Someone lied to you, mwananchi: –

2 explosions in one day.

There was another explosion a few weeks ago. At a slum. Hundreds were injured. Who remembers that?

“Na tukae na uhuru, AMANI na undugu.” Who remembers that?

Yet another fiasco with public funds, now with Kazi kwa Vijana.

There was another grand theft of donor grants, that one about stealing resources earmarked for helping Kenya achieve the millennium development goal of universal primary education. Who remembers that?

There was a fortnight’s worth of court hearings at the Hague, for people accused of crimes against humanity to have their charges read out to them, and to give them the opportunity to defend themselves. Who remembers that?

There was a time when the dollar was retailing at 80 shillings. And a litre of petrol at less than 100 shillings. When 100 shillings could get you 3 packets of milk. Who remembers that?

We don’t do enough remembering. And because of that, we don’t do enough caring about how fast and how furiously things have moved from bad to worse and we don’t do enough complaining about that in the places where it needs to be heard.

The people who are ordering offence, riding shotgun on the decisions being made to act against Al-Shabab and now refusing to comment comprehensively about anything are tucked away in bunkers don’t have to go to a supermarket or a mall. They don’t have to walk through town or take public transport. They don’t have to stand at bus stops. They don’t go to public bars and nightclubs and places of worship.

Who remembers that?

They are driven around in armoured cars.

Who remembers that?

And their children are not the ones that will have to pay the millions in debt we are incurring as we borrow money for them to steal from our coffers, or for us to go into a very ill-advised war. Guns are not free, you see. Our children are. Who remembers that?

The only people who can make enough noise about this, and say we are tired of being played like pawns in a losing game? Us. The only people who can refuse to stomach the nonsense of Churchill saying about the war “send us pictures of real action” on national radio? Us. The only people who can speak and speak until our voices are heard? Us. The only people who are going down with this ship if it sinks? Us. The people who are ruining the future for our children with our silence? And selective amnesia?

Us.

Lest we forget.

We’re looking forward to the next round. Will you join us next time?

It’s now time for us to say thank you.

We’d like to invite everyone to our “Volunteering is Sexy” party, to be held this Saturday 2nd July at Kifaru Gardens, Lavington (Kanjata Road, just off James Gichuru Road), from 6 – 8.30 p.m. It’ll be a fun evening of great conversations with cool people, as we celebrate what’s been done so far and look at what can be done in the near future. Just A Band will be DJ-ing, and we’ll be partying.

Please RSVP on our Facebook page and pass on this invite to as many of your friends as want to come along. Looking forward to seeing you there!

The Kuweni Serious Team.

We’ve completed 5 of the 16 sessions so far, and the girls have covered some computer basics (they know their way around laptops now), they’ve been introduced to Google Maps (they made their own landmarks) and they’re pretty good with the PicoCrickets now.

We’d like to use this moment to say a big, big thank you to all the volunteers who’ve given us their time so far, and an even bigger thank you to the very-aptly-named teams “Awesome” and “Uber-Awesome” from the University of Nairobi for being relentlessly enthusiastic about teaching the girls.

Here’s some photos of the program in which the girls were introduced to the PicoCricket. You can find many more photos on our Facebook page.

Photos courtesy of the team and volunteer Flora Okuku.

We love that you’ve been checking out the site, watching our videos and interacting with us. We’ve been awed and humbled at how many amazing people we’ve found out there who are passionate about this country.

However, we feel that we can do more.

Dialogue is incredibly important, but ‘they come a time’ (George Saitoti ™) when we need to go beyond simply talking about the problems and into actually doing something about them. We’d hate to think that we’re breeding a community of armchair activists.

The Brief: We’re going to be working with adolescent girls in Kibera and Baba Dogo over the next three months (February – April 2011) to teach them basic tech skills and citizen journalism using smartphones.

We need your help to do this.

Skills required:
1. You know how to use a computer and the Internet.
2. You know how to use a cell phone.
3. You have, or are trying to cultivate, a social conscience.

Pretty easy, right?

Give us a minimum of three hours of your time to volunteer with us on one or more Saturdays between now and the end of April and in return, you’ll get an exclusive invite to a volunteers-only kick-ass concert!
Here’s more information for volunteers, and visit our Eventbrite page to register for open sessions. Questions? Email us at theteam [at] kuweniserious [dot] org.

It’s great that you’ve come this far. Congratulations! Here’s most of the information you will need in your quest to volunteer for the 125/100 program.

Skill Slots: Teaching Assistants, Media Documentation (Coverage of classes via Photo, Video or Social Media)

Teaching Assistants will facilitate the classes under the direction of the tutors. Media Documentation people will either take photos and/or video of the classes, or tweet/blog/Facebook about them as they happen.

What You Should Bring:
A. For Tech Classes:
- Your Own Laptop* (optional)

B. For Citizen Journalism Classes:
- An open mind*

C. For Media Documentation
- Photographers/Videographers – come with your gear*!
- Social Media: Come with your Internet*.

*Have no fear. Your stuff is safe with us, even your open mind.

How to Sign Up:
1. Visit our Eventbrite page and choose a position/area you’re interested in. Once you confirm your place, the team will get in touch with you with further details.
Cancellation – aki please don’t . If you must, let us know 2 days in advance.

Other Information
Pre-class briefing: The team shall communicate with volunteers via email or phone with curriculum and any other special information. Please ensure that your contact details are correct.
1. Transport shall be provided from the city center via matatu. If using personal transport, directions can be obtained from the team.
2. Snacks and water are provided to the whole class, if you know you’ll be hungry/thirsty carry some packed lunch or some money, perhaps a bottle of water for yourself.

Schedule coming soon!

Featuring a random sampling of Kenyans. Directed by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu for Kuweni Serious. Edited by Mbithi Masya. Narration by Bill Sellanga, words and music by Jim Chuchu.

There is a difference between the one who rents a house, and the one who owns a house. The one who rents a house doesn’t care if the walls crack and crumble, they can always move to another house.

The one who owns a house knows that no one else will take care of it, thus they paint the walls and mend the cracks.
More than 60% of Kenya’s population consists of young men and women like us.

The problem is that we behave like tenants of Kenya. We have let the older generation tear this country apart. We have let them use us to fight their battles. We have let them loot this country. We have let them fool us into thinking that we’re not fit to run this country ourselves.

So we hide in our alcohol, in our religions and on the Internet as if there is some other Kenya out there that we shall move to when this one crumbles. We sit at home and wait for others to fight for us on the streets.

We want green cards instead of voter’s cards. We are angry, but we are too scared to do anything about it. It is not Obama’s job to save this country. It is not the donors’ job, and the government has shown that it is not their job, either. Responsibility is not shared, it is earned.

Freedom is not given, it is taken. When we decide we want freedom, we will have to get it ourselves.

Because if this country burns, we burn with it.

Featuring Rapcha the Sayantist. Licensed from Just A Band by Kuweni Serious (2010). All Rights Reserved.