Rotary Club Of Warwick

May8 - International Evening – Kenya

The Rotary Club of Warwick held its annual International Understanding Evening at the Hilton Hotel last week with an illustrated presentation on north Kenya.

Speaker David Gallagher spent a year living with the Turkana tribe in the far north of Kenya, close to the border with Sudan and Ethiopia. The area is remote from urban areas and the people there live a rural existence, fishing in the large saline lake Turkana and cattle herding. Lack of water would send them north into an area occupied by the Morillo tribe of South Sudan, and armed conflict would follow.

David was a volunteer with the Missionary Community of St Paul the Apostle, and helped to set up a school and medical centre to which both tribes could send children. He gained the respect of the local people, and worked to mediate between the communities. Work also started on building small dams to catch water and help to defuse tensions.

Members learned about a very different Kenya from the tourism industry of safaris and modern agriculture more familiar to us. The club were interested to inspect beadwork costumes of the Turkana and leather gourds and shields, and David illustrated his talk with pictures of the people, their culture and the work completed there.

Pictured here is Speaker David Gallagher with Rotary President Jackie Crampton

Kenya evening 010

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