Chania Coffee: Partnerships and Cooperation Development

5 years ago if my friend Mercy Mutunga and former collegue had told me that i would be standing infront of young high school students discussing Cooperation & Sustainable Development in a far off land, i would have brushed it off and told her to get a life or simply order another glass of martini..... anyway i will write about Mercy one day and our lives back then ;)
So....5 years later instead of sitting in the Nairobi traffic for hours, fighting the undisciplined Matatu drivers under the scorching African sun, without a hope when the traffic jam was gonna end, i stood infront of a class in a far away land in a small town by the Baltic See, the town of Neustadt in Schleswig Holstein Germany.

The presentation for today was facilitated by someone i hardly knew, someone who just stumbled on my Website and believed in my work; Herr Marcel Krolow- the Geography teacher at the Küstengymnasium Neustadt.

Marcel the teacher ;)

Today i presented the work of Kedovo e.V in regards to Sustainable Development for the community of the Aberdare Mountains, the land of my people. What exactly entails a community that is practising SD? is Sustainable Development really achievable or is it just a word that just gets thrown around? Can rural communities in a far off village attain self reliance?
When i founded Kedovo e.V (Kenya Dorf Volunteers) this was based on a strong conviction that if my people were facilitated with ideas and hope, they would bring out their capabilities and capacities.The time had come to break the cycle of poverty, disease and drought among the cofee producing community in Nyeri, and this could only be achieved through knowledge transfers and Partnerships that would open up the world for them...and only through this, could they achieve 'Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe as one of the students in the presentation summarized it today......that is the only way that my people can be Self-reliant.

It hasnt been easy, but I havent lost that belief.......i havent lost the hope.
Through the Kedovo's Elimu's Project we showcase a different type of Kenya, a Kenya that is not raged with poverty, disease and war....but a real Kenya where my farmers still toil in their coffee fields daily, with a hope of 'when tomorrow comes' , where my mother still goes to the coffee fields with her basket in the July fog and rain, where my neighbour despite being aged 70 years still prunes his coffee in readiness for a new harvest... where we know and now believe that Sustainable Development through coffee farming is achievable, where we now plant coffee bushes again in the hope of a better market tomorrow, where through our project we bring in the aspect of Globales lernen, Nachhaltige Entwicklung und Entwicklungzusammenarbeit.
And yes sustainable development is achievable for the developing world, they might have a long way to go but all they need is facilitation and guidance....and we can open up up the world for them by forming honest Partnerships from both sides..........
Today i rest knowing that i have brought the journey of my village further, i hope that i left a mark in Neustadt where they have now a different understanding on how sustainable development can be achieved, i rest knowing that its not easy but cooperation development is important, i rest knowing that some community today did first see for the first time how a coffee bush looks like, i rest knowing that there is hope....