More Kenya

I thought you might enjoy this extract from my article with Colin Feltham from Therapy Today in which I talk about my experience of Kenya:

"This was my second visit to Kenya to meet counsellors and trainers. I was struck yet again by how much I felt myself to be in a caste system there of those with white skin who got power and privilege and those not white who did not. My white skin colour seemed to impact on all interactions with black Kenyans, starting with the airport immigration people who treated me with a friendliness and respect I never get from British and US officials! I was left wondering what black Kenyans really thought about white people! When I witnessed the extreme poverty in Nairobi and elsewhere I realised the reality of this caste system. In England I can hide my class and wear jeans and speak with no apparent accent. In Kenya I can rarely escape my white privilege. After my first visit I joined Make Poverty History and everything I read or heard about Fairtrade, Overseas Aid and Drop the Debt came to me with images of Kenya.
It is of course not all doom and gloom. I was gripped by the beauty and energy of many of the people I met, especially the young people involved in Straight Talk, a group linked with the KAPC Counsellors that encourages adolescents in schools to talk frankly about their lives and to share factual and other information about relationships. I met hundreds of counsellors working with people living with HIV in conditions hardly imaginable to people in Britain – the poverty, the homelessness, the orphans, the plight of sex workers, the lack of medicines and other health care."