November 7, 2006

Looking for a Happy Future beyond AIDS

By Sherry Harbert

Kirsten Carpentier had to imagine what her dreams could build as she stood inside a cement frame of a project called the Happy Children’s Centre. Located in Malindi, Kenya, the HCC is far from the classrooms in which she once taught in the U.S. and even farther from the minds of most students. But the HCC and the children that fill it are always on Carpentier’s mind.

The children who scrambled to surround Carpentier as she called out each name during a visit in August lost almost everything to AIDS. The disease not only took their parents, but it continues to steal even the most basic necessities of survival. There are over one million children orphaned by AIDS in Kenya. Carpentier found most lack meaningful nutrition, healthcare and housing.

The BBC reports that a mere five percent of AIDS orphans receive any kind of basic support. If they are lucky, they are accepted into an orphanage. Others may find shelter with other families, but there are children who are forced to fend for themselves in a bleak environment that most adults cannot survive on their own. It is so overwhelming that most humanitarian organizations can barely meet the need on a regular subsistence level. So even though the ground inside the HCC was rough coral which cut the feet of those without shoes, the children who gathered inside waited patiently for almost two hours just to hear their name. For inside that unfinished building, each child was given something beyond the daily struggle to survive. Each child could stand up and be a person with a name, not just one more victim of AIDS in Africa.

Reaching Beyond the Grip of AIDS

“Why me and AIDS?” Carpentier asked. “It’s easy to get wrapped up in the global perspective, but AIDS is also about the individual people. It’s about the children, the moms and the dads. Sometimes we get so detached that we loose sight of the little children.”

It took the stroke of a brush to lead to a stroke of genius for seeing beyond the devastating effects of AIDS. Carpentier saw beyond the basic suffering to a basic humanity through art. Carpentier saw art as a way to transcend the suffering, because it offered hope out of the struggle to merely survive. “Art would transport them out of their current circumstance and help to the future,” said Carpentier. And it offered a glimpse into the thoughts, emotions and dreams of each child Carpentier interviewed during her visits to the orphanage. She found it in the paintings and drawings of each child she met. “They need something that brings out their beauty,” said Carpentier after returning from her last visit to check on the progress of the children and the HCC.

Carpentier’s work with the HCC is a culmination of her life experiences and talents. After teaching art immersion in elementary schools in Oregon, she moved to San Francisco to head an art school in the 1990s. It was during the economic boom time that Carpentier saw the overt disparities between rich and poor. “You would see the very wealthy, while the very poor would hide,” she said. “There were lots of nameless people.”

When Carpentier returned to Oregon, she moved into the sociology field and away from art, but she said the “art never left her.” Carpentier struggled to find a purpose for her passion for several years, until her daughter told her about an art program in Guatemala. In 2004, she traveled to the Central American country to work with children in abject poverty. “It wasn’t even safe to live there,” said Carpentier. “The program worked with really emotionally and physically abused children. Many of them were very angry and hopeless in some ways.” Carpentier discovered how art bridged a life out of the poverty and violence. “The children just blossomed,” she said. “The art became real to them, something of their own.”

The experience would propel Carpentier to search for some way to use art to help children. After returning to Oregon, Carpentier attended a workshop on AIDS. Her friend, Ann Pickar, co-chair of the Portland Area Global AIDS Coalition (PAGAC), organized a powerful presentation on AIDS last year. Pickar began working to counter the effects of AIDS after hearing Stephen Lewis, UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, speak at the Unitarian General Assembly in 2002.

Lewis can be credited with impassioning many people in the Portland area to work with AIDS. Pickar chairs the national Unitarian Universalist Global AIDS Coalition (UUGAC), formed in response to Lewis’ compelling speech. The Portland chapter is building a network of people and organizations working with AIDS. One of the non-profit organizations, Watoto wa Dunia, concentrates their efforts in education, micro-finance and healthcare in Kenya. Carpentier and Pickar traveled with Watoto and several other groups last year to Kenya as part of a five-week trip that included one week with a program overseen by the Imani Project, another Portland non-profit organization working to raise awareness, educate and prevent HIV/AIDS in Kenya. Imani would later include the HCC under their non-profit umbrella for 2006.

“The trip was very intense because of so many complexities,” said Carpentier, describing an AIDS ward in a Nairobi hospital and Kibera, known as one of Africa’s largest slums outside of the capital city, where a micro-finance program is providing opportunities for women. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois toured Kibera in August. But it wasn’t until she and Pickar arrived in a rural area that opened a deeper understanding of the devastation and hope in Kenya. Carpentier said they were greeted by the Nadiwa group, made up of AIDS widows who themselves suffer with the virus. “I was so awed by them,” said Carpentier. “One-third of them are HIV positive, yet they walked from all around the region to help us build a hut to house orphans. They were so welcoming.”

The trip gave Carpentier an insight into how AIDS has affected every segment of the society, especially the family. She said the cycle begins when the parents cannot find work. If their farm is gone, their only means for survival is to seek employment in the cities. The men may find some work, but return home with the virus. In a male-dominated society where sex is not a choice for most women, the virus spreads rapidly. Once the wives back home have the virus, the family slowly dies, leaving the children. Only the grandmothers have survived to look after the children. Carpentier said the virus is as taunting as the clouds that form each afternoon during the dry season, yet never rain on the desolate land.

Putting a Dream on Paper

Carpentier returned to Kenya, along with Jim Watson of Colorado and his daughter, Emily, to begin their own work in Malindi. Carpentier met the Watsons through a family connection with Watoto wa Dunia. The orphanage was at risk of losing their educational outreach if it could not provide an adequate building. The Ministry of Education in Kenya set the strict rule as part of its education policies. But once a building meets the ministry’s guidelines, it will help support the educational program. It was a daunting barrier to face, until Carpentier determined that she could help make that happen. The conception of the HCC would turn out to be the easy part. Carpentier and Watson would learn that making things happen in Kenya is much different than in the U.S.

“Americans are very linear when it come to planning,” said Carpentier, who had to adjust her plans to make the building project work. She and Watson oversee the financial side, but much of the operational responsibilities are given to locals. The operational side often presents more immediate challenges of food, housing and healthcare for the children. Carpentier said she is very aware of allowing the Kenyans to determine their needs.

The progress of the HCC has been complicated and rewarding for Carpentier, because she must always contend with the reality of AIDS. Although the HCC is a building project, Carpentier first sees to the basic needs of the orphaned children. It has slowed the progress of the building, but when it comes between feeding and clothing a child over installing a roof or a toilet, the basics must prevail. But the building continues. The building just got its roof and the toilets are progressing along. Carpentier hopes it will be enough to get approval from the Kenyan Ministry of Education, scheduled to inspect it soon.

Even before the first brick was set, Carpentier conducted interviews with each child to learn their background, what they needed and what they hoped for in the future. The children’s hope came pouring out of the crayons and paintbrushes and onto paper during the interviews. Carpentier asked the children to draw what they envisioned for their school. She had to teach many how to hold a crayon or a paintbrush at first, but as she found with other children, it wouldn’t take them long to learn and express their feelings on paper. As they grew more comfortable with their tools, the children began drawing buildings, people and other images. Carpentier worked with 130 kids during that first visit. She photographed and cataloged each painting, along with the history of each child. Many of the vivid images would later be used in cards and inspire Annie Papworth of Portland to create a quilt with the images from the children’s art to raise money for the HCC. The quilt alone raised over $700 this summer.

The Cycle of Art

Carpentier returned to Malindi in August to discover more than the building progress of the HCC. She saw the artistic talents of the children grow as well. This time she would reach deeper into their emotions and thoughts to find how they envisioned themselves. “Imagination is very powerful,” said Carpentier. “But you have to stimulate it.” The images by the children spanned from whimsical to haunting.

As Carpentier clicked on each image on her laptop recently, the reason for her work quietly emerged. There was a photo of each child linked to the self portrait. Carpentier would stop and reveal a fun fact or sad commentary about the child, then show the art. Some were simple. A few were as expressionistic and complex as the work of Marc Chagall. Carpentier said the process was much more difficult, but worth the results. Now, each child was a person, a face and the hope of Kenya’s future. But hope is only as good as the futures of the children. And education is vital to bringing the country out of its cycle of AIDS.

While education in the U.S. means an opportunity for a better future, education in Kenya means the difference between having a future at all. It is the mechanism that will pull the youngest generation out of the poverty that has been fueled by AIDS, and AIDS by the poverty. It is why Carpentier continues to push for the HCC. In her latest posting on her personal blog, Carpentier showed photos of the building’s progress, but talked about the sickness and deaths of the orphans. For now, there is no separation between school and AIDS, food and AIDS, a future and AIDS.

The last of school was to be a highpoint for Carpentier and the children in August. Carpentier awakened before anyone else that morning to write a name onto cards for an additional 60 children not on the original orphan’s list. She could hear the rain outside, but she worked until the list was complete. During her short visit, Carpentier recognized each child as a special individual and she was determined to make sure she showed it with a handmade card for each one. Carpentier said she worried about getting those paper cards safely to the building project in the rain, but she managed to pull it off without ruining any of them.

The cards were handmade by volunteers in five states. Coley Smith-Green of Portland made several when she hosted a benefit sale at her home this summer, sponsored by the UUGAC to raise funds for the HCC. Smith-Green, a musician and life coach, understood what drove Carpentier to offer more than the basics to AIDS orphans in Kenya—though the need for basic subsistence is a constant reminder of the reality throughout Africa.

Surrounded by the children and staff inside the HCC, Carpentier, Watson and Miles Tuttle handed out the cards one-by-one. There were no lines for the children or a mass rush to get closest to the trio in the crowded room. There was only one voice calling out one name to recognize each child. Carpentier is still taken by the emotions of the day. She said each child was transfixed on their card as a teacher would read them the message inside. Carpentier saw the personal messages in each card give hope to the children. Carpentier said not one card was discarded. Each child carried theirs around, even the next day.

But as much joy the cards brought to each child, Carpentier left Malindi knowing the reality for the children is precarious.

Kenya in Conflict

Kenya is enveloped in an enigma. Its capital regularly draws world leaders and diplomats to discuss global warming, crisis negotiations or aid in Africa, yet it draws many into abject poverty. It produced Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, who founded the Green Movement, yet is retains a Shamba system that destroys the land. When Maathai visited Portland in March as part of the 2006 International Speakers Series of the World Affairs Council of Oregon, she imbued all the hope of Kenya. She also imparted the struggles facing Kenya, especially for women and children. Maathai’s Green Movement is as much about the environment as it is about sustainable living. Kenya faces serious food shortages, especially in the northern regions due to severe drought.

But Maathai’s fight for the sustainability of the land is often drowned out by the fighting outside its borders. Kenya is surrounded by Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. As refugees pour into its borders from Somalia, the instability in the region continues to create uncertainty for Kenyan’s poor. The 1998 U.S. embassy bombing in Nairobi revealed Kenya’s fragile security in the region. It is a danger brewing that Sen. Obama warned about during his visit to the nation in August. Obama expressed his concerns about the ethnic-based politics and corruption that permeate the government and business.

Yet Obama’s greatest impact may have been on the nation’s attitude with AIDS. It is estimated that 1.5 million people have already died of AIDS in Kenya, even though there has been a small decline in the number of new HIV infections. Obama and his wife took AIDS tests during their visit to counter the stigma still associated with virus. It will be a difficult battle to overcome in an environment that finds Kenya’s first lady, Lucy Kibaki pushing for an abstinence-only policy when most women and girls have little choice in sex. Women activists and parliament members were outraged last April when fellow member Paddy Ahenda announced that women were too shy to say yes to sex during a debate to strengthen sex crimes legislation. The amount of rape and sexual abuse is high, with AIDS workers scrambling to try to prevent HIV infection for the victims.

Even in Mombasa and Malindi, a government raid in June found many girls as young as 12 being offered for sex to tourists. Kenya’s tourism minister, Morris Dzoro, accompanied the raid on hotels in the two towns, but warned that the region’s extreme poverty would only continue to victimize young girls and their families.

Education is one of the few ways that works to make young women more aware of the disease and offer them a better future. In a three-year study released in August, the longer girls were able to stay in school and learn about the consequences of HIV/AIDS beyond the current abstinence program, was effective in reducing unprotected sex. The study, conducted by the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced the results in an effort to find ways to prevent new cases of HIV/AIDS.

Building a Future

For Carpentier, the primary focus is building a future for the orphans. “One of the issues for me is that the orphans are pretty powerless,” she said. “Without education, they have no hope. Without family, there is no one to advocate for them.” Although the HCC is building project, it is the art that is helping to shape the futures of the orphans in Malindi. “That’s why I wanted each child to have a card,” said Carpentier. “They were crammed in that little school and all were trying to get some recognition. I saw the faces of these children.”

© 2006 Foreign Interest

For more information:

Kirsten Carpentier’s blog: www.hcckenya.blogspot.com

Watoto wa Dunia: www.wwdhome.org

UUGAC: www.uuglobalaids.org

PAGAC: www.pagac.org

UN AIDS: www.unaids.org

Contact the author: sharbert@foreigninterest.com