Nairobi A highlight whenever I’m in Nairobi is the opportunity to meet and dialogue with community organizers who are part of COPA Kenya, the Community Organization Practitioners Association of Kenya, and a unique professional association of organizers. We had what they call a “sharing” in which ACORN Kenya’s organizers, David Musungu and Sammy Ndirangu joined …
Category: ACORN
Fifty Years Later, Whatever Happened to VISTA?
Nairobi There’s no way to tell the founding story of building ACORN or even my experiences with the National Welfare Rights Organization before that without offering some thanks to the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program and the leg up it gave fledgling organizing efforts in staffing or providing “slots” that might pay organizers …
African Internet Barriers Dropping for Commerce not People
Nairobi My first visit to Nairobi was more than a decade ago. Where I stayed claimed access to the internet on a dial-up modem so slow that each email would take fifteen minutes or more to send, if it didn’t timeout before completion. Doing the least amount after a day of work meant staying up …