We wrote in today’s Kitsap Sun about Bob Cairns, the Port
Orchard Rotary member who is working to deliver
solar powered mini-computers to school children in Kenya. The
system is driven by a device called Raspberry Pi, developed in 2012
by researchers in Cambridge. The effort dovetails with Cairns’ work
on polio vaccinations and education scholarships in that
country.
Here are a few other things about Cairns you might like to
know:
As mentioned in a
recent Forbes article on the Raspberry Pi project, Cairns could
be on a cruise ship with his wife Chris instead of bouncing around
barely defined dirt roads in a Land Cruiser and holing up in
African hotels, some crawling with insect life. Cairns, a
Manchester resident, retired in January 2014 after 28 years
managing the Manchester Fuel Depot, one of the Navy’s largest and
most strategic fuel installations. He served on the Kitsap Sun’s
editorial board in 2012.
Cairns, with his wife, has made five trips to Africa, the most
recent in October to deliver the first set of Raspberry Pi systems.
He and Chris actively take part in vaccination clinics, helping to
administer oral doses to children. The cause is dear to their
hearts, since Chris’ brother was “the last child in Illinois to get
polio.” Her brother survived but is severely crippled by the
now-preventable disease.
On the trip, Bob and Chris took their granddaughter, Ashley
Carter, a student at Bellingham’s Western Washington University.
“We wanted Ashley to see how much we have in our world versus how
much they don’t have in the rest of the world.”
For example, Collins Nakedi, a young Kenayn man with whom Cairns
has partnered to aid children in East Pokot (a region of Kenya),
said getting an education there is “like organizing a journey to
the moon using a vehicle.” The literacy rate is a dismal 4
percent.
That’s due to lack of resources and lack of cultural support for
education among the largely nomadic people of East Pokot. That’s
starting to change a little bit, thanks in part to the Raspberry
Pi, Nakedi said.
Here’s an interesting fact about Nakedi. As a youngster Nakedi,
the son of a goat herder, snuck into a local school and talked
them into letting him stay began attending a preschool at
around age 4 and had to walk seven kilometers, often by himself, to
get there. He became a boarding student by staying at the school
one night after classes, basically refusing to leave when the
school day was done. Thus began his education, which ended in
a four-year degree, against astronomical odds. Cairns is helping
Nakedi write a book about his life.
Nakedi, whom Cairns calls a genius, and two other young men who
attended the same university in Nairobi from which Nakedi
graduated, have started a NGO to aid youngsters in Kenya’s city
slums and rural areas primarily through expanded educational
opportunities. Cairns has partnered with their nonprofit, Hifadi
Africa, to help distribute Raspberry Pi systems and to identify
students for scholarships, which are essential for attending the
mostly government-run boarding schools that constitute the public
education system. This year, Rotary clubs in the northwest are
providing four very bright Kenyan orphans with $600 scholarships
that will provide a year’s worth of schooling.
Cairns’ involvement in Africa actually started with one of the
other Hifadi Africa principals, Jovenal Nsengimana. Nsengimana lost
his parents and sister in the Rawandan genocide at age 4. He ended
up in a refugee camp with his older brother John, then 7, who took
charge of the family including another younger brother, and who
later was also able to pursue an education. Cairns and his wife
heard about Nsengimana through a Rotary connection and ended up
sponsoring his education through university.
In addition to education, Cairns, with help from Hifadi Africa
and other Rotary members, is working to bring clean water to East
Pokot. The area, partially within the Rift Valley, is extremely
arid. There is virtually no running water or plumbing. People
become ill from drinking water fouled by animal excrement. Rotary
has supported efforts to drill a well in the area, but Cairns says
they’re looking at other technology that is more basic yet more
sustainable and effective.
In remote areas, machinery parts are hard to come by, and the
water quality is poor. Cairns and others are looking at simple
collection systems for harvesting the little rainwater that does
fall. Another technology, not new, is to drill “riverbank
infiltration galleries,” chambers on the banks of rivers that slow
to a trickle most of the year. When rains do fall, water is
directed to the underground chamber for storage. It’s not suitable
for human consumption, but fine for livestock, which play a central
role in East Pokot life.
Like the solar-powered Raspberry Pi, the water system solutions
are simple and work with what’s available, Cairns said.
Don’t look for Cairns to slow down and take the cruise-ship
route any time soon. There’s too much work to be done in East Pokot
and beyond.
To help, donate at
http://www.gofundme.com/raspberrypiafrica.
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