NGO sector and its challenges

Way back before getting to understand how NGO work, these concept were mesmerizing. At times I used to imagine that there is a certain place with a mysterious account whereby moneys could be extracted without any hitch.
What did not occur to me was that people spent time day and night to solicit this money in order to meet the expectations of that beneficiaries and the society at large.
Another reality dawns; that even the well to do want to benefit from any little resources one may raise painstakingly!
That someone goes through the rigors of approaching and talking to potential donors, at time endures frustration and ridicule to raise a few coins to serve the least fortunate members of the society, this goes unnoticed.
And now that I am right in the game, running an infant NGO, the Human Face Initiative, I see things differently. I have developed tremendous respect to the men and women who have manged to stay afloat in the turbulent NGO world, been able to raise funds, meet their objectives and even share with other smaller organizations.

Parting short: there is always pleasure in giving, pleasure in seeing another person happy out of you efforts.
Lets strive to share the little that we have.
Asanteni Sana.
FK

THE EYESORE OF NHIF

In the recent past there has been a lot of talk about the newly introduced health care in Kenya, mainly targeting the public sector employees.
There have been very candid and specific questions asked; who oversaw the procurement process? was the due process followed? why were some facilities identified as existent whereas they were not? what is the institutional capacity to handle the traffic without compromise?
This saga is slowly turning into a scandle in the making. while valid concerns have been raised and questions asked, there seems to be no satisfactory answer.
Generally, we are witnessing a scheme by the government to effect double taxation on its employees. First, withdraw the meager medical allowance, then impose a reloaded deduction all  totaling to over 4,000 Ksh per month.
The manner in which this is handled qualifies it to be an eye sore in current Kenya where everyone is super vigilant at least going by the recent happenings in the Judiciary last week.
So, whose head is next on the chopping board?

Best of Luck!

SETTING OWN GOALS

EFFECTIVE WAYS OF SETTING YOUR GOALS
Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile.
A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!
Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.
The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.
By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

You set your goals on a number of levels:

• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of goal setting by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):

• Career - What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve?
• Financial - How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals?
• Education - Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?
• Family - Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
• Artistic - Do you want to achieve any artistic goals?
• Attitude - Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.)
• Physical - Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure - How do you want to enjoy yourself? (You should ensure that some of your life is for you!)
• Public Service - Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals that you can focus on.
As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want. (If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants - however, make sure that you also remain true to yourself!)

Step 2: Setting Smaller Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.
Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.
Then create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.On the same,create Not To Do List-Things you shouldnt do today which distracts you from your lifetime goals.
At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.
Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Staying on Course

Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.
Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

• S - Specific (or Significant).
• M - Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A - Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
• R - Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T - Time-bound (or Trackable).

For example, instead of having "To sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to say "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

Further Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

• State each goal as a positive statement - Express your goals positively – "Execute this technique well" is a much better goal than "Don't make this stupid mistake."
• Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you'll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
• Set priorities - When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down - This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
• Keep operational goals small - Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals - You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control!
• In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck.
• If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.
• Set realistic goals - It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.
• It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

Achieving Goals

When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals.
If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.
With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

• If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal harder.
• If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier.
• If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so.
• If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Feed lessons learned back into your goal setting. Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, consider letting them go.

Goal Setting Example

For her New Year's Resolution, Susan has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life.
Her lifetime goals are as follows:

• Career - "To be managing editor of the magazine that I work for."
• Artistic - "To keep working on my illustration skills. Ultimately I want to have my own show in our downtown gallery."
• Physical - "To run a marathon."

Now that Susan has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller, more manageable goals.
Let's take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal - becoming managing editor of her magazine:

• Five-year goal: "Become deputy editor."
• One-year goal: "Volunteer for projects that the current Managing Editor is heading up."
• Six-month goal: "Go back to school and finish my journalism degree."
• One-month goal: "Talk to the current managing editor to determine what skills are needed to do the job."
• One-week goal: "Book the meeting with the Managing Editor."

As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller, more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished.

Key Points

Goal setting is an important method of:

• Deciding what you want to achieve in your life.
• Separating what's important from what's irrelevant, or a distraction.
• Motivating yourself.
• Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

Set your lifetime goals first. Then, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Keep the process going by regularly reviewing and updating your goals. And remember to take time to enjoy the satisfaction of achieving your goals when you do so.

ABOUT THE ONGOING KENYAN DOCTORS' STRIKE

In the past few weeks, there has been one constant item in the news. That is the ongoing doctors’ strike. To the beginners, the story about doctors strike dates over two years ago. During this time, the relevant ministry had rolled out some repressive regulations concerning the welfare of doctors. This included among other things the requirement that medical interns get bonded in order to be posted in the public hospital for the meager pay they have been getting. That this came without proper consultation, it was viewed to be in bad faith by the doctors fraternity. It took lobbying and street demonstrations to have this directive withdrawn quietly. Then, came the issues of persistent intimidation by officers from the ministry of health headquarters. For as long as the medical fraternity can recall, the issue of harrassment and intimidation has been cited time and again. People have tended to use their offices to arbitrarily met out punishment to those who go against their will. There has been suffering imposed on families as a result of unprocedural transfers, interdictions and salary stoppages. While the civil service code allow transfer of civil servants to stations that need their services, it emphasis fairness and consideration. In the ministry of health, one can be in one station today, and then a few days later, you are pushed to the furthest corner without consideration whatsoever. The most recent problem witnessed was the withdrawal of funding for doctors to further their studies at the two postgraduate training stations, namely University of Nairobi and Moi University School of Medicine. Kenyan doctors were at one time guaranteed that they will serve the government for a number of years then the government will facilitate their training and pay their fees. This was slowly removed and in the year 2010, all the governement doctors were informed in the last minute that their fees will not be paid, those who did not have any saving, were coerced to return to their stations. This broke the hearts of many doctors who had served the country with dedication hoping they will benefit from this facilitation for further studies. All the above issues have been raised with the relevant ministries with no feedback whatsoever. The doctors concerns have been met with deafening silence even from the highest offices in the land. Such matters have been thrown to junior officers to dispense with; unfortunately, the junior staffs are not empowered to make binding decisions. The government of Kenya and indeed the entire Kenyan public cannot escape blame in this matter. The government has systematically ignored the plight of hard working and dedicated Kenyan doctors and other healthcare workers who devote themselves for long unappreciated hours to ease the burden of disease and disability. We have witnessed the ever diminishing funding of healthcare in this country with shock and grief. The Abuja declaration commits to allocate 15% of the national budget to healthcare, in appreciation that a healthy nation is a productive nation. On the other hand, a moribund nation is economically sterile and will always be a precipitant to chaos and conflict. Every year, we witness less and less allocation to health care. Currently, only a paltry 5.5% allocated to healthcare and a big proportion of this is embezzled. As a nation we get ashamed that Kenya cannot offer simple remedy like radiotherapy to the cancer patients, women deliver at homes due to long distances they have to travel to get skilled birth attendance. The unfortunate bit is that such afflictions predominantly affect the majority poor. Kenyans have been held hostage by the few rich elites who will do anything to ensure that the poor remain poor, impoverished and in turn keep inviting their leaders to fundraising activities and endless funeral services. These forums in turn become venues to political spurring, verbal gymnastics and making public incitements. Some creative leaders have bought hearses to help transport bodies as a way to reserve the right to address such gathering. There are very few who have provided ambulances in order to save lives! As Kenyans, we also stand accused for tolerating this kind of rot in the crucial ministry of health. In the early days of Uhuru, the country was focused on getting rid of three enemies: poverty, diseased and ignorance. Somewhere along the path, the track was lost. The country lost the gusto to fight these and instead embarked on promotion of ethnicity, corruption and segmentalization of the country. The deplorable state of our health facilities has developed over a period of time. As the citizenry of this country we have never risen to the occasion. We have ignored this developing rot and buried our heads like the proverbial ostrich. Fast forward to the current day. We are faced with the poorly motivated healthcare, lack of equipment, shortage of staff in public health care resulting to overworked few, dismal resource allocation and lack of government goodwill to resolve these issues. Politicization of healthcare remains a major hindrance. In Kenya today, the more you remain in school to refine your skills, the thinner you pay slip will be. That is why, a doctor will spend six years of hard labor, reading, sleepless nights, and scary escapades in order to graduate with a degree in medicine and surgery and on the first posting, he is paid peanuts and condemned to a life of living from hand to mouth. Any attempt to convince the employ to match their work with current inflationary trends is met with a reminder that medicine is a calling. On further insistence, one pulls out an oath written in the BC era and reminds you that you should not be money minded. Two things here come into focus: firstly, the society expects doctors to adopt a certain lifestyle. For sure, very few Kenyan will want to be treated by doctor who lives in a slum. It is expected they lives a dignified lifestyle. Secondly, doctors are subjected to same inflationary hardships, they consumer same commodities whose prices have been soaring by day. That one is a doctor does not mean they will not pay for water, electricity, rent, fuel and school fees for their children. Let’s face it, medicine is trade. One expects fair returns after hard work. Will you put all effort and end up in misery like most of Kenyan doctors today? Additionally, the medical doctors of Kenya united under the KMPDU sent a 13 point petition to the government to seek audience and have the cited issued dealt with. The issues included shortage of health facilities to cope with the population, lack of staffing in the available facilities, inadequate attention to staff training, intimidation of officers and victimization, lack of career progression, the poor working conditions of doctors and long hours at work, fair remuneration of doctors, and general under funding of the health sector. These issues are broader than it has been portrayed recently. The issues raised were aimed at raining the level of care in Kenya and in essence benefit the poor and marginalized Wanjiku who is not able to visit private hospitals or seek health care out of the country. The government has constantly isolated the point on pay of doctors while ignoring the other twelve points. This has been deliberately done to create a wedge between the public and the wide public and to portray doctors as greedy selfish individuals. This is very far from the truth, Kenyan doctors are saying, they are tired of presiding over dying patients due t lack of drugs and equipment. Give the equipment, drugs, right skills and a conducive working environment and pay them competitively, and they will stick to the hospitals and do what they are trained to do and love doing. Treat the patients. That the government sat on these issues and decided not to act despite various attempts to send reminders, it is humanly justified to suggest that doctors can result to industrial action as a means of having their issues given the attention they deserve. There is not a doctor, am sure who yearns for demonstration. In fact, doctors, manage to conduct themselves in a noble manner, are able to cover their own persons problems and listen to your complaints as if you are the first person they are meeting in the morning. This is the epitome of patience and professionalism. Indeed doctors must be the most patriotic people this country can boast of. They wake up when all people are dead asleep, they touch things which other people run away from, they risk their own lives to alleviate the afflictions of fellow citizens. After the strike eventually took off, there have been half hearted attempts by the government to negotiate with the doctors. I must hasten to add that this process has been punctuated by sideshows and unnecessary distraction. Intimidation and harassment of the union membership has been rampant. This has ranged from salary stoppage, dismissal of staff, letters of intimidation, and arbitrary transfers of staff. This clear demonstrates lack of good faith. As we move to the next level of unlocking the stalemate to reach an amicable solution, the two parties must engage constructively and realize that the main sufferer here remains WANJIKI who inevitably has to depend on these public health facilities for their day to day health service.

The New Wave is Sweeping Healthcare in Kenya

In the history of Medicine, there has never been such an age as this one. A brief view a global perspective, we are experiencing unprecedented discoveries and innovations. We are likewise experiencing a shift from the traditional way of doing things. The trade of medicine has been spiced with great input form the contemporary world. In the ealry part of the year, we witnessed seriea of strikes by docotrs in a number of the countries. With time, the public, doctors included have discovered that the government undrstands the only one language- MASS ACTION or strikes if youl ike. Egypt did very well and their demands were met despite the prevailing autocracy and dictatorship by the then presiden. In kenya, we seen to be headed that route. The kenya doctors have unanimously said that for a long time, they have been left in the cold as they pretended that all was well. People who have spent yrs and yrs in schools, earning less that cleaners in the treasury and Kenya revenue Authroity. doctors who cannot afford a medical cover or access to quality healthcare, yet they are in the business of saving lives The same doctors scroutching in servants quarters, living undignified lifes as they push themselves hard 'to save lives' in the history of this land, Kenya has never been this free, whereby all persons enjoy certian rights. The right to strike, picket and aks for better pay is what doctors want to express. Let all Kenyans of goodwill and the world at large know that doctors love their work. But reality checks in and they realize they cannot just live in deinal for ever. It is time their plight is looked into for the benfits of all I salute the KMPDU and its leadership!

BETTER TO DIE ON YOUR FEET THAN LIVE ON YOUR KNEES

In the recent past, I have tended to retreat from public life to reflct, meditate and take stock of the various facets of live. the more I ruminate on these issues, ponder and reflect, the more I am discovering myself. It has been amazing that all along, there was confidence that i knew myself. Ladies and gengtlem, the greatest enemy of our time in mediocrity- simply put, being luke warm, half hearted, 50/50, nusu nusu as many terminologies would describe this. There are many items that remain unmet simply becuase I did not make them a life and death affair. Mediocrity, lets face it kills all our facets slowly but surely. From relationships and social issues, to business, education and academic pursuits, and spititual development. The second issues inevitably becomes procrastination. This means unnecessary postponement of tasks, carrying forward work or locularly, dilly dallying. Men, ho perfect i have recently become in this. Imagine, minutes of an NGO meeting that i am meant to read and confirm takes more that a wk to just read and confirms! Editing a documents takes a century. Then helter skelter, here I am in the last minute trying to move mountains. The last arch enemy becomes poorp planning. in the olden days, we were trained to plan everything from money, time, other resources. With time these simple teachings have been thrown out of the window and in turn resulted in drifting through life like hyacinth on lake Victoria. This aspect of leaving one day at a time sickens me tremndously. Now that I have done thorough serach about my self, I get convicned that these are keeping me on my knees. A time to take bold move is now. Thus, I will take a bold move and deal with these three key aspects noted. This has nothing to do with new year resolution which I used to make several years ago. Any time you notice some strange behavior in me, Know that I am now self informed. Better to die on your feet that live on your feet. Kairithia.

The politics of healthcare

In recent times, Kenyan and the world at large have been treated to the unending saga at the MTRH, that is the Moi teaching and referral Hospital, Eldoret Kenya It may have passed as trivial issue to spend time commenting on, but this is not the case. This hospital has been like home to some of us, we got trained there and this means we are absolutely interested parties. This not withstanding, patients' lives have been greatly put at risk. Foe months now, we have read how the facility as been run down with abandon by persons who are not interested in seeing the hospital flourish for personal and political reasons. Granted, not everyone can afford to go abroad to be irradiated, not everyone has resources to get admitted at the premier facilities in the country. As they say, when two bulls fight, its only the grass that suffers. Take for example the minster for health. He wakes up and decided to interfere with the ongoing recruitment of the director/CEO of the hospital. He scuttles the process, imposes his own person in the position and before long this person is rejected. His boss, the person to whom the minister sings, decided to intervene and the minister ignores him. Who is in charge here? Hallo. Does the prime minister want us to believe that he is absolutely helpless in saving this hospital. For months, patient now feed like pigs, sleep in filthy places, have no access to drugs and are dying in hospitals. The staffs have remained unpaid for so long, some have decided to venture elsewhere. It is high time the concerned- minister, the two principles, the local leaders sat together and saved this hospital. Chest thumping only takes these guys to the Neanderthal age or simply stone age. One day, they will pay for this. There is not a single crime against humanity bigger than this! The dying few is a reflection of many who have chosen to die at home since they are sure they will anyway even if they visit the hospital. This is the modern day Wagalla Massacre, or other atrocities but perpetrated in a very soft way to evade the notice of the media. Over to you Human rights commission.