Going beyond classrooms with Camps International in Kenya

“Tumaini” in Kiswahili — one of the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world and the medium of communication of over 200 million people in eastern Africa and beyond — means hope. And Mercy Joshua, or “Mama Mercy”, as she is affectionately known, is the beacon of hope in Ityni’s impoverished hamlets that border the arid Tsavo East National Park and perched on the slopes of the Marungu hills near the town of Voi in the Taita-Taveta county of southwestern Kenya’s former Coast Province between capital Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa.

The Tumaini Women’s Group, a community-based organisation, was established in 2002 to empower local women who suffer from gender-based poverty, violence, illiteracy and health issues. With virtually no formal employment opportunities, poor climatic conditions for agriculture and lack of access to loans, the group offers support to those women who are eager to improve their finances through alternative income generation activities, such as arts, crafts and eco-tourism.

Mama has set up more than 25 Tumaini ladies’ groups that provide a support network for hundreds of women in the area surrounding Tsavo East National Park.

She started teaching the ladies to read and write and basic accounting to budget their household expenses. She encouraged them to use their skills to create items such as beaded jewellery, baskets, clothes, wooden animal carvings, and elephant dung paper that could be sold to earn them money and provide for their families.

Her relentless campaigning stopped underage marriage — below 18 years — in the local community altogether.

Mama’s inspiring stories have travelled far and wide across the globe, thanks to Camps International, which was founded in 2002 by British national Stuart Rees Jones (see box), offering volunteer school expeditions to Diani in coastal Kenya, where pupil travellers can participate in projects related to local schools. In 2003, Stuart and Simon Englefield set up Camp Kenya Limited, as a branch of Camps International, to help manage the projects based in Diani.

“We offer ongoing support to the women’s groups of the Marungu area in Kenya, so they can develop new skills, generate an income and elevate their status in the community. In 2019, over 500 sheets of elephant dung paper and 600 bracelets were made. Volunteers also assisted the Tumaini Women in harvesting 10 sacks of cow peas and maize. The women’s group benefited from $900 (Dh3,305), which was paid as allowance from their traditional dance entertainment and over $1,000 (Dh3,673) was generated from the sale of elephant dung paper, art, bracelets and clothing,” says Simon.

Camps has amplified Mama’s story to pupils across the world by creating a community of teachers and its in-house local project experts to conceive a bespoke curriculum called Real World Studies (for Grade VII and VIII pupils) that uses Design Thinking methodology and links to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to help pupils — from the age group of 12 years upwards — become responsible travellers and work towards creating a “better, sustainable and harmonious world that they want to live in”.

Thousands of kilometres away from the picturesque Camp Tsavo — one of the three Camp Kenya locations, including Diani and Muhaka on the coast — Jaemie Rossiter, a physical education and athletics director at Canadian International School , Khalifa City A, Abu Dhabi, has been teaching the Real World Studies course for the past three years.

“So, when a group of 23 pupils (from Grade VII to X) from CIS came to Camp Kenya for a week’s service-led expedition, they were not only aware who Mama is but her work in the region through the years. She has had a deep impact on the children even before they had met her in person,” says an effervescent Rossiter, who handled a bunch of wide-eyed teenagers exposed to the wilds of eastern Africa with admirable ease during the week-long expedition.

“This was an awesome experience. It allowed the pupils to understand the projects that are in progress in Kenya. These are inextricably linked to UN SDGs such as poverty eradication, gender equality, and economic growth. Personally, there were several high points for me such as pupils’ interaction with the children from local schools. Their meeting with Mama (Mercy) who they have studied and known about for a year before even coming here and dancing with the Maasais during the safari at the Tsavo East National Park and making connections with such a different culture. Most importantly, they have had the best time of their lives.”

The CIS pupils were immersed in an ongoing Camp Tsavo project work for Kale Primary School at Itinyi. The priorities of the work are decided by the stakeholders of the school and focused on making bricks for future infrastructure, building a bookcase to give storage for books and preserve the longevity of the books, painting classrooms to make it a better environment to learn in. “Camps International have also helped build ramps to classrooms for better accessibility, which will be extremely useful as the Kenyan government wants pupils of determination to access public schools in the future. Camps International are actively working with three schools in the area such as Kale, Marungu and Itinyi,” Simon says.