Today was great! We went to the Home at 9 and divided into 3 groups, the toddlers, crawlers, and babies. I was with the toddlers again, and knowing each of their names and a little of their personalities it was fun to play. They particularly enjoyed the slide this morning!
We fed them "momo" (snack) today of bananas and mangos. And then washed them and put them down for a nap. Their nap time is our lunch time.
After we came back and had a meeting with Rhoda, who is the New Life Home's Social Worker. She went through the adoption process again and filled in the blanks from orientation weekend. Basically the same info but more practicality now that we know the Home and kids. There are local adoptions and international adoptions. The locals are able to come and volunteer and pick out a kid. The Internationals come knowing which one they will take home. The international parents fill out an application and request a gender and age group. New Life then sends them adoption files of all the kids fitting these ranges. This is a fairly new law, less than a year old, so there are still a lot of thinks still to be worked out. And our work will also help with this process. The work we do will also help the babies get adopted faster.
Each baby has to be brought to court with his or her adoption files and argued that they are ready for adoption. The Kenyan Adoption Board decides yes or no, if no they say what else needs to be done. This process can take a week, a month, or a year. There's a lady who visits her soon to be son every day, but she has been in the process for the past 2 years. Effciency is crucial since New Life is almost always at bed capacity. The faster the turn over the more kids can come. When New Life has to turn away kids, they're sent to other orphanages. But New Life (I hope I don't offend anyone here who has worked with other Kenya Homes) but New Life is seen as the standard in the eyes of the government and very well respected among the people. They do things right, everything from medical care to good schooling and lots of love. But other orphanages have had problems and sketchy situations where they will secretly sell babies for not good reasons. So we want our records straight, clean, clear, and accessible so no bad accusations can be made against New Life.
Tonight and this weekend we will be talking about how to exactly right up these adoption files. Drew Rothenberg will be talking about how we should be filling out the Psyco-Social Reports and I'll be talking about the basic techniques for photographs such as the rule of thirds and when and when not to use a flash.
After the meeting with Rhoda we talked a little about what we'd be doing in the future. Each home will have a scanner and we'll scan the hard copies of police reports and medical reports and so on. On top of these scans, the psycho-social reports, and our photographs, we will be putting each child's report on an online password protected data base that can be accessed from any of the Kenya New Life homes and Amani in the US.
So basically the people here are amazing. I don't know how they get everything done without all the volunteers they have! Cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard-work, bathing, and playing with the kids is a ton of work! But here in Nairobi there are several volunteers from the University who have to meet service hour requirements. We talked to a few regular and local volunteers who have graduated but can't find jobs. They continued to explain, that of course when a Kenyan can't find work they give back to their community. Dang, like just imagine what the world would be like if everyone had that perspective on life.
My team is fantastic. A few of us make dinners together. Last night we made rice, curry spinach with walnuts. And tonight we made rice (for me) and pasta with tomato sauce eggs and broccoli. Since we haven't started the reports yet, we spend our free time playing cards, watching world cup, reading, napping, and talking about everything :) this is the way to live; in community, sharing everything, giving, and learning and growing together <3
I already want to stay for a few more weeks… hehe
Film wise I got interviews set up and basic questions written out. We'll be able to start shooting and photographing on Tuesday!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
in Nairobi_ day 7
Off to New Life Home again! We continued with our psyco-social observations and reports. We have almost finished all the crawlers! So far we about 20 uploaded into our online archives. These case summaries, psyco-social reports, and pictures will be sent to international and local families looking to adopt and they will go towards arguing before the Kenyan Adoption Board who determines whether the baby is free to go with the families.
In the morning, I met with Rhoda and interviewed her in her office. I asked questions like "what is your role here at new life," "what are the biggest challenges you face as a social worker," "briefly explain the adoption process from new life's point of view," "how is new life different from other orphanages in kenya," "what do you hope to gain from us 11 interns working here and at various other homes"
She was very informative and answered the questions really well! The interview will be very helpful when putting together the doc.
I also was recruited to help write case study summaries but I had to decline because we had to hand write them, and my handwriting = chicken scratch and very illegible. But what the others who had pretty had writing did was take a baby's folder full of stuff (police reports, baby foot prints, birthday cards, legal papers, court committals, good Samaritans letters, and anything relevant to the child) and they summarized everything into case summaries… all on notebook paper. So that's partly why we're here. Because we are putting everything into accessible and electronic files. This way upon request, parents can view appropriate files (copy and paste are wonderful) and they can be easily printed out for case/adoption files.
In the afternoon we headed over to Little Angles with Rhoda. This is the adoption agency that is partnered with New Life Homes. They are the ones who receive adoption requests and applications and deal with the legal processes. They screen and interview parents and do the home visits to check up on the kids during the 3 month foster period once the babies are cleared for adoption. I also filmed this, and it was super duper cool to hear the process first hand from the baby lawyers and other social workers.
After walking home, we stopped by Yaya (our grocery store) to pick up last minute groceries before we start traveling on Sunday… because tomorrow we will be going on a Safari!!!!! Hooray!!! We leave tomorrow and come back Saturday night so I won't post again till then. I'm so pumped to see National Geographic and Discovery Channel and Animal Planet in real life! We get to hang out with the Maasai people (google them, their sweet!) and see all the typical animals. More details when I return :)
It's been incredible to get to know the adoption process.. . New Life averages about 1 kid per week being 'identified' which means a family has expressed interest which is sweet. But what will be sweeter is that with our work parents will be able to get their babies sooner.
Before we came here, at orientation , we watched this documentary following several adults trying to find out birth records and any family history they have. It really put into perspective that without these files in order, the New Life babies and babies in homes all over the world don't have a connection to their roots, history, or a feeling of completion with their story. These babies have rights, a right to know their family medical history, where they were born, their original/given name, parents info, a birth certificate, and why they ended up where they did. Every time work gets a little slow or monotonous, its encouraging to know that I'm fighting for someone who can't but who will later find these files priceless.
Well, its off to bed for me! I gotta back up and upload photos and videos. I'm all packed for the safari and camping. I'm going to the Lenovo store tomorrow with another intern who's school computer is broken. Since this is kind of a heavy on the technology job, computers are crucial. --> what was the one thing I forgot on this trip… my computer charger. But thank goodness several other people on the trip have school computers!!!!
Ok so also, all 11 of us were in one apartment living room watching the world cup and went absolutely nutz when USA scored. If the rest of the Kenyan complex was wondering if we were american, they know now!
I have so much great footage, I can't wait to start going through it. I filmed some more babies at New Life today, and interviewed some of the other interns. I love film!!!!! Here are some pictures too :)