APR Board Member tours project sites
The APR newsletter team recently spoke with board member Dr. Jim Schaefer after his return from a 2 month tour of Africa that included APR’s project sites in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.
We wanted to get his firsthand assessment of how APR’s current programs are going and how they will be expanding during the coming year.
The interview took us from Africa's largest slum to a football team in the Transmara region of western Kenya.
APR: This was your second tour for African PTSD Relief in 2015.
JS: I have gotten to know many airports on the African continent quite well over the last few years.
APR: What was the purpose of this trip?
JS: Visiting the schools and their communities on a regular basis is important.
We have very competent and experienced partners in charge of teaching the TM program and taking care of the local administration for APR’s programs. But as a registered non-profit, APR has a crucial fiduciary responsibility to our donors to make sure their money is being well spent and that requires our periodic physical presence to assess properly. So part of my job there was to review the different projects, see how things are going, talk to the people involved, and perform some due diligence on operational expenses, things like that.
Plus, Africa is such an incredible, dynamic place. Things are changing very fast there and you really have to experience it directly in order to keep up. The efforts of an organization like APR need to stay tuned in to that dynamism and how it is affecting the people we are trying to help.
So it is really fulfilling for me to tell you that APR’s donors, our board, our advisors and our local partners are contributing very concretely and powerfully to the positive transformation taking place across Africa at this time.
APR: So you may have just partly answered the next question, but how are APR’s current programs doing?
JS: Fantastic. Amazing. The children in the schools are so happy and eager to learn. And there are so many hundreds of them now! All across Kenya and South Africa and soon Tanzania. And their meditating teachers and parents are happy too! The whole mood of these schools just changes when TM comes to them.
The communities as a whole have been very supportive of APR’s programs which are very important. It has to be an inclusive endeavor if we want it to last and be sustainable.
As a matter of fact, it has been the teachers and parents who want us to expand our programs faster. They also tell us about other schools whose children need help dealing with stress and trauma. And then some of the people from this distant village will show up out of the blue and ask for the PTSD relief program for their kids.
You don’t know what word of mouth is until you’ve spent some time in Africa.
APR: Sounds like APR will need to raise a lot more funding going forward.
JS: A lot. [laughter] But in my years of experience helping implement similar programs in different parts of the world, I can say that dollar for dollar, donors can reach more people in Africa than just about anywhere else on the planet right now. Africa represents an incredible opportunity for all of us who want to help and create a significant social impact.
APR: But even as we speak, aren’t some of APR’s projects taking the next steps in expansion.
JS: That’s right. There are many things starting up in the next few weeks. The first couple hundred students will be instructed in TM at the Global One School in Kibera. Kibera is Africa's biggest slum, next to the capital of Nairobi, and Global One Foundation is doing really impressive work there. This is a key project for APR, operated by our local partner, IMS-Kenya, led by Dr. Solomon Mwangi.
A large group of street children at an orphanage in Nakuru will be starting TM. Their teachers started a few months ago and are doing very well. A new school for us in Mombasa, on the coast, is also beginning their APR program very soon. There’s just a whole lot of activity. We’re pouncing like lightning in every direction, as the saying goes.
APR: Is that all? [laughter]
JS: Not at all. Our projects in the Transmara region of western Kenya continue to grow. The Chamrecc School there was APR’s first project in Kenya. Three hundred young people started TM. Since then, the teachers and staff at a nearby school across the border in Tanzania have been taught and we’re working on getting the students going in the program soon.
Solomon and his team from Nairobi will be going there in the next few weeks to do follow-up for those that already practice TM. And they will be teaching TM to another large group as well, including a football team.
APR: A football team?
JS: This Transmara area has seen a lot of tribal violence over the years. PTSD and its symptoms are quite prevalent across the population.
APR: You’ll have to tell us how the team does after they start meditating.
JS: You bet. And another group of widows will be learning TM at the same time. These are women whose husbands died in the fighting there. People at the Chamrecc School reached out to us to give TM to these ladies so we set that up and made it happen. The community there looks out for its own. This is our second group of widows.
APR: It sounds like a fascinating story – the Widows of Chamrecc.
JS: Yes, it came about very naturally. Africa is full of stories like that.
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We will be reporting more details from this interview about the projects in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa in upcoming newsletters.
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