Ilkilorit Clinic

I visited one of our projects yesterday in the Rift Valley AKA “The Bush” for the first time with ICROSS project managers Joe Ngwiri and Saruni Nanu.

It struck me for the first time, as our pickup truck turned off the relative smooth comfort of the tar-marked roads outside of Ngong and hit the ‘road’ (that is basically a crater-ridden dust bowl running down and through the Valley), just how tough the simplest of tasks can become out here. Some parts were so bumpy that even our small, nimble 4X4 struggled to cover the terrain.

I was told the road we were on was in fact one of the better ones and LORRIES carrying construction materials had to travel the same way. A water tank was recently erected in the area where we were headed and the truck delivering bricks could not get up one of the hills, so the workers offloaded them at the bottom, carried them up by hand before reloading again once the (lighter) lorry could make it up the hill. Egyptians & Pyramids came to mind.

After a couple of hours we finally arrived at the new clinic entrance:



(Me standing with local Headmaster John Morio)

It is almost complete thanks to the hard work of Gerry Googan and Friends & ICROSS. But there is still some work to be done before completion:

Dispensary:



Staff House:



Toilets:



I spoke with some of the local workers/community leaders and visited the school to get some opinions on the project. It was quite obvious that everyone was desperate to finally see it up and running after being in construction for over two years:

“The clinic will cover a very large area, and approximately 2000 people are going to be entirely dependent upon this facility in the local area. For health facilities right now, you have to travel very far, so this clinic will be of great help and importance to us.”



Lekumokole Naikada, School Chairman and Community Leader (3rd Right)


The Headmaster of the local school, Mr John Morio, who rode down from Ngong town with us, had a lot to say about the project and ICROSS itself.

“Even those who are not eligible to be treated here will be able to get first aid assistance to help them reach hospitals many kilometres away – a large proportion would die injured along the way otherwise.” (He spoke about the cholera outbreak in January, using it as an example of what happened, as many sick people couldn’t make the painful trip across the bush to seek care.)

Mr Morio also praised the projects ran throughout Kenya by ICROSS as, in his experience, it is one of the very few NGOs that is able and willing to integrate its projects within communities – often strategically placing health clinics next to schools. “Some amazing facilities are built and will go to waste as they are either in the wrong place, or communities are not involved, making them unsustainable in the long-term.” According to Mr Morio, many NGOs he has worked with would not even consider coming to areas as remote as this one, because they are “just too far away to control”.

“ICROSS is not put off by distance and for such a facility to even reach this point of development, a lot of good work has been done.”


Solomon Sapati Kindi (Teacher and Community Health Worker) was also very eager to get the project off the ground.



“The local hospital is over a 2-hour walk from here, so people around the area are longing to see the facilities complete. It is very expensive to get to Ngong (the nearest town); there is no phone signal so getting women having trouble in childbirth there is very hard. We all hope that the clinic will be able to have maternity facilities too.”

The contractor estimates that the final work, once under way, should take about two weeks to complete. So here’s hoping we manage to secure the additional funding to complete and open the clinic. But if there is one thing I’ve learned since arriving in Kenya – things are often not that simple in Africa. 2 weeks can just as easily turn into 2 years… so my fingers are firmly crossed that this final stage manages to at least get underway before I leave by mid-August.

The local school kids were wonderful and would barely stand still for me to take a picture: