So that’s what it looks like to travel to Kenya? In our case it does: We won’t be hanging out at the beach, enjoying the majestic view over the Indian Ocean. And we won’t be going “on safari”, either. Instead, we’ll be at Nice View Orphanage in Msambweni for a week-long project. About 60 children live in the orphanage, and 200 students from grades 1 to 8 visit the affiliated school. Together with the older students, those between 13 and 14 years old, and their teachers, we’ll start a blog to tell stories from Msambweni.
This is not the first time FLMH goes to Kenya. During a stay in 2018, we were invited to have dinner at Nice View. This was where the idea to add a practical element to FLMH’s topical focus on international development was born. One thing we noticed immediately was that the school at Nice View did have an IT room with high-quality hardware—but no Internet connection. And this is a country where, no matter what you buy, you pay by card and where more than 85 per cent of the population has Internet access.
Our initial idea was to support Nice View financially to get Internet access. Eventually the idea turned into a full project: “Nice View Reporters”. For one week, we will be supporting students and teachers to tell their stories about life in Msambweni: How do you get around in town? What are common professions of locals? How are young people trained for jobs? How does the hospital work, and the tiny design agency down the main road? Article by article, the Nice View reporters will add content to the blog, which will then go live by the end of the week.
