Currently, the Non-Governmental Organisations Bill 2012 published a few weeks ago is the hot topic of discussion in many public and private circles. To understand how this Bill proposes to rein in NGOs and clean up the sector, we must recall some of the issues that this Bill is trying to address. Firstly the definitional issue, and then the major issue of regulation both state regulation of NGOs and self regulation of NGOs amongst themselves.

First and foremost, there has been the problem of definition. What is a NGO? The not government part is clear enough but what about its form and more importantly, its objectives? Should a NGO be non-profit? Not for profit? For public benefit? Many construe the differences between these terms to be as follows. A non-profit NGO is basically a NGO which doesn’t make any profit at all whereas a not-for-profit NGO is a NGO that carries out its objectives without the intention of making any profit however if profits happen to be realised, they are ploughed back into the NGO. A NGO for public benefit or a public benefit organisation is similar to what other countries would call a Charity. Unlike a not for profit NGO, all benefits (including profits) in a NGO for public benefit are shared with the public and are not absorbed as part of the NGOs assets. The Bill seems to have opted for a hybrid definition that includes both not for profit and for public benefit.

And now the central issue of regulation. The state’s regulatory role should be both as a gate-keeper and a monitor of all registered NGOs. In past, the NGO regulatory framework focused more on vetting and scrutinizing applications for registration of NGOs rather than monitoring and regulation of NGOs. This history is largely attributable to the rise of NGOs in the area of human rights and governance during the 1990s. The government of the day perceived these entities seeking NGO registration as conduits for the Opposition and a threat to the regime’s grip on power. Therefore the NGO Coordination Act of 1990 was largely unpopular and the NGO Board, which operated from the Office of the President, was seen as lacking independence and registration depended almost entirely on clearance from NSIS. There was no appeal or review mechanism to challenge any decision made by the NGO Board, which further explains that unpopularity of the current law.

Such legal and administrative barriers to registration have resulted in the proliferation of NGOs in Kenya registered under a number of different legal regimes, such as companies limited by guarantee, societies and trusts. Therefore there have been calls to repeal the NGO Coordination Act of 1990 and enact a new law that is the outcome of a consultative process between all stakeholders and not merely a government project. Furthermore, there is a real need to ensure that the new law governing NGOs is in line with the Constitution particularly the provisions on national values and principles of governance, leadership and integrity and freedom of association. Registering a NGO ought not to be unnecessarily lengthy, cumbersome and bureaucratic. The criteria of registration ought to be clearly defined, together with the terms and conditions of registration and timelines for registration. Within regulation, a gaping hole in the current law is the non-regulation of international NGOs. Although these international NGOs ought not to be entitled to diplomatic/consular privileges and immunities, in practice we are aware that special agreements have been reached these entities and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs granting them diplomatic/consular immunities in exchange for setting up their headquarters in Kenya.

The crux of the problem in the current regulation of NGOs is the assumption that what is declared by the NGO through its returns is a true and accurate reflection of the situation on the ground. Most NGOs only file returns in order to appear compliant but may not be living up to their public benefit objectives. Therefore the challenge of the new NGO regulator is to ensure that NGOs are monitored so that persons behind NGOs do not subvert its objectives for private benefit. The lack of proper regulation has led to the widely held perception of an NGO as a vehicle for accessing donor funding, much in the same way as political parties are now cynically viewed merely as a means of getting into public office. In the context of NGOs, it has been suggested that the founders and members of NGOs should plough in their own money into the entity so that they remain true its objectives instead of simply living off the NGO. Therefore the NGO regulator must constantly monitor and audit NGOs to ensure that their declared budget is in line with its declared sources for funding. It has been suggested that the new NGO regulator must be given powers of inspection to allow it to enter any premises of a NGO and call for any information from the person in charge.

Finally, on the question of self-regulation, we must acknowledge that it ought to supplement state regulation. Currently self-regulation of NGOs is a misnomer since NGO Council is widely seen as an extension of the NGO Board and lacks the necessary independence and autonomy to act for the registered NGOs. Therefore the new law ought to provide for NGOs to come up with their own self-regulation mechanisms; this will free the NGOs from the NGO Council whom they have been forced to become members by the current Act contrary to the freedom of association under the Constitution. NGOs ought to be allowed to establish self regulation bodies outside the Act which can promote self-regulatory goals and ethical standards for the furtherance of public confidence in the NGO sector. The merit of this option is that these NGO umbrella bodies are far less likely to become political since they are not embedded in the law and are organized and operated by NGOs themselves.

In order for NGOs to contribute positively to national development, donors and development partners must be confident that there is a robust and responsive regulatory framework in place to ensure that all NGOs in operation are adhering to their public benefit objectives. Within society, we must begin to rebuild public confidence in NGOs and their ability to carry out their functions in a democratic, open, transparent and accountable way for the benefit of all Kenyans.

The nation continues to watch as the National Health Insurance Fund is embroiled in controversy over how a certain Clinix Healthcare Ltd received Sh202 million for treating civil servants, of which Sh91 million went to non-existent or ‘ghost’ clinics. Understandably, everyone is interested in knowing who are the directors and shareholders of Clinix Healthcare Ltd. However there is a larger issue that we must grapple with, that of responsibility. Responsibility here must be seen in two ways: collective and individual. Collective responsibility means that because of the actions of a greedy few within NHIF, both its Board and Management owe Kenyans Sh202 million. By extension, the government through NHIF’s parent ministry: Ministry of Medical Service is also responsible since it failed to regulate, supervise and monitor the goings-on at the embattled health parastatal.

But to many the more pivotal question is that of individual responsibility.

During the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi German officers who committed war crimes could not rely on the excuse of superior orders. Since then, international law recognizes that there are certain crimes whose commission cannot be excused simply on the grounds that you were a soldier carrying out orders handed down by your commanding officers. For instance if your superior asks you as a junior officer to execute non-combatant women and children, your failure to disregard those orders as illegal and immoral will be held against you. In essence, the law is placing an important emphasis on individual conscience.

Returning back to the NHIF fiasco, I see this idea of individual conscience being applicable, particularly to the members of the Board. Each of those members represent key stakeholders in the health sector and have both a legal and ethical duty to ensure that the mandate and objectives of the Fund are not circumvented.

Apart from piercing the corporate veil of Clinix, minutes of the Board meetings must also be made public so we may learn how such decisions were reached by Board members who are meant to be representing the interests of Kenyans within their various government entities. As we know, our laws all expressly provide for a composition of Boards of State Corporations that includes all key stakeholders, relevant experts and interested parties. In this regard, the law envisages a constructive tension within most statutory Boards where competing views and interests are in play and ultimately the majority vote is deemed to be the collective voice of the Board. This concept of constructive tension is in line with the Constitution which requires that the State promotes democracy, inclusiveness and participation. That said, the Public Officers Ethics Act recognizes that any Board Member has the option to dissent from any majority decision of the Board and insist that this dissent is recorded in the minutes of the Board. Therefore, copies of the minutes of the meeting where Clinix was discussed should laid open for public scrutiny. It would be interesting to know what information the Board relied on to allocate the funds to Clinix and more importantly whether there was unanimous consensus that Clinix was the most suitable choice.

Therefore, access to the relevant minutes of NHIF’s Board meetings would allow Kenyans to determine the extent to which their fundamental rights and freedoms under the Constitution (particularly life, dignity and health care services) have been affected. Article 35 on Access to Information provides that the State must publish and publicise any important information affecting the nation. However despite having article 35, there is no enabling legislation to-date setting out the procedures and rules to be followed when disclosing information held by the State. One of the important questions this enabling legislation would have to address is whether Kenya should have an own-initiative disclosure system or a request-based system vis-à-vis access to information in the hands of either a public or private entity. In the absence of such a law, Kenyans are strongly encouraged to invoke Article 35(3) as cited above, which requires that the State must publish and publicise important information such as the minutes of NHIF Board meetings as well as any other information they have on Clinix.

While on the subject of disclosure of information, we must agree that government officials owe an ethical duty to the bodies they represent on these Boards. Therefore, government officials that sit on Boards must desist from making attention-seeking press conferences, idle finger-pointing or even asking other government officials to resign. If the public officer comes across damning information while sitting on a Board, he or she must use the proper channels for disclosing the matter within the organisation first instead of always rushing to the media. The law could step in and provide rules and procedures for disclosures by public officers made to serve an overriding public interest.

Therefore the Official Secrets Act should be found to be unconstitutional to the extent that it provides that any person who leaks confidential information regardless of its content or nature is guilty of a criminal offence. This Act criminalises disclosure of information by a public officer and does not provide any exceptions even on the grounds of public interest and/or individual conscience.

To sum up, we must be able to see past the murmurs that the funds from NHIF are being used to finance political campaigns. The real issue here is that we have dozens of State Corporations just like NHIF with similar Board structures making important decisions that will affect our lives in one way or another. So the challenge lies with us to ensure that a proper legal and institutional framework is in place to ensure that these State organs are properly constituted and remain at all times open, accountable and transparent. More importantly, the duty to monitor, regulate and evaluate the actions of these State organs should not simply be left to the State. Individual and collective responsibility does not only bind the decision-makers in government, it also compels citizens to be actively involved. Interested individuals must always insist on being consulted and fully participating in public affairs that will ultimately impact on their lives. However, in order for this participation to take place in a meaningful way, the law must provide a suitable mechanism for access to information for all.

Every time we mention Zimbabwe, it seems to be based on an individual’s ludicrous behavior. This time is no different.

Two Senators in the government there seem to have some genius solutions on how to curb their already declining HIV prevalence.

One gentleman, a Mr. Fernai, suggests that women’s attractiveness is the problem. He’s of the opinion that government should pass laws to make sure these girls are as smelly and unattractive as possible.

“What I propose is that Government should come up with a law that compels women to have their heads clean-shaven like what the Apostolic sects do. [...]They should also not bath because that is what has caused all these problems (spread of HIV),”

This guy may be on to something. All these clean women, showering once a day and all that, may just be the reason why diseases are spreading. Nobody really wants to get it on with a filthy broad, right? And just in case you still want to boink a smelly chick, he has a second part to this ‘solution’(the irony of this word will hit you later).

“Women have got more moisture in their organs as compared to men so there is need to research on how to deal with that moisture because it is conducive for bacteria breeding. There should be a way to suck out that moisture.”

Ehm. Yeah. See because the dirty ones among you immediately thought “moisture” and …well, you know, lubrication. The smart ones immediately thought ‘cesspool’. And say what you will about Mr. Rennai, but that is a very smart way to go, passing legislation to commission the development of some sort of ‘sucking’ mechanism that gets moisture out of women.

Not to be outdone, another Senator had a few thoughts and suggestions. A Mrs. Mlotshwa Matobo thinks that people are having too much damn sex. Once a month is enough. To this end, men need to get injected to reduce their libido and prisoners should be given sex toys because, gosh darn it, they need to quench those urges. Otherwise they’ll have sex and give AIDS to everyone.

Many other zany ideas were floated; from unionizing prostitutes to having workshops for the sexually active. But with this level of creativity and avant-garde strategies to find a solution to the help reduce the already reducing rate of HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe, you can almost be sure that if anyone comes up with a new way to tackle this, it’ll be our Rhodesian cousins.

Good luck to them.

[Source: Nehanda]

Binti, one of my closer friends is among these. Aside from being one of the hugest Kenya Rugby fans that ever was or will be, she happens to be a Manchester United fan. So on Saturday, she was frantic and on edge as the Kenyan Rugby 7s Team kicked off a fairly important game against Russia. They were winning up until the last minute. In fact, as the clock hit 0, they had the win. All they had to do was stop game play. And somehow in that last play, they lost. Binti slammed tables and screamed frantically, emotions I shared with her fully.

The only other way for them to make a difference was to beat New Zealand AND Argentina. The former game was already written off as impossible; the Kiwis are beasts. And true to that, they spanked us merciless. But with the Argentine Pumas there was a chance. Again, that chance was squandered in yet another “so close” moment.

One can’t help but watch our local sportsmen – bar runners – and feel like maybe, just maybe, with a little more push and support, they’d be game changers.

The next day, Manchester United fans (99% of Kenyan football fans on Twitter) began tweeting optimisms early in the day. Last game of the season and they were a few goals behind. This meant either they either had to secure a victory while Man City lost on the other end. Or they had to win by an obscene 8+ point margin.

For 92 minutes, Man U were champions as Man City experienced the full dream killing abilities of QPR. But in that last minute, their world was turned on its head and Man City scored the two goals that would change the world. From where I sat I saw a table of Man City fans go haywire and quite literally flip their tables over in joy.

In the next room I could hear Man U fans screaming and weeping and cursing. There was some glass breaking and a large volume of profanity spewed. As the shots of the new owners of Manchester City – the billionaires that rebuilt the club – came on, there seemed to be consensus that that influx of money into City’s kitty is what made the difference. Then it was back to cursing and crying.

Only later did I begin to reflect on the happenings. 2 thoughts came to mind:

1. What if, hypothetically, the type of money pumped into Manchester City was pumped into one Kenyan Sport – rugby for instance? Would we be able to create champions? I mean, we already have the local talent in abundance. Why should we only restrict ourselves to athletics? And even if we say rugby doesn’t have a lot of fans, football (or soccer for the rest of you) does. Why don’t we pump money into that?

2. Why would the same bar be filled when a foreign club level team is on the pitch and empty when a national team is playing? It’s not because we don’t love our country, obviously. Is it perhaps because we’ve lost hope in it? I mean, do the masses really expect the extraordinary to ever happen with our national teams? Are their games not entertaining?

My theory is that it’s the power of money. If more cash was pumped into developing talent, building stadiums, training a national team to the standards we know they can attain, we would be playing a different ball game, in a manner of speaking. If some random Chinese company decided to dump billions into Kenyan Football for example, who wouldn’t want to watch the games? We’d start winning, gain international fandom, make history and the investors in question would laugh their way to the bank.

Or would they?

I’m not savvy on the matter, but I’m curious as to what you all think the problem is? When will Kenya Rugby, or Football have as many fans as Manchester United? What will it take? Or should we just keep cheering our runners and watching them get bought out by nations willing to invest in their talent?

Whatever the case may be, only time (and a huge injection of funds) will tell.

So apparently they’ve struck oil in Turkana. The findings are in many ways preliminary, seeing as it will take years to properly assess the quantities and a bit longer to really start drilling; but our government seems to be optimistic that our reserves are bigger than Uganda’s.

Which puzzles me.

Out of sheer curiosity, when has finding oil in an African country EVER been a good thing?

I see the obvious benefit in that it will boost the economy in a multitude of ways, and it’ll drive the economy north-western which is quite necessary in this day and age, but on a large scale it seems hazardous.

(c) Guardian

Ignoring the obvious western influence – you know, how certain countries may decide that it’s the right time to attack certain terrorist groups as they drill and pump our mother Kenya shamelessly – there’s a more…local threat. Our government is a lot more shameless than those aforementioned warmongers. If we found 3 billion barrels worth for example, it’s safe to assume we’d only report 2 and only sell one, and 70% of that money would get lost through some nimble accounting. So really we’re banking on all the other byproducts that would benefit us; i.e. lower fuel prices, boosting rural economies, transport infrastructure, international interests, yada yada. But all these things have always just turned into more avenues of corruption for the government.

So in every which way, I can see why the government is psyched about this.

Further, the company that found the oil, Tullow, seems like they would stand to gain the most. Their stock has already started booming and looks to do nothing but grow in time.

via @mmnjug

So I get why they’re excited.

But for the rest of us, why should we celebrate so prematurely? If anything, shouldn’t we be scared and wary? I’m not proclaiming to be some sort of expert. Far from it. All I do is read books and occasionally watch the news. And from that cursory stance, the history of abuse of natural resources and the violence that follows the discovery of such seems like great cause for concern.

I applaud those who maintain positivity in knowing this and hoping that Kenya will be the first oil success story in Africa. And with cautious yet reluctant optimism I join them in hoping that our new government will handle this matter with dignified responsibility and that we should prosper from it immensely.

But in the interest of fairness, who really thinks that’s possible?

Words By BINTIM

“Dear Capital Fm,

I write this letter to express my strong disapproval and disappointment with one of your Twitter accounts @984inthemorning.

On Thursday, morning they put up a tweet which was found by many to be in poor taste and with malicious intent of politicizing an already touchy issue. This was first expressed by @LordHastings who Retweeted it.

They deleted the said tweet and later put up another tweet which they tried to pass off as the original tweet.

They even went to the extent of threatening @LordHastings alleging he changed the original tweet.

The thing is this is Twitter and a lot of people had already seen the original tweet. But of more concern is the way they responded to people who called them out on it. The only words I can use to describe this are they were arrogant and unprofessional.

This is not the first time that the said account has responded to listeners in this way. We could ignore the previous incidents because all there was to lose was listeners and if the management doesn’t find fault with that, it’s their problem.

But Thursday’s tweets were even more irresponsible considering the political temperatures in at the moment. Capital FM is a station that is listened to all over the country. Lest we forget our country was almost brought to our knees not so long ago and the media played some part in this. It is important for Capital FM and other media houses to remember that they have a responsibility in ensuring that their station does NOT in any way propagate statements that may be interpreted by some to be agonistic.

I feel like it’s the responsibility of all Kenyans to make sure that our country is not dragged back to 2007. In this light I therefore request Capital Fm to officially address this issue, take responsibility and apologize to us, their loyal listeners who were offended. I believe that by doing so they will be setting a good precedent that they are for a united and peaceful Kenya.”

On this International Women’s Day 2012, allow me to start off by briefly discussing the dynamics of social change. Throughout history, it has always been the oppressed groups within any society that have been at the forefront of the struggle for equality. For instance, during the Civil Rights Movement, African American leaders were on the front lines of the struggle for social change because they knew first-hand what inequality and discrimination was all about. Within the human rights struggle in Kenya, the women’s movement has perhaps been a well organised and formidable force resulting in part to the promulgation of the Constitution in 2010. It is because of women’s own past experiences of prejudice and injustice that they continue to push for social change and reforms.

Equality is a difficult and deeply controversial ideal. At its most basic and abstract, equality is a moral idea that people who are similarly situated in relevant ways should be treated similarly. Therefore, in the context of the gender equality struggle, women and men must have full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms which includes the right to equal opportunities in all areas of life. So, the struggle for ‘gender equality’ as we know is not only about women but rather about both the male and female genders. However the struggle for equality and equity between the two genders is led predominantly by women precisely because they have endured decades of prejudice and discrimination on the basis of their gender. Therefore women understand the importance of ‘equality’ both as a social ideal and more importantly as a legally binding requirement that is the hallmark of Kenya’s constitutional dawn.

Article 27 of the Constitution “Equality and Freedom from Discrimination” is the cornerstone of the new constitutional dispensation and a central feature of this article is that it applies to both the State (clause 4) as well as to the individual (clause 5). Since the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, the most controversial aspects relating to the ‘equality’ provision have been: the issue of ‘regional balancing’, the ‘two-thirds principle’ in representation and finally the question of non-listed grounds for discrimination.

On the issue of the regional balancing as witnessed in recent cases of controversial public appointments, Article 27 (the ‘Equality Article’) is clear that the State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against any person on the ground of ethnic or social origin. In the present case, there is a need to balance between creating a public service that represents Kenya’s diverse communities on the one hand and ensuring that fair competition and merit are the basis of all appointments on the other hand. This balance is often controversial given the ethnicised nature of Kenya’s politics therefore all discriminated individuals or marginalised groups must continue to agitate for transparency and accountability especially in public appointments.

On the issue of the “two-thirds principle”, the Equality Article provides that not more than two-thirds of the members of elective or appointive bodies shall be of the same gender. This is reiterated in Article 81(b). The inclusion of this principle in the Constitution is widely seen as the single greatest achievement of the two decade long struggle for gender equality in Kenya. The challenge now is to ensure its full implementation while some legislators and commentators insist that this principle was intended to be aspirational and therefore must be progressively realised as opposed to being enforced immediately. The key challenge to the realization of the “two-thirds principle” is in the problematic wording of Article 97 and Article 98 which lay out the composition of members in the National Assembly and the Senate. Conventional wisdom on this impending constitutional catch-22 is to amend the Constitution as proposed by the Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo in his Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill, 2011. This will ensure that both Houses have more than 2/3rds of either gender as well as ensuring representation from other minorities and marginalised groups. Women have continued to push for full implementation of this 2/3 thirds principle and appear to be in favour of the Amendment Bill.

On the issue of non-listed grounds for discrimination, clause 4 of the Equality Article lists a total of 16 grounds for discrimination ranging from race to birth. The use of the word “including” in this clause indicates that the list is not restricted to these 16 grounds and may include many others that are not listed. It is clear that the same rationale is to be applied to clause 5. For instance, where the Equality Article has leaves out two common grounds for discrimination namely gender and sexual orientation, what is the position in law? As explained earlier, the fact that these two grounds have not been listed under clause 4 or clause 5 does not mean that both gender discrimination and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation can be allowed to take place without any recourse to the Constitution. In each case, it must be alleged and proved that the discrimination was either directly or indirectly committed by the State or by a person.

In sum, the right to equality and freedom from discrimination is a fundamental component of the Bill of Rights enshrined in Kenya’s Constitution. Kenyans must be aware of their rights under the Constitution and fight for their realisation in all spheres of social, economic, cultural and political life. Women, as a demographic, are often singled out as having been at the centre of the human rights struggle in Kenya especially given the deeply patriarchal nature of Kenyan Society. The struggle for gender equality in Kenya is representative of the wider human rights struggle that has now received a much needed boost with the promulgation of the Constitution.

Therefore the challenge is all Kenyans, particularly the powerful women’s lobby groups, ensure that the spirit and letter of the Equality Article in the Constitution is followed and implemented fully.

Earlier this week, we lost Mr. John Michuki. I never knew him; but I definitely knew of him. I had heard great things of him through his family and relatively harsh ones through those he crossed. Verily, he had done a great number of great things for the nation but was also credited with some relatively dark executive decisions. But out of respect for the man, I opt to not sully his reputation after his demise. He has done more for the country than most people I know, and for nothing else, some degree of respect is due. He was a ruthless manager in an unruly time who earned the love and respect from millions.

The nation was still mourning for him, when very early today morning, Njenga Karume passed away.

Now, Mr. Karume, I had the honor of knowing. Aside from the stories and the books; the legend of the self-made billionaire that went from nothing to something was more than enough to garner reverence and adulation. But more than that, he was a man of his word and a man of honor. He believed in hard-work and believed in the youth. One of the last things he said to my business partners and I when we last sat in the same room was “It is you who shall lead this nation.” He was referring to us, the youth, the online generation. He believed that we could – and would – change the face of the country and he stood behind his words by supporting our business aspirations in kind, advice, and action.

I was woken up by the call that he had passed away and during the short conversation on the matter something I had heard rumor of came to surface. My uncle once said that Karume had a family of a million. Not because he had a million children, but because he supported a million people; putting them through school, giving them jobs, sponsoring their dreams. It turns out this was true as I read email after email of how he had touched people’s lives. What was more impressive is that he did so humbly and without prejudice.

And for that, I think we should honor his name by not disappointing his dream for our success.

Rest in peace to any and all the great Kenyans that have passed on and strength to the friends and family they leave behind.

From what I can gather Maendeleo ya Wanaume lives and operates from the briefcase of one Nderitu Njoka — it’s chairman and purports to be an organisation fighting for the rights of battered men.

It is common knowledge that gender relations are in constant flux and conceptions of masculinity and femininity are being reshaped and redefined as our time passes on. Therefore one wonders why Maendeleo ya Wanaume (MYW) has chosen to exclusively focus on battered men when there are a host of other emerging issues that are equally deserving of attention including the question of the boy child and others issues affecting men as highlighted by myself here and also by nittzsah here.

Putting aside the issue of MYW selective agenda focus, the Chairman’s own recent remarks are most troubling as they reflect a total lack of appreciation of some of the underlying causes of gender-based violence in particular the recently reported cases of wives assaulting their husbands in the county of Nyeri:

“It is not an issue of poverty any more. It is about women supremacy as they want to dominate men,” (reported on Feb 12th 2012)

“Mr Njoka blames “female superiority complex” for the rising cases of husband battery, tracing its roots to the high handed female colonial chief, Wangu wa Makeri, who reigned in Murang’a with an iron fist, and was particularly hard on men.” (reported on Feb 9th 2012)

“Men should be respected as family heads, but in Central Kenya, they have been reduced to the role of fathering children before they are dumped..” – Nderitu Njoka. (reported on Feb 9th 2012)

It is clear that MYW Chairman believes there should be gender hierarchy (which must be recognised and respected) and this is precisely the kind of mentality that women in Nyeri may be reacting against.

The point of departure MUST be that men and women are equal partners in the home and therefore each of them must be respected as such. The MYW Chairman’s recent comments are misguided and dangerous in that they are capable of inciting men to blindly oppose and question the empowerment of women and resort to violence as a retaliatory weapon to “put women in their place”, so to speak.

Furthermore, the MYW Chairman is at fault for implying that there is a distinction between violence against men by women and violence against women by men. This insinuation is retrogressive, baseless and does not help in addressing the root socio-cultural, economic and political causes of gender-based violence in Kenya.

Regardless of whether the victims of gender-based violence are men or women, violence within the family unit remains an extremely private affair. As a result the majority of its victims continue suffering in the muffled recesses of this private domain. An association like MYW would be advised to work closely with other NGOs including Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization (MYWO) and The Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (FIDA Kenya) to properly address the issues relating to domestic violence, using the backing of the Constitution and existing legislation.

The first time he had fought them off, thrown a hammer and hit one of them. They left. This time they were back for vengeance.

This is how I found out about the story.

Few more details of the story were known to me earlier this week when I donated a measly $5(that’s all I had in my Paypal) to the foundation that was trying to raise money to fence and wall up his orphanage.

Apparently I was not alone. While trying to raise $2,000 in a week, the post managed to pull $65,000 in a little over 24 hours. The kids at the orphanage and Omari were pleased beyond belief.

I was just flat out shocked. There was a moment of sincere joy because those kids deserve it, but a sour aftertaste followed when logging on to Twitter and following the pointless ongoing rambles.

Kenyans will never stop complaining about how much change is needed and how little of an impact we have as mere citizens – less so, citizens online. Someone on Twitter once shamelessly told me: “That’s because there are only like 10 million Kenyans with internet access.”

Only 10 million?

If there ever was a more ironic plaint of powerlessness it is that there are only 10 million Kenyans online. I know the actual CCK figure is a little bit higher, and the realistic number probably less, but amuse me for a second if you will.

Reddit has about 1 million unique views per day. That’s it. And of that 1 million, less than an eighth saw the post. In fact, boiling it down, of the half a million or so views, less than 3000 people had commented by the end of the first day. And very, very, very, very few of those were Kenyan. In fact, I venture to say few, if any, of the donations were Kenyan seeing as Paypal has some sort of vendetta with Kenyan banks.

Yet several thousand unconcerned parties, predominantly American, saved an orphanage in Ngong and then some. Meanwhile, Kenyans online were still focused on making ICC & Baraza jokes.

All 10 million of us.

Well not all of us. Some people are trying to do good.

In Catherine’s case, she ranked first in her region but doesn’t have enough to go the school fitting of her gifted mind – Alliance Girls. All she needs is 60,000/- before monday.

If even 10,000 of us donated 10 shillings each, she would be set for a while. If all of us lend our voices, she may get a scholarship and never pay another shilling towards fees. A life would be changed, a trend would be set; and all it would cost is 10 shillings and a Facebook comment or Tweet.

This is not to say we need to be do-gooders online all the time; having fun online is not illegal (yet). This is also not to say we need to give more money more often; let #KenyansForKenya stand as testament to how the pursuit of more money brings in corporations that will take a pure cause and turn it into controversy and a tax break.

This is just to say we need to focus on what matters. Us. The people. The wananchi. If only for a few seconds of our day. Because none of the folk on Ocampo’s list would be tweeting endlessly if you had to go to court trying to bail you out. None of the politicians running for president would try to raise money for you if you were in real trouble. No one in Parliament would form a search committee online for you if you went missing.

But someone like Catherine would. Someone like Omari would. Someone at Vision Africa will selflessly try to spread the word and someone at Diasporadical may even try help you.

Just like someone on Reddit did for Omari. And someone on Twitter is doing for Catherine.

At the end of the day, it really is just us here. And we kinda need to look out for each other.

That’s all.

Have a good weekend.