Teaching Placement, Mombasa, Kenya: 17th June – 15th July 2006

A heated discussion ensued between the head-teacher, the volunteers and I-to-I staff. The result of this was an agreement to reallocate the involved volunteers to a different project. However, through the course of the meeting several things became apparent. Firstly, that I-to-I had entirely misrepresented the role and requirements of volunteers undertaking this project; that our function was in fact superfluous as the school was well staffed, resourced and effectively run; similarly, that it was not a desperate and deprived project, as had been implied by I-to-I. Moreover, the head-teacher made it clear that I-to-I had given him a very different impression of the ability and purpose of volunteers – most notably with respect to their capacity to make donations. We shared equal disdain for the distorted portrayals that I-to-I had fed us respectively.

The I-to-I in country coordinators were reluctant to broach these issues when we asked for them to be addressed. On the contrary, when questioned, they habitually resorted to an aggressive and confrontational dialogue. We firmly believe that they were inadequately prepared to discharge their duties. It was also striking that the UK staff (bar one member who was present in the country) were markedly unaware of the circumstances and specifics of their operations in Mombasa. I would be wholly surprised if more than a couple of those UK staff deemed to oversee these projects had actually visited them. As a result of all of this, the response of I-to-I in country staff came down to merely asserting that we were naive to Kenyan ‘culture’, which implicitly condoned – or was at least indifferent towards - such treatment of children. Beyond this basic argument, they attempted to imbue volunteers with the idea that we simply had to accept this as practice, which we could not challenge or change.

WEMA Centre described Bee Hive as a place infamous for corruption, maltreatment, and the exploitation of children for personal gain; this was also made clear by a meeting with The Children’s Department. By way of example, the Children’s Development Officer cited a notorious occasion whereby a visitor to Bee Hive made a donation of 40 beds and 40 mattresses for the children having witnessed their state of deprivation. On returning 6 months later, that person found that each bed and mattress had been sold, without any sort of improvement in the children’s living circumstances or health. What is more, crucially, in 2005 The Children’s Department deployed the police (considered necessary given the violent reputation of its proprietor) to close the home and remove every child. Six of the children were received by the WEMA Centre. WEMA state that those children’s condition of ill-health was considerably more severe than that of the children they rescue from the streets.

The I-to-I in country staff claim ignorance of these facts and events. That is either entirely unacceptable or simply not true. Even if I-to-I were unaware of the proprietor’s (and indeed the home’s) deplorable reputation and well known disposition towards violence, it was aware that legal proceedings are continuing against him ensuing from the 2005 closure. There is simply no excuse for I-to-I having sent volunteers to Bee Hive. The WEMA Centre, amongst many others, strongly condemns I-to-I for its incompetence and irresponsibility. Beyond these substantial failings, I-to-I made our circumstances in Kenya even more precarious by advising us to omit in our Visa applications that we would be carrying out a form of work. I-to-I as such created a situation which rendered us as acting illegally in the country: the Tourist Visa does not permit any form of work engagement, including volunteering – contrary to what I-to-I had told us. This only became known to us after five volunteers were removed by police from their project and submitted to interrogation.

Although I-to-I in country staff assert that they were unbeknownst to Bee Hive’s illegal status, they were in any case unwilling to contest its continued operation. That is because it is one of I-to-I’s flagships projects. Accordingly, the volunteers involved took it upon themselves to attempt to shift governmental inertia and have Bee Hive closed once again. In doing so we worked alongside the administration of the WEMA Centre, the director of the Kenyan Chamber of Commerce and members of the Street Children’s Rehabilitation Trust. Working with these people we lobbied the Provincial and District Officers and attended a meeting with UNICEF officials. Due to concern for our safety, my sister and I waited until our final day in Mombasa to have an article published in The Nation newspaper documenting the unlawful operation of Bee Hive orphanage.

We find it thoroughly reprehensible that I-to-I not only deems Bee Hive an appropriate project to send customers to, but moreover that it considers it a model of the change that I-to-I and volunteers can make. It is both ironic and totally distasteful that an image of a volunteer at Bee Hive fronts the I-to-I website and that several more pictures of Bee Hive are scattered throughout your 2007 brochure. Similarly, that the company t-shirts that volunteers are to wear are manufactured in Pakistan. Once again, on requesting an explanation from the British member of the in country staff as to whether their production was legitimate or perhaps subject to unregulated and unethical labour practices, an answer could not be given. She did, however, agree that it was suspect. Since we subsequently directed this question to I-to-I’s UK office an answer has not been given. Clearly an account would be desirable.