 Team Reports |
How Are We Doing?Veri Presswood - Toronto, ON This is a question the SCAW leadership has been asking itself. So, for the first time in Kenya, the 2007 Canadian team brought with them a questionnaire prepared for the recipients of the bedkits and their parents. Its purpose was to get an accurate idea of how they felt about the contents of the bedkit. As an initial survey, a sampling of twenty-five interviews were done over the 4,000 bedkit distribution. The interviews were conducted by a Canadian team member and a Rotaractor parent or a local parent who was fluent in both Swahili and English.
While a more detailed analysis of the information will need to be done, some initial trends did appear. For instance, the most useful items in the bedkit were quite consistently listed as the mattress, the blanket, and the mosquito net. There never was any question regarding the quality of the mosquito net, but many participants in the survey asked for a thicker blanket. The blanket provided is of quite heavy material; however, Kenyans feel the cold quite severely. In fact, we were told by one Rotaractor that 16°C is considered quite cold and children are known to die from hypothermia. After the distribution, some Canadian team members spent two nights in luxury tents in the Masai Mara with lots of warm blankets, but no heat, and learned the importance of blankets during a Kenya night. Of course, the children we’re providing for live in the slums of Nairobi and sleep on a dirt floor. When asked about the mosquito net, most parents replied that they had none or perhaps one or two, often torn. When asked how important a mosquito net was to them, they replied extremely important for the health of the child and the child’s ability to attend school regularly. Many felt the same way about the mattress, which keeps the child off the ground and, with the blanket, gives the youngster a more comfortable night’s sleep. Very useful information was gleaned from the questionnaire, which will help to make the bedkits even better suited to the needs of the children. |
Respondents were asked which of the items in the bedkit were most valuable to them and which were least useful. Specific questions about the mosquito netting were posed as well, especially since the decision had been made this year to upgrade the mosquito net to one with a permanent insecticide at an extra cost.