We are back in Kenya after a very enjoyable trip to India. All went well and I’ll post some highlights over the next few days.
We went to Nairobi a couple of days early to do some work on fund raising for the Virtues Project. Together with the Western Province Task Force (this is the short form of the full title of Western Province Sustainable Peace and Harmony Task Force) I put together a proposal for the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. I was able to meet with the representative of the fund in Nairobi and we were well received. The next round of grants is in April and we may have a good chance of financing that will enable us to set up an office and do some facilitator training as well as more workshops. I also met with the CIDA representative. Although CIDA deals through the Ministry of Education on country wide projects, the rep was very interested in our work and gave us some good advice and pointers in dealing with the Ministry since we want to expand largely through the education network. It is now up to us to carry this through. Who knows? At some point we may be big enough for CIDA to take notice of us.
After these meetings we flew from Nairobi to Dubai and then on to New Delhi. We had several hours layover in Dubai Emirates terminal. This is a huge complex (we estimated it at over a kilometre long) The staff are of every nationality imaginable as are the travelers and customers. Costumes are of every type and colour. It was the 20th anniversary of opening and after midnight all goods were 25% off . The activity around the Cartier watches, the fine Scotch and Armani clothing was intense.