Volunteering in Kenya

Displaced Kenyans gather to receive aid from volunteers.

On December 27, 2007, the disputed re-election of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki spurred an outbreak of ethnic and political violence around Nairobi and Western Kenya. Subsequently hundreds of thousands of Kenyans fled their homes, and now live in or around crowded displaced persons camps.

Rafe Steinhauer volunteered in Kenya for more than two months with the Global Volunteers Network (GVN). He taught math, English, and soccer at schools in Nairobi and Maasailand and helped aid missions into displaced persons camps after the post-election violence. In Nairobi, Steinhauer taught at a rehabilitation school for teenage boys who had committed nonviolent crimes. I asked Steinhauer some questions to find out what his experience was like.

I destroyed a community

Over the past decade, a group called Youth ALIVE! has worked to stop the needless deaths of hundreds of Oakland youths. The organization also works to end retaliatory cycles of gangland violence and to raise up peer educators who teach young people to make peaceful choices.

EMILIO MENA

Adam Hanson interviewed several of the youths involved. Interviews were recorded on location.

“I destroyed a community … I had to come back and help rebuild it.”

Mena grew up in East Oakland. He was deeply entrenched in a gang until a mentor helped him out of his dangerous lifestyle. “I destroyed a community. I pushed drugs into this community, … [so] as a man, I had to come back and help rebuild it,” Mena says...

Listen to Mena's Interview: Download link 

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Guardian of the Favela

Posted by Katy Petershack on December 18th 2008 in Uncategorized Edit


Photos | Niccolo Guasti

Ricardo Gomez Ferraz lives in one of the most dangerous cities in Brazil. Recife, located in the far eastern corner of the country, averages 90.9 murders per 100,000 people. While Rio de Janeiro often makes headlines for its bloody drug war, Recife’s even higher rates of violence go relatively unnoticed by the outside world.

The area is riddled with drug dealers, and some members of the police resell confiscated drugs and weapons, providing easy access to both in the community. According to photographer Niccolo Guasti who visited the area, everyone knows a family member or friend who has been killed as a result of crimes.

When Ferraz was 20, he and his cousin Nicolas, were swept up in the violence, shooting and robbing a person on the beach. Policemen found them and immediately shot and killed Nicolas. The police told Ferraz that he could leave with his life but warned him not make another mistake. At that moment, Ferraz decided to devote his time to improving his community.