyan School of Law where you will be for twelve months and at the same time you'll be attached to a firm of lawyers will learn office practice and what lawyers do and then that's when you petition to become an advocate of the High Court Now uh to become an advocate of the High Court so that you can appear in law courts is not just any lawyer but it your character will have to be considered We want a person who is morally upright You see you can't uh law uh as they call themselves their learned friends and they want the legal profession to be special So that's why they ensure that as a lawyer you must be upright in your manners you must know how to dress uh as a lady yes and a lawyer that's why they always insist on being smart uh So because being learned and since you are going to be determining other people's issues obviously you must be above reproach because I can't see how you can say that well let <-/>let me hear your dispute when your own life is disorganised you see So and all you are saying that you are going to determine disputes and uh you're calling yourself learned friend and you are dirty you don't uh you are not tidy uh you are <-_>you are<-/> drunkard they say uh that sort of thing uh you are rioting all over the place you don't sleep properly that's you see you've got to be a man who is disciplined and that's why we must uh uh emphasise this word discipline and it is easy for you because in school now you are disciplined because you know when you are supposed to come in in the morning and the bell rings you must go to this classroom at the end of forty minutes or forty-five minutes you change class or another teacher comes in and you know lunchtime is at such and such a time Lunchbreak is one hour or two hours you come back So this you can see these rules are in school and therefore you will not find it difficult It's only when you come out and you think that uh we want you to continue being disciplined and you feel that well we are we others who are harassing you We are not harassing you young people We are trying to take care of your future 
<$B> Yes so that means what you are going through in school now should be good training for those of you who want to be people of integrity and of standing in the law profession So it is something that you should take seriously from your teachers Yes do you have a question
<$D> Your Majesty Why doesn't 
<$A> No no I'm not a judge 
<$B> Your Lordship
<$D> Your Lordship
<$A> Yes
<$D> Why does a judge postpone a case to another day
<$A> Why
<$D> Why does a judge postpone a case to another day
<$A> Yes because a judge is a human being cannot work throughout the night Now the position is this young man uh you see when you are hearing a case and uh witness keep uh are still being called at the end of the day you'll adjourn that case either the following day but you know if it is Saturday you cannot adjourn to Saturday you have to adjourn to Monday or some other day So it 's just because the uh the day has ended just like you in <-/>in school After your last lesson you must go home isn't it The teacher does not keep you in school
<$B> yeah 
<$A> So after games you must now go away isn't it yeah unless it's a boarding school so Muthaiga of course is not a boarding so at the end of the day you must go home so also a judge at the end of the day when he has been hearing a case he must adjourn it to another day But I think you want all you want to complain that a case comes and a judge does not even hear a single witness and he say that it is he has adjourned it to another day There must uh when there is a good reason uh for example a witness did not come or the <-/>the lawyers involved have agreed that it should be put off for another day or there is a uh another serious case going on in which one of the lawyers in this particular case is involved then they adjourn for another day But I must tell you that there are so many cases pending in our courts in Magistrates Court in High Court in the Court of Appeal and so the judges cannot finish all the cases in a day 
<$B> Yes so uh we have noted reports of this the other element of people thinking that uh probably a lawyer's job is very easy that you just sit up there and listen to this side and the other side Then you bang the gavel when you are tired and you <./>re retire to the back and then come back and say oh this is for you and this is for you So maybe just tell them also emphasise upon them that probably the job is not as easy as it looks 
<$A> Now we see those of you now who'll uh I will explain how you <-/>you qualify in order to go to university You have to study there for three years for your degree law and then you go to Kenya School of Law for twelve months then you become an advocate of the High Court then now it comes to question of employment I think we want to go that way 
<$B> yes 
<$A> Now after that what else would you do Not all lawyers can be judges because for example the in the country the <-/>the law provides that the uh the <-/>the the constitution and the judicature act that those are the rules that uh all the laws that uh guide the government in appointing judges The High Court judges are supposed to be only thirty-two So when the <./>parl our parliament uh amends that to make it thirty-five or forty It used to be in fact nine I remember in the old days it used to be only nine only nine judges they changed to eleven they amended to fourteen they amended to seventeen to twenty-one to twenty-four Now it has been amended up to <-/>to thirty-two Now but you cannot you should not expect from school to become a judge straight that would be strange because uh you must be a person who has uh lived among the people you know the problems of families and that sort of thing see that you are a mature person so when as a lawyer when you have qualified you can either become uh be employed the government as a state council You know that is government advocates working there in the <./>cham chambers You'll be appearing on the behalf of the government either in the criminal cases when you are prosecuting or in civil cases when the government is a party to a suit That's one part Then you can also be employed in the local authorities like the Nairobi city commission You can become a town-clerk or you can work in the town-clerk's department as one of the lawyers because there is a lot of legal work going on there You can also work in the insurance companies You can also work in the banks You can also work in the co-operative movement because all these areas there are laws to be interpreted and they require a legal mind So it is not a question of just thinking of becoming an advocate and appearing in court There are so many lawyers who have never gone to court and they are doing very well 
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<$A> at sixty metres or uh where a person's eye or uh angle uh of vision is twenty degrees or less in the better eye after correction Now uh there is emphasis here on after-correction meaning that after the medical uh after the person has received medical attention uh if the best eye because there are two eyes uh he uh with a person if the best eye can only see at three metres what an average eye can see at sixty metres or the angle the <-/>the vision at the widest angle is only twenty degrees or less then that person is called blind Before correction that person is not yet considered blind because there are many conditions uh that that might be causing that problem that could be corrected medically 
<$B> The Kenyan definition you said is functional and with a view at your definition that you have given is that now the universal position adopted globally
<$A> Yes the Kenyan definition uh in <-/>in the legal setting is functional but in the medical uh setting according to the National Prevention of Blindness Committee which is our national uh organ that uh oversees our whole <-/>whole ophthalmic programme we have adopted the WHO medical definition
<$B> Doctor Gakuru any other additional point that may relate to the definition of blindness as a condition
<$C> Uh Mr Chairman none at all except the fact that uh apart from that we also have what we call partially sighted which is the range between the patients who see with an with the best eye an object at six metres what a normal person will see at sixty and to the level that Mr Tororei had mentioned those are the group that are called partially sighted So we have the blind and the partially sighted and then those with uh normal vision 
<$B> Well could we now move to that causes of blindness condition Dr Gakuru What are the known causes of the problem?
<$C> Yes Mr Chairman here in Kenya the order of frequency of the causes of blindness are by far the most cataracts Cataracts means uh opacity of the lens that is the lens within the eye This contributes about thirty-nine percent of all cases who are blind Now uh in the second place is trachoma Trachoma is a chronic infection of the eyes both eyes This contributes about sixteen percent of all the cases of blindness in our country and in the third place is glaucoma which contributes about fourteen percent of all the blind cases Glaucoma means raised intra-ocular pressures something almost similar to hypertension that we know in general medicine 
<$B> What would that mean in simple layman's language
<$C> It means that the pressures within the eye there is a normal range and we have norm we have operators who are checking the pressures of the eye Now if it is raised beyond the normal range then we term that condition as glaucoma In the fourth place are other causes and amongst these causes are the most common trauma Measles and what is termed as zerophthalmia which is caused by Vitamin A deficiency and others These contribute about thirty-one percent of all blind cases in our country This order is different in other nations What I've given you is the order in our nation
<$B> How about the distribution percent of the occurrence of the condition nation-wide and what will be the specific factors attributed to those situations
<$C> Now the first cause is generalised within the whole country It's the same all over The second cause trachoma is found uh almost predominantly in the districts of Baringo Kajiado Narok and then sporadically in a few other areas Now the main denominator in these areas is that these are dry and dusty areas and the level of hygiene is very low so that the transmitter which are flies have the <-/>the media to uh and the appropriate conditions through which they can transmit the bacteria from one person to the other because of poor hygiene
<$B> Yes Are there things this would be open to any member of the panel that uh we would do as a family as a parent very early in early stage to identify uh the problems that may be affecting a child so that quickly Tororei would know that uh he has problems and needs attention
<$A> Uh my reaction to that is yes there is If we see as a community or one of our friends having an abnormal eye in other words having like a red eye or a watery eye or a <-/>a doctor would have medical terms for them if we send that person without delay to the nearest dispensary and this uh the <-/>the health workers at that dispensary will in turn send that person to the eye specialist in our country our front-line workers uh professional eye workers are ophthalmic clinical officers and they are found in nearly all the districts in this country Now if a clinical officer cannot deal with that case then he will refer the cases to uh eye-surgeons and eye-surgeons are found in nearly all our provincial hospitals and a few major district hospitals and if in turn the condition is such that the eye the eye-surgeon uh in <-/>in those centres cannot deal with then they would refer these to Kenyatta National Hospital for very advanced medical uh diagnosis and treatment So yes there is something we can do and the best thing to do is if you suspect your friend has an eye condition send him to the nearest dispensary and that way he'll get into our referral system 
<$B> Judy up to that level we have reached uh stages where we start to deal with the problem we are starting to manage blindness as a the condition and I'm interested at this level to see how the Kenya Society for the Blind comes in <-/>in relation to your role as the assistant director 
<$D> One of the biggest challenges uh Kenya Society for the Blind is first thing in the nineteen nineties is to change the attitude and the attitudes of whom the attitudes of both the blind people and the sighted people In the past or even up to now we all know what stigma has been put on handicapped uh people And so how are we going to do this We hope to do this by creating awareness and through creating this awareness sending out positive messages we hope uh to change the attitude and in the process uh the blind people and the society are able to identify their problems and be helped
<$B> What kind of uh specific channels that your society is using to create this desired awareness 
<$D> Uh there are many channels One of them is like this one where we are now I hope whoever is viewing is uh getting a message uh One of the other one is through the media messages through the newspaper messages through uh the TV the radio but that is just to the <?/>air people who have those facilities We hope to go further than that get into the rural areas physically uh talk to people and create this awareness We also hope to recruit people to be very close to us so that they can in turn do their job on our behalf because Kenya Society for the Blind programme we have just about a handful of people but once we've educated the public then they will carry out the job on our behalf We recruit them through membership on ordinary membership where somebody pays two hundred shillings uh per year and becomes a member We have what we call life membership where you pay two thousand Kenya shilling you become a life member We have what we call corporate membership where company and legal organisations pay ten thousand shilling every year and they become corporate member We also have people who are open just to give <?/>general donation realising that a charitable organisation and rely on this to carry out uh our activities So in that regard we'll use these people who will have joined us indirectly through this membership to be able to help us create the message
<$B> Is the membership open to anybody
<$D> The membership is open to anybody above the age of eighteen
<$B> Yes Mrs Nyaga The role of education as it were is important in various aspects and it is probably more crucial to a person who is seen blind and presupposes that is uh some incapacitation of some sort Would you like to tell us how you are trying to solve this through education
<$E> Yes thank you Mr Chairman Uh first of all I'll use the terminology that we use in the area of education When Dr Gakuru was talking she talked of hum those <./>chil people who are blind and others who are partially sighted We like to use the terminology visually impaired This is where uh we include those who are totally blind according to the legal definition uh as was mentioned by Mr Tororei as well as those who have functional uh blindness and those who are partially sighted Now such children have been educated uh in Kenya most of the people in our country know of special schools and these are very few We have about seven special schools uh for the blind and of course they only take a limited number because of the boarding facilities Of late we have started another programme whereby we try to reach more children This is through integration and the integration is done either by putting the blind children together with the other sighted children either in boarding facilities of normal regular schools or even for publicity and for awareness we have what we call <-_intinerant><+_itinerant> education Well
<$B> Which means what
<$E> Now intinerant <-_intinerant><+_itinerant> system means uh one teacher specialist teacher helps or gives services to blind children in more than one school In other words you are not answerable to only one headmaster but you can give services to blind children or visually impaired children who are in neighbouring schools In other words you would take the education to the child instead of bringing the child to the education If a child is in Mombassa you don't have to take that child to Thika but you give the education in that area And this is done by using specialist teachers who are trained at KISE and also giving in-service courses to regular teachers and you give them the know-how to assist that blind child And blind children have been uh integrated or given education successfully from pre-school up to university And here I'm <-/>I'm happy to say that in Kenya I think we have more blind uh people who have gone through education than any other of uh African countries in this region And uh what the Kenya Society for the Blind and the Sight Savers which is a sister organisation does We try to provide materials Now there is specific material that is required for the blind We hear of blind people writing in Braille And Braille is uh a kind of media whereby blind people are able to read with their fingers We have special machines for writing that and these machines have to be imported from overseas because they are not manufactured locally And they cost one Braille machine for example if somebody would like to donate one Braille machine for a needy case costs about three hundred and fifty pounds and it has to be imported either from UK or from USA And a simple <-_>a simple<-/> equipment like the way you give a pen and a pencil and a <-/>a piece of paper to your sighted child the simplest case kit you can use for a blind child would cost you about forty to sixty pounds and these are also available not locally but they have to be imported and Sight Savers helps the Kenya Society for the Blind as well as the Minister of Education because we work in conjunction in providing such kits to blind children all over Kenya At the moment we have about eleven districts which are involved with that <-_intinerant><+_itinerant> kind of teaching And mostly in remote areas like Wajiri Lodwar Samburu Mandera Narok Bungoma Baringo and in Nairobi alone we have about seventy children who are successfully integrated in fifteen schools spreading from Kilimani up to Kibera up to Eastlands and those children are going to school every day and then coming home with the other brothers and sisters 
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<$A> we encourage such people wherever they are to form groups age-care groups self-help groups so that together with the other members of the community they can continue to remain active to do active work and we help them by initiating some age-care projects such as poultry keeping bee keeping bakery pottery work and many others Simple activities that they can do very well with <-/>with little supervision from any expert and these other projects we have initiated and supported in various parts of the country and uh altogether <-/>altogether there are about a hundred projects scattered all over the country and they are being managed by local organisations and churches that have the interest of the elderly people at heart And uh I can say that these projects are doing very well and they are uh meeting the income needs of the elderly people in the whole country
<$B> All this of course requires some kind of financing How do you fund Help Age Kenya
<$C> I think like what the chairman said at the beginning we depend entirely on some funds which we raise through schools through children and their parents through our officers who are employed by Help With Kenya and we also get assistance from the International Help Age which are doing the same work like us But mainly here in Kenya we raise fund by approaching schools and the schools with the children organise walks organise other activities where they're sponsored and the money they raise they give to the Help Age Kenya and Help Age Kenya gives to these projects which you have been told which are spread all over the country
<$B> How much What sort of expenditure would you have a year on average
<$C> I think we <-/>we spend more than
<$A> about nine million shillings
<$C> nine million shillings and it's all scattered all over the country to these needy people
<$B> How many are you affecting directly and indirectly
<$A> Uh as I said uh in a project you will find of uh about fifty uh participants who were elderly average of fifty so if we have supported a hundred projects you can see the number of elderly people
<$B> You are talking about five thousand people You were talking about two million you said roughly Kenya's twenty-four million insured people 
<$A> Yes
<$B>: being sixty years and older What's happening to the rest of the sixty million Even if it's not all of them who are not in a position to help themselves
<$C> Like what has been said most of the money we're saving in health or in need of material so we are not helping all those which are elderly people over sixty in our population We are helping those who are found to need help like what I've said earlier I am almost the same age but I don't come to help even other people who are over sixty-eight as they may be able to look after themselves But we select those who are really <./>need needy and there are sometimes sick like a gentleman I treated a few months ago and they need help they need food they need clothes They may need eyeglasses They may need many things which they don't have and that's why we are coming so that they do not look after them all with provision of age of people in Kenya We look after those who need help and who have come perhaps sometime to seek for it They are found and they are brought together in day-care centres uh in homes and then <-/>then we get in touch with them that way
<$A> That is the question you asked is very good It's key to why we have now uh a day which has been designated uh as the day for the elderly for the aged because Help Age uh Help Age International and the <-/>the United Nations know that there is a <-_wild><+_world> wide problem The people who need help because they've been incapacitated by age are many all over the world you take Kenya you take Tanzania our neighbouring countries you take India there are millions and millions and millions
<$B> <-/>mhm How many therefore 
<$A> And therefore I <-/>I couldn't tell you the figure in the world uh certainly there are more in the developing countries that uh than there are in the developed countries but the problem is there and therefore the United Nations hopes that on the first of October which is the day that has been designated as the elderly day is really for people to uh stir themselves up both in minds and also economically and say now this is our problem Everybody should feel that way this is our problem and nobody is going to solve this except us We must do the best we can We must do the most we can We have to educate one another we have to educate the children and to educate the teachers or to educate the parents or to educate those who are working and are married or not married and so on It is a national problem We know all that the government is doing what it can We know that the missionary organisations and other organisations are doing what they can but the problem is still big So if we can realise the importance of this day first of October as a day of trying to enter and penetrate the minds and the hearts of as many people as possible we shall have achieved the purpose
<$B> What specifically are you going to do on that day
<$C> Uh on that day uh we have uh alerted all the aged-care projects we have supported to show concrete concern for the elderly people wherever they are by visiting them by talking to them and by finding out from them whether something could be done to make life more uh enjoyable Here in Nairobi we will visit some of the old people's homes and we have organised uh for schoolchildren to visit some of these homes and to talk to the old people entertain them if they have a some <-/>some good songs to sing to them and uh the old people will also enjoy being with them and at the same time uh will sing for the young people because it's not just the young people entertaining the elderly people We have seen cases where elderly people also enjoy being with young people and uh they entertain them They tell them what used to happen a long time ago and in this way uh other people will be more aware of the problems of the elderly people
<$C> Mr Chairman It is you were saying this a national problem and we as an organisation voluntary organisation we realise what we are doing with the Ministry of Cultural and Social Services and in the rural areas and all over the country where we are operating we have projects we also involve the administration and the people in charge of the cultural and social services there so that they do see what is happening is right and the funds we send to those projects are used properly so we are connected with the administration and the government and the Minister of Cultural and Social Services to <-/>to work and to carry on and to reach the people the right people and to see that the funds we raise and which are donated are properly used in <-/>in the parts we <./>ha we send
<$B> Does the ministry have uh specialised people involved in all these problems
<$C> I think the Ministry of Social uh cultural and Social Services they have people who are experienced with all the social problems affecting the community and this is one of the few they <-/>they must have people We <-/>we have somebody who comes to represent the ministry in our organisation in <-/>in order to move things on the board and in the district committee <O/>
<$B> Uh apart from the Ministry of Culture is there a sort of collective or coherent approach between yourselves the churches other people plus the Ministry of Culture or whichever ministry or department is involved with old age problems
<$A> Well at this stage I would say that there is something that is uh coherent plus co-ordinated and so on because uh people work voluntarily and uh we will uh I think gradually reach that stage but at the moment uh some organisations have gone further than others but we shall have to come to that so that we will not repeat the same projects or do not have the same places visited several times and so on But however we will have to bear in mind that some of these projects are run by local authorities others by missionary organisations and we in ourselves uh by ourselves we depend very much on these volunteers on these people who are uh working and are missionary organisations or in missionary organisations people who are local authorities areas where the Ministry of Culture and Social Services supporting Help Age Kenya main participation at the moment is funding Funding in the sense of building uh providing funds for supply of needed items blankets sheets or uh roofs uh water pumps uh We buy goats we buy chicken for them to bring up to rear and this what we call income-generating uh uh projects We don't have institutions which are clearly run and daily supervised by Help Age Kenya We do have people who go around to have a look at what is happening in those institutions so to bring us report if there is money required for further development diversification new projects somewhere We have to have people who do that but otherwise uh the <-/>the missionary organisations and the local authorities uh they try their best and we welcome applications as much as our funds will allow uh for development or for starting new projects I think one idea uh item that we have not mentioned yet is a question of these day centres and I think at this stage I would like uh the executive officer Mr Were to tell us a little more or to tell the audience a little more about these day centres
<$B> What are these day centres
<$D> Uh first of all we emphasise that Help Age Kenya would like to see the elderly people supported within the extended family system that is within their homes 
<$B> That is the ideal situation 
<$D>: not by taking them to old people's homes So in order to help them within their community we are encouraging the establishment of uh day centres where the elderly can go during the day and uh uh
<$B> be looked after
<$D> be looked after and they can also be involved in some light activities uh also they can entertain themselves They can tell stories what they used to see long time ago The young people can come to visit them Schoolchildren could even come to learn from them how to look traditional traditions and so forth
<$B>: We are running out of time Just one more question here uh we seemed to be indicating that the problem of the aged particularly affects those whose families have become educated and left gone away to the towns other towns etcetera Is this a problem among say those who have grown old and have been well educated They have been properly educated Their children have their children taken care of them <O/> You are quite elderly yourself You have been in public life that many years What is your personal experience of it and also looking at your close friends and colleagues 
<$?> Mr Nyaga perhaps
<$B> Uh is this a problem that's also start could start affecting even those of us who thought Well you know we've taken care of our children we are quite literate and if something happens they're going to take care of us
<$A> Well first if you look at the so-called developed countries That was the beginning of this kind of problem In that through urbanisation industrialisation people moving away from their countryside and into these areas they found that they found it difficult sometimes very expensive timewise or moneywise to be visiting people if you are employed a hundred miles away two hundred miles away sometimes in different countries altogether from Britain you're employed in Australia All that you have to do is to wish that there was a home where you can pack off your father pack off your mother pay a certain fee and forget about them and say well those people do their best there 
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<$A> and income say for example a person who has a suffering child and this person uh needs to take care of this child so the only option and the easy option out to cater for this child and for <-_ourself><+_ourselves> is probably to engage in uh this kind of a behaviour 
<$B> I think we what you are basically trying to focus at is that we are narrowing down to the problem of malsocialisation It's as a result of the improper socialisation that the society is imparting to the young generation that is leading to the extreme case of deviance among the youth which ran up to adulthood because this youth actually once they become deviants they <-/>they at one point in time they'll become adults and you know the circle continues So you are saying that in the traditional African setting the family the whole family was looked upon not just the nuclear family but the extended family was looked upon as a socialisation mechanism through which the <-/>the young children were taught the norms of their society and everything that goes to good behaviour 
<$C> Okay I'd like to ask Musalia what he really meant by prostitution being an economic uh an economic kind of way of looking for money because prostitution is not only for women but for men I don't know what he has to say about that when it comes to deviance 
<$A> Well you have just added another dimension which maybe will come up maybe later in the programme but as you realise that somebody doesn't engage herself or himself for that matter to add in that dimension out of I mean for the pleasure of it I mean that's not something pleasurable so it is definitely the economics the economic gain out of that that leads somebody the economic difficulties that lead somebody into engaging into such kind of a behaviour 
<$D> Well I don't know because she is raising an issue of the issue of men in prostitution and we say that for example well people have always said that uh when they look at prostitution most people in fact think of women but she's telling us that men can also be prostitutes 
<$A> Maybe she could come up and say how the men come into prostitution 
<$D> Because I think it's important so because prostitution if to look at it in a proper perspective it <./>nee needs if <-/>if we are speaking about maybe from the sexual perspective it <-/>it needs two people to make prostitution
<$?> It's two-way
<$A> Exactly 
<$D> you can't say that uh there's prostitution if it's only uh men who are involved or women who are involved So I think we should look at this issue more closely 
<$C> I think what I would say also is prostitution when it comes to men there are young men who go out with older women and also they are looking for money it's not really the pleasure in it Even if it is they also want money so when it comes to prostitution I think the society should not just look at women they should also think about the men although the women are more into it than the men 
<$B> So basically we are all agreeing that that even prostitution is as a result of the financial constraints that the family's facing Just as Mr Musalia's put it it is the economic part of it that mostly is leading to the rise of deviance in the society You know if you looked at it at the family level once a family economically is not viable it results into poverty It's this poverty that propels the youths on the onto the streets or onto doing other sort of crimes or prostitution and such like cases 
<$D> Well I don't know wherewith because Musalia you <-/>you are the one who raised the issue of economics in prostitution but uh I would be hesitant to look at it from the purely economic of course I don't underrate the impact of economics but I would be hesitant to look at it from the purely economic point of view in the view in view of the fact that for example you find that there are children people who end up in crime and you look at them you look at their biographies and you find they are people who have come from relatively well-off There are in fact sometimes you find somebody in prostitution they are <-_>they are<-/> very comfortable so that the <-/>the next question is you <-/>you raise is why <-/>why is this happening 
<$B> Perhaps that could be attributed to <./>ins outside influence you know because basically if you looked at our societies more critically prostitution was not even a thing that was <-/>was in existence nor was crime but it's a as a result of what I would say more western influence Perhaps they derive pleasure in doing what they are doing I <-/>I would take it like that 
<$A> Well if you look closely well you see this pleasure it could be a means to an end I mean you <-/>you use it to get something else though I can't rule out the <-/>the fact of uh somebody maybe it could be a hobby I mean though that's a very crude way of saying it But we can't rule out that particular aspect but I would believe that the overriding factor I mean in the majority of cases the economics uh surpass all the others 
<$D> Well I the <-/>the economic part of it not withstanding I think the for example you these uh the question of personal morality for example the kind of because you see that's how I would maybe want to because if we keep on saying that deviance stems from society I think we are for burdening the society I think there is well what I wanted to ask is whether in fact there's an element of individual responsibility in some of the things that we do for example 
<$B> Yeah What you are looking at is the moral constraint on the on the individual Basically you know an individual doesn't <-/>doesn't stay in a vacuum sort of what he would like to do is something that he thinks should <-/>should impress others but I don't look I don't see how then prostitution if he does it unless it's part of a group it's <-/>it's an influence he's got from a group so that if he does something the group <-_>the group<-/> you know looks at it in esteem it's something worth looking up at But for this case I don't know whether actually it's something worth being done 
<$C> I think also the individual has <-/>has not so much to be blamed because of deviance because like when you're brought up in a family and you're told these are what you are supposed to be following these are the rules and then you wonder why you are told not to do what you're not supposed to do and then you'd like to find out why you are not being told not to do what you want to do and I think in a way that brings people to deviate from the ways 
<$A> Anyway essentially I think what we are talking about is uh the extent to which also uh the moral decadence of the community has decayed Because one thing I'm trying to see is that I'm trying to look <-_>to look<-/> at is that uh you see there's traditional norms I mean the people who are in uh who are bringing I mean who are the custodians of those particular norms who are mostly the elder and they would always reprimand their children uh not to engage in some such kind of a thing And there was a morally accepted and prescribed ways to deal with deviance So that particular centre that used to hold uh due to the changing uh circumstances in our society uh no longer holds And that is the basis of these particular uh uh problems you are talking about of deviance Because if it was still in place then I would believe that deviance would be at its minimum 
<$B> Yah in fact what you are saying actually is very right because we've all known that the agents of imparting socialisation to children are no longer the same as it was the case before So partially now that children are more socialised in schools among their peer group more often than they are socialised by their grandmothers and grandfathers That could be the end result of poor socialisation
<$D> Well I <-/>I think we should now go into the issue you raised the issue of the <-/>the traditional custodians and you are saying that they are not anymore So the something has happened in our society which has made that which has made that now the guardians the <-/>the checks the balances we had in our set-ups are no longer working So we should focus maybe on <-/>on this issue and try to see what has happened Well I think at one point we can say that broadly speaking the issue of westernization and uh the coming in of western culture through various media you find that this has had a very big impact for example when you speak about school School is a positive institution but it can also be 
<$?> negative
<$D> a very negative institution 
<$?> Yes
<$D> because it depends on the kind of even what is taught even legitimately taught in the in the school can be a source of can lead to defiance deviance because you <-/>you see for example the kind the of education which is drawn from western liberalism and the emphasis on <-/>on the individual which means that it tends to alienate the <-/>the educated individual from the from the collective So that eventually he ends up on his own And I think that kind of education is quite possible one of the reasons that lead to problems like uh drugs for example you <-/>you suddenly find yourself alone well-educated all right and comfortable but with a vacuum which in our in our <O/> system would have been filled by maybe relatives in-laws <O/> all these extended uh kinship systems But suddenly you find that through your education you have been alienated you have been alienated you can't anymore interact with the with them And you find at this point you have to fill it in some in some way You find a lot of drug abuse and of course drugs we don't <-_>we don't<-/> necessarily mean that the hard ones like cocaine and things like that Even smoking can become uh is in fact
<$B> Even alcohol 
<$D> is in fact a form of drug abuse even alcohol So you find a lot of people going into these <-/>these engagements these preoccupations so that they can fill a void which uh which they may not be able to explain 
<$A> Yah You are right Mr Goro In that particular sense of looking at it in terms of education as a <-/contributant> factor as a contributing factor to deviance I would agree with it because one thing education uh as you have said is modelled on some foreigner system I mean the Africans used to have uh their own education system whereby the boys after in uh circumcision they would be uh taken to some seclusion and they'd be taught all about their society Uh The ladies uh the same way when they go sleeping uh at uh in their uh at night they would be with their grandmother 
Whatever was going on was looked at as more or less law that if you and of course it was law anyway that if one was to become pregnant or to uh to go I mean to circumvent some law then he'll be liable to some uh punishment But education per se has revolutionalized the thinking of many I mean who have gone to class And that revolutionalizing of the mind has brought about this deviance So that now a person is not ready to sit with his father to sit with her mother and to draw the uh the advice from her and that one has tended actually to alienate us from that source that used to give us that particular advice 
<$B> Yah basically that should be very right because individualism has been more a result of westernization which of course implicitly education is part of the westernization process so that here we find the more an individual gets educated or learned if I could use them simultaneously the more he or she is alienated from the family 
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<$A> So there's no trust any more Then there's no personal commitment The only commitment left is the so-called constraint commitment You are constrained because you have children You don't want to leave each other because children will suffer You have property some time together you have friends and social pressure You want your friend to know you are a family man or you have a family like anybody else But actually you don't have marriage The I know cases whereby people even write me letters for <-/>for our publications and they say they don't talk to each other they talk through the medium of their child you know the child is the medium
<$B> Doctor Kabithe much as I would want to differ or much as I would want to agree with you that we would hate to be <./>stat static uh that we have to change with the time changing times But I feel that we would shift blame more on you know the changing times They've made us really try to do what we didn't know ourselves doing For instance we want to live how Whites live We want to live in a civilised way such that you find that most of these killings or most of these other things you blame them on way of change uh a <-/>a parent would kill a kid because uh they say he's not able to bring it up adequately or according to the standards then Don't you think then actually this changing or the way that we have adopted our style of <./>li living has more to blame when it comes to all these kind of family breakages child abuse and all that kind of thing
<$A> This is a very interesting Miss Kinuthia because I <slang/>wonna make a point here perhaps you never heard before I've lived in a western countries for more than seventeen years And may I tell you this Some of the things you see us doing <./>be believing that that's what westerners do is not true For example my son is there and he talked to me the other day And he told me it is very interesting that when he went to that college in the United States he was surprised By midnight nobody is out You cannot even go in the door in the girls' dorm You are in the men's dorm If you go to girls' dorm you can only stay in the uh lobby You can never go upstairs in their rooms Yet here in our universities ladies can go to the boys' room boys can go to the ladies' room and we want to believe that is western It is not western It is misunderstood western
<$C> So are we less responsible 
<$B> Where <-/>where did we get it from
<$A> Well well here's a point It's actually the question of the ignorance whereby you totally did not understand what you thought you understood Africans think they understood Europeans but they didn't Europeans have a culture They have self-discipline There are a few of them who are actually uh misfit and we may be copying those but a basic family over there it is not what some of us believe
<$D> Doctor I like to take you now to the health degree Now you talked about break-up uh and uh I don't know whether maybe you should tell us what to what extent there are the <-/>the safety valves as it were you said psychological uh psychologically reach a barrier uh what about drugs do you have a problem is <-/>is is this a problem is this a way out Is it becoming a way out for this society dangerous as it is
<$A> Yes Drug is serious More serious than most people think Let me give you uh another interesting situation Nairobi is being referred to as a suburb of London as far as heroin addiction is concerned having gross addiction Gross addiction is when you are addicted to alcohol you are addicted to <-/>to drugs hard drugs you're addicted to everything And most addicts actually start small with a <ea/>bhangi They go to cocaine Pretty soon you know they graduate And most of them actually even regular alcohol is no longer good <ea/>chang'aa you know kill-me-quick-type is what they go for And then of course the heroin roll in I am seeing very many of young people and some of the parents of these people are very frustrated people Some of the wealthy people are sending their children to London
<$D> You mean Kenyans
<$A> Yes Kenyans for treatment and it's a very expensive centre okay now I have seen rehabilitation centres that have been actually using <O/> which are cheaper But these are initiated by society by citizen who care parents we the professionals and uh those are the kind of thing I would <./>ad hope that Kenyans who are really concerned can get together and start These are residential centres whereby there's no drug coming in and one's understanding of why he got into it and so forth is done Let me also mention this I have met a lot of students who got <./>in addicted in India And I asked them to give me a comparison of the addiction and the Indian student addiction and they told me something interesting is that for every five addicted students in some of these universities you find one in five are Kenyans or Africans and one is an Indian and the drug is in India So I asked them What do you think about that They think the Indians understand the danger of drug more than Africans so Africans are very vulnerable victims
<$E> Doctor Kabithe uh can you <-_>can you<-/> if you <-_>if you<-/> go back a bit we're talking about psychologically divorces or legal divorces and talk about drugs How do you link up with the level of aggressiveness in our society today
<$A> Well uh perhaps let's put this way if you want to know if a young man or a man is addicted to heroin uh an average addict would require more than one thousand shilling some could get two thousand per day to actually just feed the habit He has not even counted his eating or where to sleep Well to raise that kind of money he would just resort to crime So if you want to talk about relationship between drug addiction and crime there it is because he can only sleep when he's high when he get up he's busy trying to freak out And these people cannot work Working bring money too slowly He cannot wait for 
<$D> I think Doctor Michael was also talking about just the general aggressiveness now in Kenyan society They want to get this they want to get that you know the <-/>the <-/>the <ea/>matatus and everybody bang into each other nobody really caring at all I mean uh even <-/>even <-/>even they <./>il even the well-off people I mean some of the some of the <-/>the <-/>the crimes as you say <./>a are really you hear a businessman has committed a robbery You know a businessman is supposed to be doing business not <-/>not robbing not robbing banks Now there's a lot of aggressiveness It was not so before I agree with you In fact before if somebody died on the street you you'd uh <-/>you stopped to look at who <-/>who is dead but now I don't think if I drop dead on the street nobody would even care not even look back uh What's happening
<$A> It's called frustration chief 
<$?> <-/>mhm
<$A> Okay We are stressed frustrated full of anxiety and we don't know what to do Therefore we are just acting It's like if you put a bunch of animals in a room and you set it on fire watch their behaviour It's unpredictable it look illogical And human beings are no better If they do not understand how to go about it that's what I'm suggesting we got to believe in developing skill People are very frustrated actually And as I said some think money is and so forth well it's not unusual Let me tell you uh a funny story whereby a very wealthy man a multi-billionaire in America who was caught stealing a newspaper because it was too time-consuming to pay for it <$A> He decided to steal it and he was in the court It's rather funny Now you told me some <-/>mhm businessmen stealing Now what you'd be very surprised that some of these businessmen some of these wealthy people will never live to enjoy their wealth All right And most of them by the time they hit seventy or sixty will be suffering from hypertension and they'll be dying of the so called short illness 
<$?> <-/>mhm<$A> Now I said self-understanding is very important and I would say for many of us let's try to understand ourselves How can we be moderate Criteria of success has been actually misunderstood in our continent or in our country We really believe a person is respectable if he has a lot of money regardless how he's obtained the money Now if I <-/>I wish we were saying a person should be respectable depending on how he obtains the money because our young people now are having role models They want money so that value of hard work is going away You see we have a problem here Now where do we start motivating young people to have better families to have better life than ourselves
<$A> Now the same professors or lecturers have a lot of family problems because of money spent on drinking Now where do you actually have social models in our country That is the problem
<$?> What about politicians are they models to other people
<$A> Let's put this way we are talking about corruption there's no secret and so forth and that's why I said what I would suggest is we should go back to the basics We want now to begin respecting people on the basis of how they made their money not how much money they have
<$C> Going back to the family set-up uh if I can take you back to that surely not everybody takes drugs or not everybody drinks but you still find uh strained relations in almost every social relationship My poser to you is Would you rather these people stayed together with uh such strained relations or they stay apart
<$A> That's a big question In other words Is it better to <-/>to divorce or to separate if you're not getting along or is it better to stay there 
<$C> Yeah 
<$A> under stress
<$C> Yeah because I don't see why we should be too close physically yet too far emotionally
<$A> In other words you don't see the use of living in psychological divorce
<$C> No
<$A> uh you know when I got to the United States the first man I met was a minister who was divorcing Church minister He was called Victor <O/> I had visited him he had invited me and he told me uh Mr Kabithe at that time I was just a student I am divorcing my wife and I are divorcing I told him do you know the worst thing you can do is to divorce He asked me why It is bad for children and so forth He told me maybe the best thing I can do for my children is to give them a chance to see their mother happy or me happy one day But if they continue to see us angry at each other I'm not even developing their personality properly I feel guilty I feel irresponsible and I think they are better off without me or maybe without mother so that they can see a happy parent even if it is one parent I think that answers your question Now today as a <./>psychol when I look back I feel that man was right Now of course you remember this We are called a developing country Before we are called developing country we are called we were called what underdeveloped country do you remember
<$C> Yeah 
<$A> They changed it Most of us think
<$D> Then they changed it to Third World okay to make us feel better
<$A> To make us feel better even Now let's analyse this What is it they refer to this development 
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<$A> and in today's edition of the programme we look at the subject of divorce Marriage to most people that day of marriage is usually their happiest day and unfortunately divorce might be the case and help us in that discussion on my immediate left is Mrs Rose Kakwagi
<$B> Hello viewers good evening
<$A> Mrs Kakwagi is a counsellor On my right we have Father James Michael Kinuthia
<$C> Good evening viewers
<$A> Father Kinuthia is from the Holy Family Cathedral On the extreme right is Mr Chege Kiruli
<$D> Hello viewers
<$A> He is a lawyer by profession and he'll give us the professional perspective or point of view and lastly but not least as always in the programme is Professor Gatere who needs no introduction 
<$E> Good evening viewers Now as usual on our programme we have been looking at social typical social issues that uh have a capacity to generate stress in all of us Tonight we are going to address the issue of divorce an extremely important issue in our current uh society in Kenya and we are more than it's usual because we want to hear a wider range of views on this very important topic divorce
<$A> And uh if I may take the liberty of asking our learned friends we're all here of learned friends so that the bonus is really only on the extreme right and fortunately not ladies and then gentlemen to give us the definition from the legal point of view What is divorce
<$E> Divorce in legal terms is the judicial process that terminates marriage One here has to presuppose that there is a legal marriage before any judicial process is put into motion to terminate or nullify such marriage There are various grounds that one can use to put the judicial process into motion The main grounds are adultery cruelty and desertion Those are the main ones The petitioner that is the person or the party going to court has to prove those grounds to the satisfaction of the court I do not normally want to go into details on these grounds
<$A> Maybe the ball is really on anyone's court If we look at adultery from your perspective what might be the definition of adultery that could contribute
<$B> Thank you Mr Chairman I think uh if there is anything that is painful in any marriage it's unfaithfulness Uh to the viewers I 'm sure they have found a lot of homes breaking and not from because of the poverty there is in their home but because of the unfaithfulness and <-/>and all <-_what><+_that> I can say about it is that uh although it is clear to those who are not Christians and even the hiding Christians people can sit and talk about it and solve it and uh make a marriage live continue
<$A> Do you have anything to add to this 
<$C> Well I could say this that hum when you talk of not only of grounds of adultery but even others maybe it's also very well to look at this question from another point of view Now we have had a word to divorces from the legal point of view but as well there is the question of there are some marriages which can be made invalid that is they were never really marriages Maybe we don't talk much of that but if it's there there's a real <-/>real problem in which case we are not talking of divorce but <-_annullification><+_annulment> of a marriage for example when you have such problems like impotence insanity Maybe there is somebody under-age a child who is being married or blood relationships which of course will affect this marriage such that a marriage cannot take place Now those are marriages which we do not say really they are being divorced although in active uh although actually they are being divorced but we say that they are being nullified because they were never there When it comes now to something like adultery it's when now the church says and talks of separation Separation and there are two kinds of separations we talk of in the Church Separation where you don't dissolve the bond of marriage in which case you give time time for repentance time to reconcile time to rethink again because the bond of marriage is not actually being rent asunder cut uh but rather we are talking of the possibility of coming back Even when we talk in terms of adultery and so on you have to think also in terms of religious welfare and God forgives and that we should also forgive I'm not saying that you know adultery therefore is to be accepted or other crimes and sins That's not what I'm saying but I'm saying to give the possibility of understanding the possibility of reconciliation forgiveness So the other part then is that a separation now where the bond of marriage is totally dissolved and this is where now we are talking of <-_annullification><+_annulment> of marriages due to certain things objections which make it that the marriage was never really there at the beginning I hope maybe I've touched on what you're asking especially about
<$A> Now Dr Gatere on the still looking on the grounds of divorce our learned friends mentioned cruelty but to me as a layman I can decide to be happy but to you that definition is <-/>is being cruel I may like loud music but to your ears I'm being cruel If we are in marriage with somebody can that be used as maybe one of the grounds or what is really cruelty
<$E> Cruelty is extremely difficult to define objectively It is a very subjective matter and it is the sufferer who knows where the shoe uh it is the shoe wearer who knows where it pinches Many people uh consider that say physical cruelty such as physical beating uh is <-/>is isn't so terrible We happen to know people who enjoy it Now what would you say in a situation like <-/>like that There are people who culturally tend to speak very rudely and their interaction inter-personal interaction uh takes the form of the type of form that you'll be shocked according to your culture uh the way they in fact that is that is how they communicate so that uh any an observer from outside would think that this is terrible and this is very very cruel but to them it is not coming over like that so I think cruelty is uh something that has to be seen first and foremost from the point of view of the sufferer That's very important uh Secondly uh from considering the circumstances surrounding what is being perceived as cruelty The perception of the person is very important the <-/>the real person and that is what really must be tested and it may require more in uh proving cruelty than just uh objective stated uh positions It may require for example psychological elucidation of the position for the person may be perceiving things totally different from what most people perceive it and uh they therefore exaggerate them or put them in terms that are going to be very difficult but I agree that when all is said and done cruelty clearly must be considered as a proper uh ground for separation because some people are just too cruel to their spouses
<$A> Now going back to Mr Kiruli Desertion is one other strong ground that you gave Even though interesting enough you uh initially just to as uh you know getting back to what you mentioned before you talked of strong grounds but before you touch on how easy or how it isn't easy to get divorce just looking at the other point that you had mentioned of desertion Is it necessarily physical desertion or can I desert you yet I'm physically present What exactly do you mean
<$D> Desertion can be physical and it can also be uh mental You can live together in one house and not be together In that I mean where you have two people staying in one house and yet one lives as if he's alone or the wife lives as if she's alone That means that there is no interaction between these two people There could be constructive desertion that occurs when you appear as if you're staying together but indeed you are not or the desertion can also be physical whereby you move out of the house and you stay away from the home for a year or more What I should emphasise here is that uh it's not as easy as that when you come to court You have to prove that uh the other spouse has deserted you That means that the if the spouse as the man or husband has failed absolutely to provide uh as a normal husband would provide for the wife That is desertion When we come to the adultery or cruelty or agree with the father here that the in-law we have divorces that have to be proved from the point of view that there was a legal marriage from the beginning We have instances where there was no marriage from the beginning That is to say where the legal requirements were not fulfilled during the ceremony of marriage For example if you went to church at night uh you closed your doors to the church and you conducted a marriage That marriage is not legal marriage It's <-/annullity> from the beginning Or whereby you have two persons who are too close in terms of the <-/>the degree of uh consanguinity where a brother marries a sister or a father marries a daughter That marriage is <-/annullitive> from the beginning or where you have uh an underaged getting married without a consent of the father That marriage is <-/annullitive> from the beginning what you call void <?/>agnitia in law The cruelty cannot be defined It could be mental and it could be physical Mental cannot also be defined It ranges from queer habits that the other spouse cannot tolerate to mental cruelty in terms of actions done by the other party to annoy to the extent that the other person cannot tolerate that annoyance It could also be physical where somebody comes in and beats the other frequently to the extent that uh that person cannot live with the other When it comes to the actual cases in court proof is required and the degree of proof is high The court will not allow a divorce just because one party wants a divorce The legal practitioner also before taking action we have to be uh to be satisfied that there are good grounds to move to court otherwise you'll not proceed to file the petition simply because the implications on divorce are great The area of uh children is something that one has to take into account when one is contemplating filing a divorce There are various issues that are required before this is done Mr Chairman I don't know whether you want to be <./>spe specific here
<$A> No that's quite fine 
<$B> I just want to say excuse me something small to what our learned friend has said about the cruelty both the physical and mental I think the <-/>the result of uh <-/>of uh one being cruel to one another is because there is no dialogue in that place mostly commonly found But uh if a man comes home and starts beating a wife surely he has not just started beating her there just total beating her there it was a plan and that might have been in the pipeline for quite a while and the only way I feel to solve some cruelty in forms or in marriages is communication If two people are staying together and most of the times they are nil by mouth for sure they are not talking to one another there are bound to be some <-/confliction> of a kind And so to solve them to solve the cruelty to solve the beating to solve that silence in the home I think it's good to talk and come to the conclusion or agree to disagree if the need be but at least there should be a dialogue
<$A> I would agree with you uh Normally that's what the uh legal <./>practition does uh practitioner does 
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<$A> And what does the law say against about such abuses violence against women
<$B> Uh the <-/>the <-/>the <-/>the law position the position in law is that in every violence case may it be defilement to a child may it be rape the one who has been offended the <-/>the culprit you know the victim is the one to prove the case And that's what I'd <-/>I'd tried to say here that for a blind woman it's difficult You see you have to go and report to the police you have to go and have a medical check-up you have to go it is you expected to do all these things yet it's the very very you who has been traumatised And most often than not the blind woman will not be able to follow all these you know bureaucracies and so our cases are hardly reported even when we have been violated 
<$E> I think I should add on that when it comes to the crucial you know part of identifying the person What are you know how are you supposed to identify the you know the uh <-/>the <-/>the you know <-/>the person who has committed the uh <-/>the crime You are supposed to identify the person you know so you have to use your visual and maybe you have to identify the voice she has talked of changing the voice and now what is left is what you have to identify using your eyes and when now the sight is not there then your case is just gone Even if you have all gone through all that problems of going to report to the police medical check-up and all that but you are not able to identify the person you know it is really frustrating and instead of going through all that hassle many decide just to shy off
<$E> And in fact I'd comment on that Uh one might even decide not even to talk so how do you identify the voice He may just have decided to abuse her and then off he goes So you wouldn't really even have that time to talk I mean that he'll talk and you'll maybe recall his voice 
<$C> Are you sometimes forced to use the sense of uh smell to identify people or things
<$B> Well I think that that's not uh really to the effect of criminal cases like now when it comes to violence against the woman The issue here is that when that offence has been committed if you can't identify using your sight there is always the aspect of having witnesses you know corroborators who'd be able to <-/>to strengthen your case for that matter but the <-/>the fact I'm again trying to hammer is that when you're blind even the witnesses you would say you'd have access to you didn't see them around the incident so you'd not even have any witnesses So your case would just be thrown out And that's the point we are trying to put here that We want the public to be aware that we are very vulnerable and we hate being taken advantage of and I'm using that word being taken advantage of because people have <-/capitualised> on this for a very long time And in some cases it doesn't even have to be rape that it's lack of consent by force sexual offences would be even by <-/>by misrepresentation you know and because the society have always rejected us if not rejected us you'll find our women grow up even without knowing what are the real essence of sex such that they are abused they know it is sex but they don't know what it will tantamount to such that you find some of us be end up being single parents not that they want it because you see when you are dumped at home you are not exposed to many of these things So those who see you say oh that that take advantage of your purity and you end up having a child because the man knows what he is doing and the woman maybe you really don't you are just naive You see it's sight that will expose you to reading materials to seeing what people do copying how they walk how they talk but when you are blind and you are just dumped there you really become naive 
<$E> Yeah Loise we continue we hear the many problems which are faced by the blind people and in this <-_>in this<-/> case the blind women and that's why I was trying to say you know when we come now we really for any problem we have to have an intervention and for this women's workshop for the blind women we are really hoping that all these issues we'll have a lot of uh life experiences sharing and because we'll be all women we'll have we'll try to encourage one another to share even what we have never shared with uh with friends so that these issues come out and by coming out we even learn there are worst things we have never had which have ever happened so I'm trying to bring in the workshop the national <-_>the national<-/> workshop for the blind women as an intervention to give opportunities to the women to share and even learn more on how really they can avoid or really handle such problems 
<$A> And apart from the blind women who will be attending this workshop who else will be attending it maybe from other spheres <./>national nationally
<$E> Okay 
<$A> Other spheres of development
<$E> Okay what we have done we have drawn the resource people from uh a <-/>a cross section of maybe professionals we have uh people <-/>people who are coming from different NGOs We have invited for instance uh women NGOs leaders who are going to come and uh maybe enlighten the women on how to be members of different women organisations for instance I have in mind an organisation like Young Women's Christian Organisation we have invited the general secretary to come and share with the blind women because you will find such an organisation is for the women but we do not have handicapped women or really say in this case blind women being members yet They have a right to it they you know it's for them but they really don't know and they are not aware of it some of them so we have called uh resource people like those we have also called resource people from uh an NGO like AAWRD this is Association for African Women for Research and Development They are coming to tell us a lot of things they have researched on women and also gather from the blind women really what are the issues which they have also not attended to they have never thought of so we have invited resource people from a cross section of you know uh various professions <./>be besides the areas uh the disability organisations Otherwise we have also have a lot of uh disability issues which are going to be discussed and the <./>recei resource people will come from those organisations 
<$B> And to add we and to add to that also you see as participants we <-/>we felt it was really fit to give an environment of the blind women to have confidence in themselves This is the first seminar of its kind and it's just really necessary that the women are alone to have that self-realisation self-actualisation self-worth such that the next time now we'll have another one to integrate or if by chance they have the chance to integrate or relate with other organisations They have had that sharing aspect from their counterparts because if we were to have a combined seminar you bring maybe the sighted fifty-fifty I tell you there is always that withdrawal because through the system of education we have gone through we have always had segregation and we have never interacted in with the society so instead of the women opening up and really exposing and sharing their problems they would shy off so for the participants it's good that we just have a blind women such that we get that identity that confidence and thereafter even as they go out it will be now a milestone it's a stepping stone but when they go out it'll be a milestone
<$E> It's like an eye-opener for the women and we expected the next time we'll move a step further and be able possibly to integrate and I think it is just an eye-opener and we really had also to give the opportunity to these women who have never even had a chance to meet a colleague you know for over maybe ten years after primary school dropped out so we are trying to also bring them to share a lot of life experiences after they maybe they left school or one who has never gone to school so it's an opportunity we would be limiting them if we really at the initial stage started bring in the sighted women so we are beginning with them give some you know they <-/>they build some confidence they aware of what goes on then the next workshop will be now fairly integrated 
<$C> Definitely it's imperative that uh when participants go out of that uh workshop they should believe they should leave with something written 
<$E> <-/>Aha
<$C> Do you expect the resource people to come in with written material for both the blind and the sighted
<$E> Okay what we <-/>we normally do is the resource people bring printed materials you know but we have uh to transcribe the written materials in prints to Braille form and we have those facilities so the participants will get the Braille form of the handouts And that facilities available 
<$A> Now I take it that this workshop will be sort of empowering the those who will be attending so that they can do <-/>do much more than they've been doing for themselves their families and even their colleagues after this workshop One area of concern especially for uh disabled women generally is that of employment and this uh sort of workshop maybe will help them to maybe think of something that they can do for themselves Maybe you could talk about this further Sinyo or Mandera how these blind women especially could be empowered so that they could even search an income-generating activity for themselves without necessarily going to look for a job in an office 
<$D> Uh I think you are right because blind women you can do quite a lot as I've said earlier on and not necessarily in the office as for like this workshop we are going to have now we'll talk and <-/>and find out try to find out what each can do ash you know maybe <-/handworks> and such like things for example there is a <-/>a group called Kenya Blind Women Association which as blind women me being one of them Josephine and some others who are not here we sat down and thought that we could start a project self-help-project which could help these uh blind women to earn their bread so we started off with a uh uh I think with those one machine which one blind woman had then she started making the <-/>the sweaters you know knitting the <-/>the cardigans then from there we got some six more machines from uh no two more first from American Embassy then six more form ILO so right uh now we have six ladies who are blind and they are knitting very nice sweaters and those ones they're getting themselves their bread and with that project now we can still go out when we meet these others in the seminar talk to them there are some who can do very wonderful <ea/>kiondos some can even make mats Some can make other things So if we find that there's people with that skills we can still try and see what they can do they can start their own small projects they can come together start a group maybe of <-/>of even selling things like <?/>veges or such like things so it would be very very necessary for us uh when we are meeting these ladies because we will know what they can do and they can start off their own projects 
S1B035K
<$A> For definition I think we'll take that one for as our premises and move on to the other present issues We <-/>we are living in a society that as we as I said is in a in a state of crisis We these are the days of structural adjustment These are days of inflation These are days of women's lib and these are days when the society is <./>wit witnessing an unprecedented high level of uh divorce amongst couples So I would like to ask Mr Musalia to tell us what these economic especially the economic from the economic perspective the <-/>the nature of the <-/>the difficulties the family unit is facing
<$B> Uh one thing we have to know that we are living as you've said in a dynamic society in a dynamic world and a world that is interwoven with the other uh areas like for example Kenya as it were uh is not in isolation Those policies that enacted by countries like say these superpowers the Americans uh uh the Europeans they have a very direct uh effect on uh a family unit uh in this country One thing maybe we should look at first is the structural adjustment uh programs that have been uh uh proposed by the International Monetary Fund in order to bring faster economic development uh in the developing countries Now structural adjustment uh essentially is a uh has been prescribed by IMF to the Third World uh and in essence it's uh both the institutional and structural uh <./>a adjustment within the countries that will have to increase at the productive capacity of the economy One thing that comes very quickly to mind is uh the uh the increase uh the <-/>the increased government expenditure within the economy should be reduced and then uh the other thing is that uh most of the government expenditures in terms of uh hospital education uh should be actually be reduced the minimal level so that the economy can be self-sustaining in the long run
<$C> Yeah when you talk about the reduction of the government expenditure on human resource management facilities I would just like to add on that actually the effect it has on the family could be drastic You know normally the government rarely as <-/>as it comes to grips with the IMF structural adjustment programs it rarely reduces such <-/>such prices for basic facilities like health like education it's always going on the rise and this could have an untold effect on the family in that the family now is forced to generate more income from other quarters to cater for what was being subsidised for by the government if you look at the idea of cost-sharing in schools in <-/>in health centres even in our major hospitals like Kenyatta in Nairobi the effect is being felt 
<$A> Uh thank you thank you there for that contribution I think uh we <-/>we should focus on this more <-/>more closely because I <-/>I think it is uh the <-/>the other crux of the of the problem we are discussing today because now if <-/>if <-/>if we take structural adjustment in a well in another crude way as a government withdrawal from funding you know the infrastructure of uh some the infrastructure I think uh what we are seeing is that uh the uh family or the <-/>the <-/>the <-/>the society is at a very vulnerable level because now you where you didn't worry about uh how to send your <./>child son to university for example now the <-/>the family has to find ways of <-/>of meeting these Well the <-/>the implications are of course diverse and we may not go into that but uh specifically are the are the <-/>the <-/>the <-/>the or focusing on these economic difficulties I would like us to <-/>to look for example how they affect for example the <-/>the continuous if we take the family unit as Julie has said that is the basic unit of the of the of the of the <-/>the society Now how <-/>how <./>doe do these economic difficulties for example affect decisions for example when a man is going to get married when he is not going to get married of course we have to look at the at the cultural basis and you find that traditionally in our societies and this is a habit that is going on even up to now 
<$B> Uh maybe
<$C> maybe going to be adjusted by these programs
<$A> all right 
<$B> Maybe before we bring in the uh cultural uh dimension we also have to realise that the family as it were besides being the unit of <./>pr <./>po <./>pro procreation is also uh uh consumption unit is a unit that consumes whatever is made and this that it consumes is also what this structural adjustments are adversely affecting for example say uh when the uh <-_>when the<-/> IMF uh comes up and says that okay you have to withdraw uh all the government all the price controls and then uh you see the prices will be left on to the <-/>the demand and supply It's the demand and supply that will have to <-/>to <-/>to establish at what price uh some commodity will go And you see when those now when the two forces come together and determine the price you'll definitely have to see that the price will be above the reach of many of the families so the families now will have to <./>su <./>su to go scrambling I mean go looking for more to supplement the meagre resources uh it has at its disposal and that one is creating a lot of strain uh on the family as you have uh we can't rule out the factor of divorce for example 
<$A> Yeah basically Mr Musalia what you are saying has a lot of weight in it in that it is right what you are saying that these subprograms actually are creating poverty within the family and how it relates to the continuation of the family we could look at it it's though it might be hypothetical but it could have some meaning in it that now there is a situation where a man people may not even be able to marry because as we know Africans basically believe in the social exchange theory and when you come to things like bride wealth where you have to have the necessary the <-/>the capability to marry you might not be able to marry if you are not able to generate that enough income or
<$B> Now what I would think uh Mr Espisu uh is that you see we can't really say people will not marry per se people will have to circumvent the marriage uh uh idea 
<$A> yeah 
<$B> and then they try to <./>im <./>impl implant their own idea Say for example now instead of going to the parents I just tell a <-/>a lady now because things are too hard and too difficult Why don't you come so that we can I mean you see that one you'll have uh <./>circum you'll have short-circuited a long process and you see by the way parents who will not come to you to ask for so much when you're ready uh are staying with a lady you see that In fact they will help you to do with the little you have so that maybe you have the legal basis of your marriage
<$A> Oh thank you I think at that point what we maybe should look at is uh especially is the is the cultural element that you are bringing in and how for example has the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank when they prescribe structural adjustment do they take into account our cultural basis our cultural systems Or is this is <-_>is this<-/> sabotaged because at one point the <-/>the crisis is this at one point we say that as Africans as Kenyans we would like to perpetuate our Kenyan identity our cultural values now we also have to contend with the structural adjustment which is been prescribed by from an outer culture another culture that is not ours
<$B> So maybe if I can just uh point something out of that you see these are people who are in New York and these are white men and uh I really don't think if they take into consideration the cultural uh aspect of it because one thing if they would take into consideration the cultural aspect of it then we will not having uh structural adjustment in the in the <-/>the first place 
<$A> Yeah what you are saying could have a lot of relevance because basically anthropologists have always argued that you know for development to be there it has to take to take note of the culture of the people it's going to develop otherwise then that development will be in vain if it's not cut out for the interest of the people at hand and here the problem is that these people who are prescribing the medicine for us are not those who know what we are suffering from But they assume they basically assume they know that these policies are right for these people It's not necessarily what they assume is right for <-/>for us could be Like say if have the established projects in the rural areas that don't really benefit the family at all The family <-_>the family<-/> looks at them with a lot of suspicion
<$B> You see one thing you have also to understand the structural adjustment are meant to bring change or <-/>or <./>go good times in the long run but in the short run definitely uh people even us we see right now people are suffering But you see how shall we stay to that long run to know that these policies will bring the desired effect that 
<$A> And desirous to who I think that is the question that uh because of course structural adjustment talk as Musalia is saying especially saying here is that these people have sat down they've analysed the situation for us They <-/>they it's not that they <-/>they <-/>they necessarily understand it but they think that uh in our <-_>in our<-/> place in our in Europe in America these programmes have worked so they should also be <-/>be able to work in a in a different situation which is not logical in for uh when you are dealing with cultures So the question is do the prescription the cure we want or the cure the international monetary found is prescribing Is it what it is or is it is it the desirous effect they say that uh the programmes will bring in the long run We don't know how long that will take Is it what we'd desire or is it what they would desire themselves 
<$C> One thing I would think that this medicine uh you know is actually certainly a bitter pill and this bitter pill is being uh forced down uh our throats and uh given that the they have not tested that the efficacy of uh the <-/>the <-/>the <-/>the drug itself you see we are being used as guinea-pigs you see and uh that is uh to our detriment because you don't know the You know when a drug is manufactured you have to get some uh animals rats and then test it on those and see if it's effective in the in some ways or the other but you see here we are now being used as that and the desired effects could even be a negative 
<$A> Yeah if you looked at it the way those structural adjustment programmes are affecting our education Basically you know education has been used as an investment by African parents for quite some time now There's that belief that if your <-/>your son or daughter is educated the rest of the family benefits from this education but if you look at it now the <-/>the <-/>the effects are <-/>are looking more drastic To take your child to the university currently it's <-/>it's traumatic You have to struggle with almost everybody The money is not just there through you know they believe you that people have to pay money a lot of it in fact in the concept of cost sharing to get educated But if you look at it now how it will affect the family if a child is capable of going to school and passes and is not able the parents can no longer afford to take him to university this child most <-/>most likely he'll become a rebel which could have another double effect in the family itself It could even lead the break-up of the family because one party might think I'm I am not being educated because of this and that but the truth is that the parents are not able to meet the cost 
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<$A> Good evening viewers and welcome to our programme press conference In tonight's programme we shall discuss the World Food Day and our guests are honourable <name/>minister for agriculture livestock development and marketing Welcome to the programme
<$B> Good evening viewers 
<$A> We also have Mr Harold Norton the food and agriculture organisation representative in Kenya welcome 
<$C> 
<$A> Our panelists are Mr <name/>/> Mandalo on the far right from Standard Newspapers 
<$D> Hello viewers 
<$A> Mr Johnson Gakongo from Kenya Times 
<$E> Good evening everyone 
<$A> And Mr Emman Omari from Nation Newspapers 
<$F> Good evening viewers 
<$A> to start off Mr Norton I would like you to maybe tell us uh since nineteen eighty nine to the present it looks like the food production has dropped globally by about eight per cent uh What are your global perspective of food production in the future
<$C> 
<$A> uh uh Mr <-/>Mr Norton before we come to the minister I think the criticism that your organisation has faced over a period of time unlike uh World Health Organisation is that you have no back-up uh to your reports You seem to produce reports more often than you seem to go out there to initiate programmes for food production Now what specific programmes do you have uh in the so-called the deficit food countries uh such as Kenya and uh Africa at large particularly your initiative You <-/>you have no initiative in food production you seem to write only reports 
<$C><$A> uh Minister as we gear ourselves to celebrating the World Food Day there seems to be a serious state of affairs in our country in terms of food Now for the last three to four years there's been a decline in food production Now this situation has deteriorated to an extent that we now import maize and sugar from Uganda a country that the other day was involved in a lot of <./>m conflicts and so forth and so on Kenya having not undergone that kind of political change what is the explanation that we give to this uh food problem
<$B> uh Thank you Firstly let me correct the impression you have that uh Kenya is importing sugar from Uganda That is not correct but we are aware that uh Kenya is informally uh importing maize from Uganda and it is true that uh the country for the last three years has uh been having uh <./>redi <./>di reduced production particularly in the area of maize uh and other cereals uh The main reasons really for this apart from uh the weather conditions are that the farmer has uh become more and more commercially minded The farmer uh does not want to invest in any agricultural activity if he <-/>he thinks he is not going to get adequate return and uh quite clearly uh the farmer has been finding it very difficult to produce a grain at the price that has been in existence particularly when you <./tuk> take into account the high costs of production the high costs of inputs and uh other herbicides and uh that <./>i is why we have eh recently as a government made fairly substantive adjustment uh in price to the producer so that the farmer can see that it is worthwhile producing the maize Otherwise if he thinks he's not going to get good return from maize he would grow something else which would give him uh better return and that is uh actually what has been the trend uh in the recent years 
<$A> Mr minister what assurance can you give to the viewers that Kenya in the next few years will not be importing maize will not be importing sugar because when you were appointed as a minister you went round the sugar growing areas and uh you must have come out with a report Why should you continue importing sugar Why <./>do should Kenyans line up for sugar 
<$B> Well uh Kenyans will line up for sugar because uh they are consuming more sugar than what is being produced It's as simple as that but uh uh the <-/>the reality of the matter is this that uh we have to find ways and means of uh creating incentives to the farmer to produce uh more uh cane <O/> he only produces more cane and that is processed into sugar then you'll have adequate sugar but uh you refer to my recent tours uh to sugar growing areas After that I did get in touch with uh technical officers here I did also get in touch with uh friends abroad We did bring in uh <-_some><+_a> research team from Australia on sugar They have gone round the country to identify additional areas where a cane can grow well so that uh we add uh more acreage uh on sugar cane so that we can produce more sugar and uh uh probably uh I'm going a little uh too <-/>too far in <-/>in informing you that we have identified other areas than the traditionally known cane growing areas Particularly the Tana belt the Tana basin uh has been identified as another area where uh a lot of sugar cane can be grown So we are actually having certain ideas on how to increase uh the sugar production but this will depend very much on uh uh the availability of funds 
<$A> Mr minister uh one wonders whether the government has uh a food policy for the immediate and the <-/>the future uh of this country By policy I would like you to consider the fact that uh from nineteen sixty three when we had eight million people to nineteen ninety three when we had twenty-four million the government cannot pretend that it can subsidise some food uh uh aspects uh and then the land use You have subdivided literally every uh bloc farming the <-/>the big scale farming into small little <ea/>shambas uh What is the policy on <-/>on the <-_>on the<-/> <-_>on the<-/> master plan on food production
<$B> I think uh the first thing I think I <-/>I need to emphasise here is thi s that subdivision of land is not a factor in uh reducing the uh food production In fact in those areas where we used to have large scale farming if you look at the production during those years when there were some largescale farms and the production now The production now is higher than what it used to be in majority of cases I would not say the same thing when it comes to wheat production uh but in the case of maize and milk uh the subdivision of land has not created the deficit You talk about policy Yes the government has uh always got a policy on uh what to do uh regarding feeding the nation and uh as you're aware we did a have a food policy and a food security uh document which was uh approved by government and parliament in nineteen eighty-one We have been uh using that as a document Then there was uh the a sessional paper which was produced in nineteen eighty-six by the ministry of economic planning That uh <./>wen went through parliament We have been using that as uh a document to support the nineteen eighty-one food policy and uh right now we are uh reviewing the whole of the nineteen eighty-one policy uh taking into account some of the decisions taken under the policy of nineteen eighty-six and soon we will be tabling in parliament the new policy on food production in this country 
<$A> Well minister I'm sorry to give you a lot of questions than your counterpart but uh we <-/>we have a problem in this country because we know that uh the majority of food producers are small scale farmers Now there's a case where small scale farmers have not been able to get fertilisers In fact I would say that ninety percent of small scale farmers grow their food crops without using fertiliser and if we are saying that they're the majority producers then something should be done about it Is your ministry having any deliberate measures to afford small scale farmers who are peasant actually farmers They can't afford the exorbitant rates we <-/>we <-/>we have fixed on fertilisers Is there a deliberate move by your ministry to afford these farmers fertilisers so that food can be produced in this country Secondly are you <-_>are you<-/> convinced that extension officers from your ministry are doing a good job to advise the farmers on better ways of of uh farming methods
<$B> Thank you um to answer the first one I would uh like to say yes I think we are all concerned about uh the distribution of the inputs uh to the small scale farmers and uh indeed one of the things that has made small scale farmers not to use all the inputs that are necessary for food production is uh <./>f first there hasn't been very good distribution system uh Many of the people who were supposed to be distributors the middlemen uh some of them are far away from the farmer They have no means of having access to the ordinary small farmer in the country side let's say in Kahadscha uh where maize is grown We also know that the in this country we have been using too many middlemen When you get the fertiliser for example or herbicides from a factory overseas then it comes through an importer That importer has <-_an><+_a> wholesaler who also takes his commission Then there is another distributor who takes some commission Then there is a the retailer who takes another commission Now all these people having taken their commissions that commission plus the original cost is added to the price of fertiliser and therefore the farmer finds it a little bit too high the price to pay and therefore he's reluctant to use it because it is too costly Now you must have heard uh recently in some of my statements that we are organising the farmers organisations either through co-operatives that they are assisted uh either through uh organisations like <./>A AFC or <./>o the <./>agricult the co-operative bank to get funds so that they have uh they arrange for direct import of the fertiliser which then moves straight on to the farmer directly and that is being done uh very successfully already by the Muranga co-operative union and we think if this is done in the case of maize in other areas the cost of production could be reduced substantially
<$A> Mr Nijai to uh
<$B> uh I have not answered the second one
<$A> <./>exten extension of staff
<$B> on extension of staff uh I want to uh uh confirm to you that uh your concern regarding the extension service is our concern in the ministry and indeed it is true that our extension staff have not been as mobile as they should be and we are <./>ge getting them now uh to organise uh <./>stree <./>sp <./>spe specific programmes which must be monitored by the district agricultural officers so that the farmers are constantly in touch with this extension staff for technical assistance uh both in the livestock area as well as uh the crop area and uh we think with uh that uh encouraged interaction between the farmers and the extension staff it will give the farmers also more knowledge on uh modern farming and I think they will also feel that they <-/>they <-/>they <-/>they are being supported uh through advice 
<$A> Mr Nijai uh to move away a bit from uh from maize and sugar production let's go maybe to meat Kenyans <./>a also consume meat Are <-/>are the artificial insemination services still there and what is happening there in the meat commission
<$B> First uh in the case of artificial insemination That is a programme which is worrying us in the ministry a great deal right now This programme uh used to have external support and uh that external support has actually dwindled It is uh getting less and less and uh uh in fact there are signals that the programme that used to exist may end towards the end of this year uh but we are working out some other arrangements uh in order to boost the performance of the artificial insemination This is an area we cannot afford o allow to uh <./>rit uh deteriorate uh If it <./>deter deteriorates you can rest assured you will have milk shortage in another few years in this country Therefore it is a programme that we have to support and uh while talking about this I must say that <./>th there are so many people in Kenya here who seem to take it for granted that that uh myth of uh privatisation can uh actually work in <./>every <-/>in everything because even uh right now there are a lot of people including you journalists uh who write about privatisation of the AI privatisation of uh food distribution and the rest of it without going into details how can this be done For example how do you do privatisation of the AI without working it out very carefully and establishing units of private people who can do the work I mean it's not just a question of changeover like uh playing football and if one has uh a injured leg and then you bring him the <?/>result It doesn't work that way so I <-/>I think that needs to be watched very carefully and that is why I some people may have seen that I have some degree of reluctance in uh this so-called privatisation I have to do it in a systematic way so that 
<$F>What measures are being taken to curb this situation and protect the marine life in that lake
<$B> Well I will not be able to talk in details about uh the fish industry as such because uh it doesn't really come under my portfolio but I'd like to assure you as a minister of the Kenya government that uh this is a matter which I know is being looked into very carefully The marine research people have already uh pointed out some of these things and eh I am pretty clear in my own mind and I'm aware that uh measures are being taken to make sure that eh pollution is avoided 
<$A> but Mr minister 
<$B> Had we finished the KMC
<$?> No just the financial problems 
<$B> Yes the KMC has financial problems uh not only for operational purposes but the KMC is extremely old and uh we are uh right now uh very keen to do uh a rehabilitation of both KMC here and the KMC in Mombasa uh and for your information as we are talking there is uh a rehabilitation going on with regard to the coming section of the KMC in <name/> Another thing that we are doing is to encourage establishment of slaughter houses in the beef producing areas so that uh we can avoid walking animals long distances By the time they reach KMC they are really emaciated animals We would rather slaughter them at uh the point of supply uh and then move uh the meat under cold storage to the markets 
<$A> Mr Norton uh from the discussions we have had here it looks like you have an overview of the problems we have in this country right away I don't know what your organisation is doing to assist the ministry of agriculture overcome some of these problems
S1B037K
<$A> Good Evening and welcome to Radio Press Conference! The Kenya Society for the Blind will be holding a national women's workshop on awareness and sensitisation from Monday next week In Press Conference today we'll be discussing the situation of a blind woman Our guests are Josephine Sinyo a senior State Counsel at the Attorney-General's Office and she is accompanied to our studios by Lucy Mandera a telephone operator with an international company here in Nairobi and Mrs Anastasia Mwangi who is a rehabilitation officer Women and Family Support Programme at the Kenya Society for the Blind 
With me at the panel is 
<$C> James Mwaura 
<$A> and I am Loise Wamyoike
<$A> Welcome to the programme and perhaps we could start with any of you could open the discussion by for instance telling us the background of the Kenya Society for the Blind 
<$E> Okay thank you Loise Kenya Society for the Blind is a non-profit non-political non-governmental organisation which was established by an Act of Parliament on October fifteenth nineteen fifty-six uh If I may summarise the objectives the objectives are: to prevent blindness cure blindness promote the welfare education training and employment of the blind Really I would just say that this is a summary of what is KSB Kenya Society for the Blind 
<$C> And how does one become a member
<$E>The membership is open to everyone We have uh let me say we have two types of membership uh If you wish you could become a life member uh This is a service provider organisation and specifically to the uh people with visual handicap and the blind uh for that matter That is our target group So the membership for life as a life member is three thousand Kenya Shillings and for instance if a company wishes also to be a member the membership is Kenya Shillings fifteen thousand We feel this is just to really uh give a hand in the uh work which is being done by Kenya Society for the Blind Possibly later I may have an opportunity to give a brief of what Kenya Society for the Blind is doing their activities national-wide 
<$A> And you'll be holding a workshop for women next week that is from Monday Maybe Sinyo you could tell us what to expect what issues will be highlighted and discussed during this one-week seminar
<$B> Well uh the forthcoming seminar has so many topics Actually it cuts across the board on all matters that affect a woman and in particular a blind woman uh I remember I'm officially invited to present a paper on legal issues and rights affecting women generally So you find that there are some of these things that we take for granted that people know about them yet in a matter of fact people are not aware of them 
<$C> What should you expect from that topic there are <-_topic><+_topics> on women's legal issues and rights
<$B> Well legal matters pertaining to women have been very sensitive in the public but what we are really up to <-/>to do is to educate these women that there are matters in the law that actually <./>atta that touch to their lives Matters in specific could be relating to property relating to succession for instance relating to marriage matters like maintenance custody of children you know matters that in one way or another a woman a woman's life is <-/>is affected by it 
<$A> Now we are glad that both you Sinyo and Mandera are here with us Both of you are blind women and maybe this is a very good opportunity to maybe give us your experiences from your places of work as part of maybe what will be discussed at this forthcoming workshop Could we start with you Mandera
<$D> Yeah thank you Loise To start with as I'd said earlier on I have worked for the last twenty-three years as a telephone operator with a company called Old East Kenya Limited and uh surely I have had enough experience and the company also likes my work because I'm doing it properly and from that experience I could just say that most blind women are only not given chance to try and prove out that they can be able to do some good jobs because as a blind person I've never had any complaints from any of my bosses and even the customers themselves Actually the last two years I received award for having been the best blind operator in that company and I think what it is is that we'll talk to these women who'll be coming for the seminar So that we see where the problem is because most people sees I mean see blind people as a uh I could say like a burden because when they see you even when you're going for an interview before you even you're allowed to attend the interview they see you as you cannot do anything But really this is not the thing The blind woman can do a lot in the in the society and if I can talk a bit about uh married life: I personally got married when I was blind and I got married to a sighted man not a blind man as people think that if you are blind you are only allowed to marry a blind person It was not the case But here the problem comes when the family of the person who wants to marry you don't want you because they see as their son is just getting lost because as a woman you know there're so many things you are supposed to do in the family they are supposed to go and fetch water from the river get firewood from the forest or whichever do the cooking in the house and when they see a blind man marrying a I mean sorry sighted person marrying a blind woman they think it's a bother but it's not the case and I think what I could only conclude is that the blind woman should be taken just like any other woman because they can do all sorts of things
<$C> You mean you should not sympathise with them 
<$D> No we don't want sympathy We want to be given chance and prove ourselves out that we are able to do things 
<$C> At this juncture Sinyo one would like to know how you became a lawyer 
<$B> Well as uh Miss Mandera has ably put it It's the chance and it happened that I got the chance I went through school primary secondary and A-level 
<$C> in this country
<$B> In this country And at A-level I decided We had a pioneer-man who had already become a blind lawyer and he was the first one and I wondered why I shouldn't also make it history to be the first blind woman So all what we need is the chance! And I was given the chance and I've proved it that the blind woman can also be capable to be a lawyer 
<$A> And coming to you again Mandera You talked of the sort of negative attitude that possibly not possibly but you actually go through encounter with your family and the community at large How do you think this negative attitude could be overcome
<$D> Uh I think the only way that we can overcome their the negative attitude from the families is by them accepting us as we are because if for example you <-/>you yourself now Loise as you are you go to an accident and maybe you <-/>you <-/>you <-/>you <-/>you <-/>you lose your one of your legs or your arm surely you'll not feel good if you are neglected or you are not accepted in the family So as blind women as we are we need to be accepted in the family because we also get children in fact we have very many children if I can say that and our children do very well Some of us our children are already working and they have children now we are grandmothers So surely a blind woman can do more if one is given time So and this is why I say that we must first of all first of all be accepted from our own families and then now the community also has to accept us and uh give us just chance and then we can always do our best 
<$A> Now Mandera you'll agree with me that you just can't be accepted like that otherwise because you have to play your part as it is supposed to You also have to give as much as your you expect to receive In your case how did you overcome this negative attitude
<$D> Uh In my case now this is my personal experience: I lost my sight when I was a young girl in school but my late husband decided that he was still going to marry me Although the family brought a lot of problems they really refused completely but he also said this is the woman I'm marrying So by him you know being very you know steady we decided and said okay let's move and go ahead and get married and we did but it was unfortunate that so after some time he <-/>he got in an accident and he passed away but still even if he did he left me with one child I continued I educated her Up to now she's now working as <O/> Now she is a mother also actually a mother of two So me my overcoming the problem I did this because I didn't sit back I just said I have to do it everything that a woman is supposed to do Maybe only driving is what I can't do But fetching water cooking ironing I used to do everything and I'm still doing that So by so doing now when you <-/>you prove that you can do your own things without bothering anybody they <-/>they just leave you alone and then now by so doing you just succeed and go ahead
<$C> Now you being blind and you being blind and being women in place What type of problems do you face in your places of work
<$B> Well if I may <-/>may just add to what Miss Mandera said earlier from the experience at her place of work You see they say it's perceiving is what people really get to be convinced to it If at place of work in as much as you have the papers with you <-/>you cannot meet the expectations of people by one thing being punctual maybe as a woman also what they would want to see very much it's your grooming and then to top it up they would also want to see your performance We have all the potentials but we can't rule out that the fact that we are blind we don't need support We need support even in those places of work The offices have to be accessible you have to be oriented in the place to know where everything is and then if it is like my work demands a lot of reading of course we need support from the colleagues from <-/>from your bosses and if the <-/>the climate at work is conducive I <-/>I believe we are as capable of performing in fact even more than our <-/>our than our <./>counter <-_>than our<-/> counterparts because if with my blindness and I always want to challenge people if with my blindness one can make it to <./>atta attain law to be a lawyer how much more if I'd my sight I always think I would have been a pilot 
<$A> That's commendable Now we There is a lot of violence generally against women and I believe it's even more so for the women with disabilities and especially the blind they are more vulnerable Maybe <-/Missus> Sinyo <-/>Sinyo you could talk about this and especially sexual abuse 
<$B> Well this is an area which for quite some time I've <-/>I've featured on the forefront violence against women and as a blind woman I think inasmuch as the disabled women are all vulnerable but we suffer from double jeopardy You see all the other disabilities they have the sight with them 
S1B038K
<$A> Welcome to the programme My colleague at the panel is
<$B> Alex Sibawi
<$A> and I am Loise <name/> once again welcoming you to the programme
<$B> Uh many conferences and exhibitions have been held before on computer Now this one which you are organising what is its target and how is it going to be different from the others Mr Siganga 
<$C> Uh thank you very much Alex Uh this particular conference as you have rightly said there have been so many held uh this particular conference is going to be different from the others that we have been attending in the <-_>in the<-/> recent uh years because the target group is going to be completely different that is we are targeting the decision-makers and the policy-makers uh in our country to come and attend this conference The particular papers that are going to be presented are going to uh focus more on uh what computers can do and what they have done rather than uh focusing on uh theoretical issues and concepts So this uh uh particular <./>con conference is going to be different because of those two issues the people we are targeting and the kind of material we are going to be able to give to them 
<$A> What's the objective of this First National Conference as you are calling it Mr Koebe 
<$D> Now the objectives of uh this particular conference first and foremost is to sensitise the key policy and decision makers on the potentials of IT And also we are looking at uh a forum to uh or rather to provide a forum for investors and developers to share their experiences and facilitate exchange of ideas And lastly another uh objective is actually to increase the IT awareness and expose participants to new and emerging trends products and services of IT 
<$B> Apart from the policy makers and decision makers who are going to be uh in this conference what other people are going to be there because uh if you just uh include only these people then uh maybe you are not going far 
<$D> Yah we haven't left out the other of uh <-/>of the spectrum We have also included senior education managers educators and uh the researchers We have also included uh we're also targeting leading professionals uh in the legal business education entertainment and also medical field and financial areas And also we are also looking at IT managers and practitioners who are actually in uh <-/>in self-taught uh situations 
<$A> So it's like uh you have a varied cross-section of the disciplines or the professions to be represented at this particular conference What do you hope to achieve Mr Sihanya at the end of this conference 
<$E> At the end of the conference we hope to have disseminated information regarding the status of IT in Kenya issues which are emerging such as multimedia where you have information merging with communications for example We hope that for example lawyers will have an understanding of how they can utilise IT in their practice businesses how they can utilise IT in making their transactions and as well how IT can be used in government uh systems
<$B> Mr Siganga has just talked about uh what computers have done Maybe could you tell us a bit of uh what you think the computers have done and what they are going to do to us 
<$C> Well uh in this particular instance we have actually uh uh put uh the presentations in uh into different areas For example we want to know what the computers have done in government situations We want to know what the computers have done in uh <-/>in business so it will be different in every uh presentation And we are expecting some uh senior uh civil servants to come from some of the countries that have been able to implement uh computing successfully in their environment to come and talk to us to come and talk to our people here on a peer to peer level So the details will be uh available from those papers We are also expecting uh senior uh managers from uh local companies to come and talk to their to other senior managers on a peer to peer level I must emphasise that some of these presentations are not going to be really on a technical <-_>on a technical<-/> level We are interested mainly in bottom-line issues here For example if we have uh a presenter who is talking from a local company he does not have to be an IT person but just someone who is interested in IT and his company has been able to implement IT successfully Therefore he is coming to talk to the other managers and tell them for example how has IT helped his company to increase the efficiency or to improve the profits of that particular company So the <./>particu the particulars of the presentations will be in the papers but that will be the general outline 
<$A> So what kind of papers or topics will be discussed during this four-day conference Mr Koebe 
<$D> Uh some of the papers which will be discussed actually uh include a very wide area that uh IT uh affects and some of them actually are on topics like career opportunities in IT We are looking at human resources and training We are looking at uh social implications of IT And of course we are also looking at the cyberspace the information superhighway and also multimedia and emerging technologies just to mention a few 
<$B> The uh changing times of computer industry You find that uh take for example of Microsoft Windows Ninety-Five It has just <./>co come out and maybe by next year there will be something else And these are people you are just going to <-_>you are just going to<-/> give them information on uh IT at one particular time and <./>ne next time they will have changed Now what are you going to do to be <-/>be updating them every now and then 
<$C> Well uh that's uh this particular conference will actually be an annual conference so this is not uh the first and the last So uh you said uh rightly information technologies is a fast-changing field And that is the reason we want to keep holding this uh particular conference and give them the kind of information how they can be able to manage this change that is occurring in information technology 
<$A> Now Mr Sihanya what would you say is the current status of the use of uh information technology that is computers in the country 
<$E> I think uh quite a number of organisations including governments uh private sector generally and educational institutions are picking up uh mainly because it's no longer very easy to communicate or pass over information unless you are in an in some kind of a network or unless you are using computers to process uh the data and information that institutions have but a number of institutions have not <AmE/>gotten into the use of computers and this is one of the reasons why this conference is being held So far it's not very impressive as we <?/>shall for example in the legal sector where a number of lawyers still use manual typewriters to process various documents
<$A> So what role would you say that uh information technology can play in the national development of a country like Kenya 
<$D> I think this is one of the very most important issues arising now that because many developing developed countries and even a few countries like Mauritius in the developing world have adopted IT to do commerce for example so that you don't need to shift data and files from one country to another You can easily transfer these files using computer networks A number of uh uh businesses such as air line reservations are now being done through computer networking Banking already is benefiting quite a lot where you don't have to walk with huge sums of money or with checks and checkbooks You can easily use the ATM system And there are other areas like education So many schools universities are getting hooked up in computer systems so as to facilitate their how they can use information which is stored in computers So it's a very important area I think 
<$B> Looking at uh the issue of computer industry one cannot escape to say that the training aspect of computer here in Kenya uh is the kind of thing that brings a lot of problems because computer schools or institutions train in their own way others do it in their own way Mr Siganga maybe could you give us uh a clear-cut uh uh light on this 
<$C> Yes what you've said has been a problem for uh quite some time particularly in the last uh five or so years when we have had so many computer training establishments uh being set up uh Now the uh Computer Society of Kenya together in conjunction with the Ministry of uh Research Technical Training uh and Technology has been working on this issue over the last three years and uh I'm glad to say that uh we have come up with some uh quite tangible benefits For example last year the Directory of Industrial Training came out with uh <-/>with guidelines for computer training establishments that wish to offer short term courses to users Uh also uh we have been working with the ministry to come up with uh a professional syllabus that uh a national professional syllabus that can be acceptable to all people because uh the other syllabuses that we have had in the past <./>ha all had some uh drawbacks For example we had uh uh one syllabus that was taking three years uh compared to some other syllabuses from some foreign uh uh examiners which uh take as little as six months for a diploma course Also we may uh remember or we may recall that uh the examinations from abroad have been a problem because of the high expense involved in paying for the examination uh <-/>examination fees So this particular exercise that we have been doing with the ministry was try to rationalise the uh professional training that is a training at least at diploma level so that we can come up with uh a national syllabus And that exercise is still uh in progress Also the Computer Society has uh on its own initiative come up with a uh few things that they are doing to <./>b to try and uh standardise uh the issue over of training or at least also advise and inform the general public about issues regarding training For example the Society has just uh published a guide to computer training in <-/>in Kenya that gives in very uh simple terms some of the issues uh related to training and uh uh gives also some of the courses and who <./>real really would benefit from some of these courses and what colleges are offering these courses And that guide has just been published and is going to be available to the general public from the beginning of October Also from January nineteen ninety-six uh the Computer Society uh is uh <-/>is uh planning to start accrediting colleges uh computer training establishments Now the Computer Society of Kenya is not a supervisory or a does not have supervisory powers over uh computer training establishments but we are going to start accrediting them and we hope that the fact that uh giving uh an education that uh an establishment is accredited with the Computer Society of Kenya is going to uh give information that that particular establishment is meeting uh certain standards high standards of professionalism in its training programmes is going to be a motivating factor for many establishments to come forward and join the <./>Compu <-/>the Computer Society of Kenya as corporate members and be accredited uh to the Computer Society of Kenya 
<$B> Take for example now uh if uh a student pays a lot of money to an institution and this institution doesn't provide the kind of uh education this student wants and maybe want to withdraw from there Now what kind of legal measures can he take if that particular institution doesn't want to refund that money 
<$E> Well on the side of the Computer Society of Kenya uh we uh <-/>we are addressing this issue and we have a committee which we call the uh Standards Committee uh and this uh particular committee is actually uh uh charged with dealing with ethics of the <-_>of the<-/> profession So if that particular training establishment is a corporate member of the Computer Society of Kenya then we try to resolve that issue uh between that particular student and that college But as I say that uh college has to be uh a member of the Computer Society of Kenya so that we can be able to take up that issue 
S1B039K
<$C> The chief cannot take all the children from Nairobi and keep them in his chief camp 
<$B> Fine <-/>fine we're not talking about particularly about one chief 
<$C> But there is only one chief
<$B> In one division there can be about six or seven chiefs So if that 
<$C> Each chief gets his children 
<$B> yeah if those children 
<$A><O/>
<$C> But the chief cannot take care of those children 
<$B> Okay I'm talking about maybe in a division So in a district there are maybe four divisions or so which means if one division has five chiefs then automatically we have uh twenty chiefs in a district So we are talking about this maybe if it's a town like uh Nairobi In Nairobi maybe we have twenty-five chiefs So these children are divided among those twenty-five chiefs 
<$C> Yes
<$B> So food come from the top So that it's the chief who is supposed to know what he's doing with his children '
<$C> I think <ea/>Bwana <name/> you're out of the topic because these children cannot be they are <-_>they are<-/> people who I mean they need to be <?/>talked fast They cannot stay in a place like a chief's camp They will refuse
<$B> okay fine 
<$C> They have to be taken by force and the chief cannot manage this And in fact the chief is not as powerful You know this government of ours He is not very powerful to Where would we get the food to feed all these children And you know in Nairobi there are over very many there are
<$B> We are <-_>we are<-/> getting the point What we're trying to say is the chief is used as a stepping stone to help the society So it's the chief who'll ensure that this kid is at least taken to a certain school within that locality From school this kid has to report back to the camp and it's to the chief to oversee that that is done on a daily basis
<$A> So you uh 
<$B> So you cannot expect uh maybe uh a child <./>welf health welfare officer 
<$C> What are you trying to say What <-/>what Leave that to <O/>
<$B> Okay 
<$C> Listen to me <name/>
<$B> wait we are talking about that uh hierarchy You don't expect a provincial <./>wel welfare officer to come from the province to take care of this child 
<$C> But they don't have the power Listen to me <ea/>Bwana <name/> listen
<$B> I hope you understand what hierarchy means
<$C> I know <-_>I know<-/> what a hierarchy is 
<$B> What does it mean
<$C> You're a very funny man do you know that 
<$B> What
<$C> Hierarchy it <-/>it it's <-/>it's you know that system of a <-_>of a<-/> <-_>of a<-/> I mean the system from 
<$?> the top
<$C> the head to the top I mean to the bottom 
<$B> to the bottom 
<$C> you think I cannot know that stupid but I'm telling you <ea/>Bwana <name/> that uh uh these children Who will remove them from the streets and take them to the chief camps It's not easy also 
<$B> yeah
<$C> And this uh the money that these children are keeping You're out you are going out of the topic You know the <-/>the <-/>the chiefs cannot just afford to bring all these children to the to the chiefs' camps as you are saying Because if you are saying that in Nairobi there are about twenty-five chiefs and those children are over let's say over five hundred thousand children 
<$B> So really we are trying to say this We are trying to combine the government take the legal aspect of it and after taking the legal aspect of it bring down that work to the chief So orders come from the top Such and such an amount of food Such uh such a uh number of schools
<$C> Excuse me <ea/>Bwana <name/> 
<$B> are supposed to be catered for by this chief 
<$C> <ea/>Bwana Austin <-/>Austin could you please advise this uh 
<$B> So Austin what do you have to say about that 'cause really we're not getting the point 
<$A> What I have to say about this is Okay why <-/>why aren't all the kids in the street taken care of if the chief is supposed to take care of these kids 
<$C> I don't know why you're talking
<$B> Are you trying to say it's 'cause of the chief who is not enforcing pressure on the government so that he 
<$C> and explain to him
<$B> You get what I'm saying 
<$C> The chief is not that powerful The government has got uh uh very many things to do This uh taking care of the children in the streets is left to uh such a group of people
<$B> Fine what I'm what I was 
<$C> not the chiefs
<$B> trying to say is a suggestion 
<$C> oh you're just suggesting
<$B> I know that it is not possible for it to <-/>to work inside the city 
<$C> There are organisations which are trained to take care of these children
<$B> Yeah but already there are organisations and they're not working
<$C> That's why I'm telling you there are not enough That's why I'm saying we should add I think what they should do they should have more organisations coming up 
<$B> But it requires now more which means it requires more expatriates more money 
<$C> No you don't need expatriates for that expatriates cannot come from that come and take They also have poor people in their country there You don't need expatriates for that
<$A> But you don't understand that Kenya is a third-world country 
<$C> No but they also have very poor people in Europe Austin <ea/>Bwana Austin You really don't understand that In every society 
<$A> No but I have been there myself
<$C> In every society there are poor people 
<$A> You know when they talk about poor people they don't mean the poor people like in Kenya There are poor people like our average in Kenya What do you have to say to that <ea/>Bwana <name/>
<$B> Yes I think that is right Because all you hear all you <-/>you now we're losing the point we're losing direction actually and when you talk about expatriates I'm not talking about bringing poor very uh abject people of abject poverty from Europe We're bringing here people who have the knowledge and who can uh demonstrate that knowledge
<$C> Okay stop there stop there Do you know what expatriates are I do not mean they're going to pick the poor They have to bring a person with knowledge Do you know what the word expatriate mean 
<$B> okay I do
<$C> uh what a person with knowledge has to come here But I was telling you that we don't need such people here in Kenya please for such to do something like that 
<$B> we do
<$C> Do not get someone like that 
<$B> We do We need psychologists We <-/>we need psychotherapists
<$C> We have psychotherapists here in Kenya
<$B>Are you sure they <-/>they can handle that here in Kenya
<$C> They can handle yes 
<$B> Okay give me an example of uh 
<$A> Okay since you can't answer that question maybe our uh newcomer here can help <-/>help a bit What do you have to say about that <ea/>Bwana Theresa
<$B> What do you have to say about street children what's your view about them
<$D> As to what Could you please rephrase this
<$A> You don't understand
<$D> your question
>$B> street children What do you have to say about it since that all us here can't seem to give us an example of some expatriates who in psychology So what do you have to say about that 
<$D> What I think is chiefs' children
<$A> Could you talk Talk louder please
<$D> Could you please miss your miss your question relating to a certain view about street children We are not writing about street children There are so many things
<$A> Now don't you think they're rejected or what do you think can be done to facilitate their staying in Kenya uh
<$D> What I think is street children can be helped by 
<$B> what I think is you haven't got your ideas straight Okay but me in my own view I see that there're very many factors that have led to the <-/>the rejection of street children in Kenya There are so many which I think <O/> wants to spit out in a hurry Tell us 
<$E> I think some of those problems the street children cause are actually part of us Okay so we <-/>we think street children are supposed to be taken care of by the citizens themselves We aren't going to live for anybody to do for us this job What we are going to do is to marshal all these aspects of uh society including the government the uh the democratic uh system all this including even the education sector so that we come up with something concise to take care of these children So if these children can be <-/incultivated> into the schools maybe they'd come back to <?/>paddle to the students' body It will be okay Because now we are trying to take care of a child who has lost direction So we are not going to help that child by giving him money in the streets We're just spoiling that child So Austin what do you have to say because it appears you offered the <-/>the idea that these children should be kept in the streets and given money and whatever
<$A> No no that's wrong that's wrong as you <-_>as you<-/> heard giving them money is a very poor suggestion because as <-/>as you know people just they don't give them a good amount of money Like the other day so you give them two shillings you see two shillings what can it buy can it buy you anything can it 
<$E> so that
<$A> can it 
<$E> I think that was a case where it was a beggar and this is I think uh
<$A> No it was some street <-/>street child who looked very hungry You see if two shillings can't help you why are you giving it to him There is nothing he can do with it The only thing he can buy is glue And as you know glue not only does it make you high it also satisfies your hunger So with two shillings in tip? they can't buy anything like chips or something I think glue is the most effective thing that comes to that pops in their mind So me I think if they're to stay in the streets people should give them an amount of money that you can use yourself on something 'Cause like in two shillings I say you really just play with two shillings in the house like it was you're playing with papers 
<$?> I think
<$A> You see <-_>you see<-/> so now what I think that should happen is this street if the kid had to stay in the street like I said I think you should give him a good amount of money Or if <-_>or if<-/> not I think the government should do something by I think what do you think raising up the taxes so as to facilitate the staying of these children What do you think 
<$A> So I think if we are to do that we will be encouraging these children to stay in the streets because uh a poor child in uh from a poor family will definitely grow up in the streets because he or she he or she automatically knows that there will be tax paid so that they he survives in that street So it will not be helping that child It will only be encouraging the situation
<$E> I <-/>I don't think you're getting the point here I'm saying if you are to give them money Like the other day I remember giving another small boy about a pound Do you know what he did with it 
<$A> don't know I have no idea
<$B> What did he with it
<$E> I saw him rush to the <./>neare it was in Westlands He rushed to the nearest kiosk and got himself a hot bucket of chips He was very happy In fact you wouldn't believe it He went and sat down there and he began feasting on those things like never before So what do you think about this 
<$A> Okay Laura do you hate street children or do you like them
<$D> Uh street children are children who really need to be helped So as you're passing along and see a <./>s child a street child it is very wise for you at least to give him all you have 
<$A> No but you see that's not the issue here The issue here is getting the street children off of the streets What do you think about that
<$B> I think
<$A> Don't you think that's a point
<$B> I think it's a point but the solution not of the problem
S1B040K
<$C> Uh I think I totally disagree with what the two have said because first of all what <-/>what is a cult because what you are saying is that these break-away groups are cults because first of all we did not define a cult because uh if we take it on that issue of unemployment we are going to say that most of these uh independent churches are cults So if you look at uh I <-/>I would rather say that uh so far the definition of a cult that we have been getting is from the Christian side which is very unfair because if we look at some of the groups which are called cults They're actually just normal religious groups and in any case some of those groups that are pointed out as cults actually comprise of very wealthy men Talk of devil worship They say uh people worship the devil for material gains and all that I don't actually believe it's because the youth are dropping out of churches What I think has really boosted a number of the so-called cults if they are actually cults I would say is uh uh lack of satisfaction in the <-_>in the<-/> <-_>in the<-/> streamline churches that are there and that doesn't necessarily mean the youth Anybody can be dissatisfied where you are And so what we are pointing out is that we get some of these mainstream churches pointing out that group is a cult and that group is a cult and that group is a cult You ask why it's all based on hearsay So I've actually for the question asked why cults are being if cults are being boosted by the uh by the number of youth that are dropping out of churches I don't think that's right
<$A> Nyongesa you have uh you've actually put me in a kind of <./>ab abysses to what uh your idea of cult is What definition would you give to cult
<$E> Okay uh I would say a cult is a ritualistic group doesn't have to be necessarily a church or something like that just a ritualistic group uh uh bound up with their own kind of uh or ritual a close-knit group say so far the best example we've got is a of people pointing what a cult is maybe freemasons who are just actually a group of people who got together If you look at their history it was because of uh on humanitarian grounds to get together to accomplish a certain objective And so it <-/>it became a group sharing their own secrets and all that If then that's the example of a cult that you have really maybe we have two or three cults in Kenya and very few on that
<$A> Ruth what would you tell us about it 
<$F> I would think that uh the reason why we have cults is because people are dissatisfied with the main the main churches the main established churches and when I say people I don't really mean the youth In fact uh no hardly not the youth but the adults So I think I really don't think the youth are really are contributing to
<$?> the increase
<$F> of cults
<$?> Excuse me I just want to point something about what Makhoha was talking about You're talking about cults coming up because of dissatisfaction with the main churches Well what brings up dissatisfaction Don't you think it's <-/>it's something to do with materialism especially in this world of ours What can make you really be dissatisfied with this church with the Catholic Church or with the Protestant Church if it caters for your spiritual needs
<$D> Uh let me give an example of the <-/>the same thing in my church because as it is an you know the independent church I can quote the Litodua Church at Ruiru It's been split for quite some time it's only the other day that they are coming together If you look at the Catholic Church they've got Legio Maria you know it's all it all centres on leadership You know someone somewhere wants to have you know to get that leadership Actually I think it centres on I still cling to my point that you know frustrations in life
<$E> And excuse me for one thing I would like to clarify We have not really established what cults are because what you're discussing
<$D> Yah 
are independent churches in most cases So uh I would actually this term cult having been coined especially right by Christian circles has been used by Christian with their own specification to point out to particular groups that these are cults and these and these and these And so what I do think is that in some cases some of these groups are actually not cults just independent churches 
<$?> Uh I think a cult is something that carries out some funny-looking rituals as I would maybe if I may dare early <-/>early enough when the Christian religion was just getting established It was it actually looked like a cult to many people If you stood outside and you listened to them you know they would talk of uh we drink your blood and eat your body You know that would look strange yeah as long as these things I think uh at that time it was actually a cult or it was considered as such And right now our equivalent of cults I think are these secret organisations that seem to worship some unknown power and seem to involve some <./>un <-/ununderstandable> unfathomable uh rituals like say cutting off peoples' bits and pieces and using them in worship Uh this has come up in West Africa and I think we had some <-/>some of it we had our own share of it somewhere in nineteen eight-seven
<$A> I think let's <-/>let's look at cults as uh maybe a sect or a group which uh has its own beliefs away from the Bible or away from the mainline teachings not necessarily Christian teachings but just away from uh moral teachings 
<$?> And if we look at them like that I mean what is there the attitude of the youth towards the cult
<$A> Okay If I may ask you Couldn't we have cults without the Christian religion like we could have cults in a traditional African cults you know we could have cults within the Islam religion like we have quite a you know we <-/>we have people like the sheikhs Muslims or what Actually what we've been doing that we're looking at the this idea of cult from a religious point of view I personally myself looking from my point of view I would look it look at it you know you know every group would to me appear like a cult because if the Catholic church does not behave you know it does not behave in the same way with the Catholics You know apart from a few saved people who claim they can worship with any person actually the mainline churches they're all different They carry their own things differently They do not you know to me they're just cults You know there's no difference between Christianity Islam uh the <-/>the Tent of the Living God and the <-/>the African Ngiku wa Mumbi such things you know Actually I think we should look at the definition of a cult the meaning of a cult from uh a personal point of view rather from the religious point of view 
<$?> and uh and if you ask me as a youth what I think about cults I would think from the definition we have got they may exist outside the churches but as for these groups we have pointed out as cults I would say they're not 
<$F> Actually what they are they are secret societies with uh with their secrets
<$A> With their own secret worship
<$F> Yes my <-/>my view is that okay the attitude of the youth towards these cults realise that the youth really have a very strong sense of curiosity so once they hear there's something difficult about it you always have this sense of I want to find out what it's all about So secretly you realise that even you can have your own friend who's a freemason member and you don't know So it's really the youth are really trying to penetrate into these cults to look for satisfaction They want to see what's in this cult what's so secretive about this 
<$A> Uh okay I think we'll have to find some other time to discuss that It seems it's very deep Let's <-/>let's look at the issue of music and uh religion Uh there is the sentiment among the Christian circles that demonic uh worship is being perpetrated through modern music What <-/>what is your view on this Makhoha
<$C> Well they can see what they want to see but music is creativity and music is art So I think people ought to enjoy it And you know when <-/>when you decide to say such a <-/>a highly contentious to make such a highly contentious statement such as this I mean demonic worship in music you don't expect people to believe you So that is one of the reasons that is going to chase the youth away from the Church I don't believe there's anything like demons I've not seen any so far
<$A> Okay yes
<$F> Okay according to what you've said You might not expect people to believe you on such a on such a statement But there could be a grain of truth in it How do you know how do know demonic worship is not being channelled through music It could be because sometimes if you listen to something to these beats like rock-and-roll music they really get to you I mean you really feel like you're possessed You see these people on telly you dancing like they are not really they have something in them So you're bound to believe there's something about this rock-and-roll stuff
<$E> If I may reply to that I mean I've listened to rock-and-roll before I've never <AmE/>gotten mad I've never <slang/>gotten possessed by demons And well if I may say something I think what they <-/>they really tend to generalise is some of this music like there's a negative there's a whole negative view towards Reggae music for example we get a lot of negative talk from Christianity about Reggae music And this is because you know some of this does not necessarily uh uh uh point towards positive values like there's one I used to enjoy until I <-/>I finally could get the words It was saying it was about Cocaine it was talking about uh Don't oppose it legalise it yeah You know it's very enjoyable until you get the words So I think when the Christians really listen to some of the words they become outraged and they decide to classify all of it as demonic 
<$?> Yeah uh I think I think I do agree with that because actually music is creativity So what you do have is that uh we are having a sort of a Christian culture around And so I would say this issue of demonic music has come as the result of Christian fundamentalists who are really scared of that wholly <./>sanct uh sanctified music of those and these being watered down to become modern So what you have is that whenever they see a certain uh uh excitement that will really carry people anyway that's what it's supposed to be actually religious music is supposed to appeal to the people And so uh if it's not religious not talking about God what they think is that uh this music is demonic which I totally disagree with because some of this music is very <-/educative> And in any case God created people with minds with a sense to feel with a sense to enjoy So what you have is that uh you have music which totally appeals and makes a man enjoy himself 
S1BDIS1K
<$A> Africa is the poorest of the continents of the world We do hear that disproportionate amounts of funds are spent on arms
<$D> <$B> The world development report nineteen ninety-two tells us that Malawi in nineteen ninety spent five point four percent of <-/>of central government expenditure on the <-/>the defence Zaire spent six point seven percent on uh defence while spending only zero point seven per cent on health And this picture is reflected everywhere Take Kenya for instance in nineteen ninety uh Kenya spent seven point eight per cent on defence while spending only five point four per cent on health In real terms we find that the <./>mo most basic needs like health education or housing are not given emphasis but defence <./>ex expenditure far more surpass <./>ex expenditures in this specific area
<$A> You mentioned uh what Africa needs most as compared to military aid Can you tell us what Africa needs
<$B> Africa as a developing country needs to educate its human resources Africa needs to have a healthy human <./>re resource because no country has really developed without a healthy human resource and without an educated human resource <./>wh which also has to be adequately housed African countries need to develop the educational sector and the health sector more than it needs to develop the military sector
<$A> Often the expenditure on uh the armed forces on munitions it's not really aimed at uh causing external threats uh The expenditure on the armed forces is in many aspects related to the forms of government that exist in a country
<$D> <$A> Can there be any justification for a government importing munitions to <-/>to deal with this problem
<$D> <$A> During the years of the Cold War we had communism and capitalism fighting one another and they didn't care what was really happening in their satellite countries The situation has kind of changed We need to create peace How can this transition be created
<$B> The end of the Cold War has definitely created new opportunities A lot more energies will have to be released from uh preoccupations with uh military adventures and all the rest and resources shifted from military expenditure to expenditure on health and social services
<$D> <$B> The post-Cold War environment in <-/>in Africa I think is very conducive to peace in the long run Even though we have seen that the end of the Cold War has initially <-/unreleased> several forces that threaten peace and security in in Africa For instance the democratisation processes in Africa which have been brought forward by the end of the Cold War because these leaders have now lost patrons of the Cold War and therefore they have to yield in the long term This democratisation process which is a result of the end of the Cold War will end up creating a more peaceful environment in Africa
<$D> <$B> I think it is better for Africa to experience these conflicts and then have their own internal mechanisms of solving these conflicts devoid from mechanisms imported from the Cold War patron So to me it is not bad for the democratisation process of Africa to be encumbered with these conflicts During the Cold War conflict management was done purely by the external actors like the Cold War patrons Now if the Cold War patrons can leave us alone then we can solve these conflicts as they come And as we develop that capacity the internal capacity to manage our own conflicts then in the long run I think it is in the interest of Africa
<$?> You mentioned if the patrons of the Cold War will leave us alone What are the prospects of being left alone
<$B> We are very optimistic that the Cold War has ended At the other end we are also very <./>pessi pessimistic because the end of the Cold War has not meant the end of external interference in Africa
<$D> <$B> When two elephants fight the grass suffers And when these two elephants make love the grass still suffers So I think that that summarises the whole thing that the end of the Cold War does not mean <?/>process for Africa
<$A> Jean Jacques When the war is over when the armed conflicts are over that's where your job starts to clean up the blood bury the dead and take the sick to hospitals 
<$C> Doctor <name/> we do not enter into the picture when war is over We are present when war is taking place in fact because the <-/>the mandate of the international committee of the Red Cross is to protect and assist actual victims of armed conflicts We are present in Nigeria we are present in Somalia we are present in Rwanda We have a small delegation present in Angola We are present in South Africa Our role is to protect prisoners of war in order to treat civilian casualties in order to reunify uh families So we've been acting very much over the <./>la <-/>the last twenty years in Africa in all the existent conflicts Our role is also to make them understand what rules are applicable in terms of armed conflicts
<$A> It sounds quite quaint that instead of working full blast to stop wars you're trying to say there are orderly laws and regulations to determine how people are going to <-/>to fight
<$C> The Red Cross is an international movement It is constituted by the international committee of the Red Cross basically composed of Swiss citizens which is dealing with the protection and the assistance of uh victims of armed conflicts It's the number one element The number two element is constituted by all the national societies we have in the world more than one hundred fifty We have Kenya Red Cross Society We have the Canadian Red Cross Society We have the Pakistani Red Crescent Society And the third member of this whole family is the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies dealing with natural disasters The Red Cross was born in war and has from the very beginnings tried to limit suffering not tried to bring peace War always exists but we need to have a presence to assist the persons that are suffering because of the conflict We leave that the fact of peace-keeping negotiation <-/naviation> conflict resolution to the United Nations
<$A> And then you begin to train the soldiers
<$C> Well we begin to train the soldiers concerning the application of the rules to be applied in warfare
<$A> What are these
<$C> We have international conventions to protect the victims of armed conflict We call them the Geneva Conventions Geneva Conventions are four The First Geneva Convention is to protect the wounded personnel in the battlefield be they civilians or military persons The second one takes as uh a protection category the victims of war at sea The Third Geneva Convention deals with prisoners of war and the Fourth Convention with the civilian population Those conventions in fact ask the governments ask the soldiers ask the fighting parties to take all the necessary steps to respect the persons that are not any longer combatants Civil personnel is not a combatant These are the rules that we try to train and teach to the soldiers
<$A> What has been the overall picture in Africa Has there been much compliance with the rules Often when there are combatants they consider one another enemies and you're saying let's protect the wounded The combatant will say exterminate
<$C> We have started some specific programmes started in the military public some years ago Many of the violations committed in the field were because these laws were not known I do not refute the fact that sometimes those laws are known and are violated In fact ICRC has as a main mandate to protect the civil victims but it is also the promoter of international humanitarian law 
<$D> <$C> This is the main problem of all international public law International public law does not have any mechanism for its enforcement This is the difference with national laws But we have I would say some mechanisms nevertheless that are underway to be created The United Nations General Assembly decided to take seriously violations crude violations of international military law and set up an international tribunal to decide upon punishment for the persons that have committed war crimes
<$A> How much of that training have you done in Africa
<$C> We started in nineteen eighty-eight and so far we have been giving more than fifty national courses covering more than thirty countries and seventeen regional seminars covering forty-six countries It means that we have for the time being had as students more than two thousand senior officers from all the African armed forces This is going to be boosted by a Pan-African programme we're going to have in Kenya in Nairobi from six to ten December nineteen ninety-three in collaboration with the Organisation of African Unity
<$A>How about the training materials
<$C> First of all we have a very simple document here The rules for behaviour in combat It makes a very short summary of these rules to be implemented by soldiers in the battlefield concerning combat rules concerning how a wounded enemy has to be treated concerning the treatment given to prisoners of war Then for officers we have a handbook on the law of war for the armed forces This handbook is a summary of the four Geneva Conventions and additional protocols and includes also what we call the conduct of hostility treatment We started to produce a teaching file that give the possibility to any officer having attended our course to give lectures to officers
<$A> War as far as we know is about hatred It's about hostility And here you come in and say be kind to the enemy when you capture How easy is this for our soldiers They're fighting really hard to exterminate
<$A> Here is this religious idea that when he has shot you in the leg
<$C> Exactly
<$A> and you capture them don't bayonet them
<$C> It's extremely difficult to train soldiers to kill and then tell them be kind with your enemy This teaching has to be given by officers This teaching is not a question of free will It has to be integrated into the chain of command It is a question of order and discipline for the soldier to respect those rules because those rules are laws and those laws are accepted by the states And so the states in deciding to accept those treaties accept also to implement it to the last of the soldiers So this is why we have all the system of implementing measures down the chain of command that gives us the result for a soldier that does not respect those rules facing a tribunal facing military justice for having committed a war crime
<$D> <$C> Even last century the picture were not so <-/>so nice as it might seem Gentleman-war is maybe more a theory than something we have faced in the past in practice I agree with you that reality in the field does not always correspond to the the facts to the international treaties which still have a good long way to go Now these international treaties have been created and accepted by states ICRC is just the promoter We have on the one side the law It has to be implemented Sometimes it is but when it is implemented correctly nobody says a word about it On the other hand it's that we have a lot of violations in the field ICRC starts to be very vocal because we cannot continue to accept those very evident violations But the international community starts also to realize that we have to impose with more I would say forceful means to respect those international treaties So maybe let's go back in twenty years to see the progress
<$A> Robert you said earlier that uh the <-/>the military related problems that Africa encounters today are the result of the absurd socio-economic policies forced on us What are these
<$D> <$A> Models like what
<$D> <$A> Is there no way counting on the experience gained elsewhere that they can leapfrog some of these many years you're talking about
<$D> 
<$A> What's <-/>what's special about Malaysia
<$D> 
<$A> That's where the pressure comes in You have the donor saying do it this way do it this way <-_>this way<-/> And Philip is saying if the pressure was eased off a little Africa might be able to evolve her own ways of resolving these problems 
S1BDIS2K
<$B> So are you not confusing issues
<$A> Maybe Dr Orata
<$C> You have said correct me that there is a duplication in our <?/>house that is true but you must realise one thing that there is no provision in the university for the registration of a trade union That is one thing which the public also has got to understand that there is no provision for the registration of a trade union in the University of Nairobi or any other
<$A> for academic staff or for anybody else
<$C> for academic staff and those on the academic scale
<$B> Does that preclude them from registering 
<$C> Let me finish let me finish first Now you've raised a very uh pertinent question in that you are trying to really ask why do why were we registered in the first place and these people are also fighting for the same thing So that trade union business comes in The second issue that the association cannot negotiate for salaries the second issue that the association cannot negotiate for salaries I find that<-/> that uh <-/>that uh <-/>that statement a little bit amorphous in the sense that take for example the management in a company They do have their salaries reviewed that is agreed isn't it and the management members are not <-/unionisable> members in a company So who provokes the adjustment of their salaries So what we are saying is that it doesn't matter whether you are dealing with a union or what there must be a mutual agreement If the employer and the association agree to negotiate yes to negotiate the terms and services If there is a mutual agreement in other words for example in this particular case there's a mutual understanding based on the university acts that the council recognises the Staff Association as association representing members of the academic staff so it can get and talk with these people and talk in terms of salaries So that business of uh it's only the union who can negotiate for a salary it is in general true but there are actually exceptions to that which is the salary structure I've given you for companies and so forth
<$B> Professor Ndetei you have quoted that uh you <-/>you seem to value the academic uh freedom more than you <-/>you value democratic rights But uh in our constitution the National Constitution states uh clearly that uh all <-/>all both of them are guaranteed in our <./>constit are guaranteed there and any other statute like the one we are quoting the university act nineteen eighty-five or any other of universities is secondary to the I mean to the constitution Now what the uh members of the union are saying or seem to be saying is that they <-/>they have certain rights which need to be there And this is the reason why we <-/>we finally assume there is <-_>there is<-/> a power struggle in <-/>in the university with the problem of registering having the two Is there any problem of having the union and the Association
<$D> Listen Freedom of association is provided for and that's why we have formed this association And that association must be within the provision of the law When you talk about association freedom of <./>ass <-/>freedom of association <-/>association freedom to do what That must be subject to the freedoms of other people You cannot form an association of the uh <-/>of thugs because you agree you got a common trade I'm not calling anybody thugs please don't get me wrong uh or an association of people to smuggle smugglers uh just because you have the same trade okay You cannot do that It's an association to do what That's what's the matter what That's what matters But if is an association to express freely ideas and to associate freely who is telling them that association
<$B> In essence
<$D> But then when you Please just go and look at the union the objective of the unions of a union and then we can start from there That objective of taking over private universities
<$A> And can we
<$D> Go and look at the union so that when we talk we talk about things that are objective That is one of the <-_objective><+_objectives> really Somebody who has invested so much the Catholic University the United States University which is the here the <name/> University Baraton University private property and somebody wants to takes over that 
<$C> I've read uh <-_>I've read<-/> uh those rules and I've never not seen that clause saying that the union wants to take over All they have said is that they want to members from all the universities both public and private but now let's bring it back to the basics Now the union has said that if it can co-exist with you because you are an association and you don't have the clout to negotiate for salaries Are you prepared to co-exist with it
<$D> Okay now first of all uh before we answer whether we have the clout or not there is something which you need to get cleared and the public also needs to understand that An interpretation of the constitution of WASU they say that they will take charge of Kenyatta University and its constituent colleges Moi University and its constituent colleges Nairobi University and its constituent colleges and Egerton University and its constituent colleges private and religious universities and any university formed later on in this country
<$A> I think the <-/>the issue here is that uh since you are registered how what are your <./>member membership at the moment
<$D> Well so far we are uh busy recruiting members Uh we have a base membership of about really five fifty officially uh
<$A> How many
<$D> fifty people who've really registered officially but we are still uh <-_>we are<-/> still selling the Academic Association amongst members of the academic staff We have not given a deadline as to when you can register or not so that we would really say this is not it all But shortly we are going to start taking a count stock of how many people we have as members
<$A> Does <-/>does it mean that uh these the members are not I mean the <-/>the university lecturers and the senior academic staff are not enthusiastic in joining this organisation because when I There used to be uh <-/>be the <-/>the register for WASU it had about a lot of members say five hundred six hundred members and now you <-/>you are saying that you <-/>you have only fifty Is it not <-_>is it<-/> <-_>is it<-/> that you are not getting popular
<$D> No it is not a question of uh the popularity One you have to look at the time span Secondly these are people who are now officially committing their salaries for deduction and when it comes to that kind of uh <-_>that kind of<-/> uh decision you don't really expect this decision We are going to be deducting money from these people's uh uh pay-packets So at that point really we don't really feel that there's a problem in terms of the <-/>the speed with which we are picking up So we want everybody to decide his own free will that he's going to be a member and he knows that there are certain conditions which are going on with that particular membership
<$C> Okay I think as you're from the University of Nairobi which has been paralysed by the strikes since November and there being now members committee members of that association what are you doing to contain that situation
<$D> Very good uh We are appealing to all members of staff to put the needs of the students those poor students who pay six thousand shillings and they come from very poor family backgrounds We are appealing on behalf of the parents we are appealing on behalf of the Kenya Community for members of staff to put the interest of those students first and foremost Let's go back and teach and while we are teaching we can then negotiate about those other issues uh As far as the registration is concerned or the union is concerned it's not within us It is for the people who are agitating for the registration of the union to convince those people who register the union To register them is not for us But in the meantime shall we go back and teach and think about those students think about those parents the thousands of students their parents and their independence That is the focus now over and above our personal interests
<$A> Uh Doctor Ndetei I mean Professor Ndetei the University of Nairobi since it opened it started opening its various campuses on uh January ten It seems that uh nothing has been going on and now the students have started going home Now we understand that only less than a third now of the cohort that was called in there is at the university now What is your association doing to let the students stay in the campus and also to <-/>to <-/>to ensure that uh something is going on not just to keep them there as farce it's <-/>it's like being hostages
<$D> Some of us are teaching I've just come from teaching and the students wanted me to teach them And there are many students there are many students who want to be taught There are very many members of staff who want to be who want to teach But what is happening We are seeing <-/thuggery> <./>Stud The other time we had uh four professor principals being beaten up for thirty minutes Are those the people we want to deal with So because of <-/thuggery>
<$A> We are going to have one last question uh maybe from uh Mr Muyia
<$B> <./>Ye yes I'm <-/>I'm just want for a conclusion just to say that your association is fairly uh like a <O/> bulldog because in the first place if you cannot bring your members of the professional staff the academic staff to teach at this critical moment when the government needs your support most
<$D> We <-/>we <-/>we are asking those people who are applying <-/thuggery> to people who want to teach to give the members of staff the freedom of choice to teach if they want to teach without <-/thuggery> We don't want to see what we saw the other day somebody is being beaten up We don't want to see uh organisations meant to flush people out of lecture theatres We want them to say the choice is yours go and teach if you want to teach but if you don't want to teach uh that is your business We are not going to <./>app <-/>to apply anything else other than verbal persuasion
<$A> Thank you very much I'm sorry we have to come to an end I think uh we've run out of time I would have wished to continue Our viewers we have come to the end of our programme tonight I'd like uh to <./>wi uh <-/>to appreciate your being with us and following uh this interesting debate I think uh the time is a little too short but uh we will look for another forum to exploit that I'd like to thank uh our two visiting university dons Dr Duke Orata who is the chairman of the Academic Staff Association of the University of Nairobi and uh Professor David Ndetei who is a committee member I would <./>wan want also to thank our panellist Mr Wachira Kigotho of the Standard I'm Wamayiu Muhia from the Daily Nation And with that our viewers I wish you a good night