Deaconess Philip is known widely in King’ong’o village as a church social worker with a heart for everyone. She is also a community educator and most new ideas that reach women in this small village in the heart of Mitaboni Division, Eastern Province have a lot to do with her efforts.

In February 2005 when AfriAfya began working with a group of Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in Mitaboni, Philip and several other women were trained as info-mediaries. Their work was to identify and respond to information needs of their community members particularly women. Four years of working with community champions like Philip has yielded positive results by providing practical information that meets local needs.

An hour of travel, part of it on a bumpy dusty earth road brings you to Mitaboni village, about 70 kms East of Nairobi. The region is semi-arid with scanty vegetation and harsh weather with limited livelihood opportunities especially for the women and youth. It is in this community that AfriAfya, working with a group of CBO’s affilitated to the Mitaboni African Brotherhood Church (ABC), launched a community resource center in February 2005.

Getting the information out Engaging with the Mitaboni community offered AfriAfya the unique opportunity of moving information ‘beyond the computer’, that is of relevance and use to local communities. AfriAfya quickly realised that computers, though important, are not enough by themselves. In most rural settings, face to face contact over time works better in passing on knowledge and learning. In the case of Mitaboni, CBO meetings were utilised to get out information sourced from AfriAfya. The use of community champions within the CBOs as info-mediaries further enhanced the delivery process and allowed AfriAfya to reach many more people. The treeless and dry landscape of Mitaboni.

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