The visit of the five guests from North East Province of Kenya with the Wichita-Metro League of Women Voters provided a fascinating exchange of cultures and friendships. The focus of the visit to Wichita was to learn about how to impact government officials and candidates to encourage response to the legitimate needs of the community..

One of the more important parts of the program for this purpose was the round table with a small group of Wichita leaders who advocate for the poor. A current push in Wichita is to end chronic homelessness and the meeting with the leaders of that movement pointed out that the way to impact politicians is to rally the populace to the cause—that those in elected office will respond when the public mass of interest and support is great. Therefore the instruction at this meeting was on how to get like-minded members of civil society to join together to advocate the true needs of the community. (Our Kenyan guests were astounded to learn that the US has poverty and homelessness.) They took copious notes on community advocacy and organizing techniques.

Following this theme of community advocacy, the Kenyans visited the county commission, the judges and courts, the Kansas State Legislature, met with Governor Kathleen Sibelius and lunched with and interviewed legislators. They asked them about how these think public needs can best be heard and met.

Additionally, they attended a lecture by State Representative Melody Miller McCray about the value of women in politics—especially women of color. The group was able to visit with her afterward and ask questions about how women could impact government leaders. She was charmed enough by our guests to exchange addresses and she is planning to visit them in Kenya.

On Friday of their visit, the local chapter of the NAACP provided a dinner to welcome the Kenyans (organized by a League member, Kenya Cox, who is also membership chair of NAACP and will perhaps be going to Kenya this summer. On the right in the picture below)

On Saturday the League sponsored reception was held at the home of host, Jill Docking. All local government officials were invited as well as leaders of civil society. In all the ladies met over one hundred local and state leaders and others.

As the election campaign for local government officials was in full swing, the Kenyans attended the League of Women sponsored (and run) televised mayoral candidate forum. (They noted that of the two candidates, one was African American and the other was Latino.) Later we discussed how they might hold candidate forums in their areas of Kenya.

The NGO, Trees for Life, invited them for lunch and to tell about their home province. There was not only good exchange of information and cultural sharing. Trees for Life offered to send to each women $300 to be used to create a school library at one school in each of the ladies' home district. This check for $1500 will be hand carried by the Wichita League representative, Delia Garcia, when she goes in June, 2007 and will be administered by the director of the National Council of Women of Kenya. Each woman is to send pictures of the school library she creates and of children reading the books.

The Kenyan guests shared their culture in presentations to women and girls at the local Islamic mosque (and attended prayer services there), and to about 80 students and members of the public at the local community college.

On the last day it was arranged for the women to meet with experts in small entrepreneurship enterprises at Wichita State University's world renown Center for Entrepreneurship. They received ideas on how to help women in their districts to tap into international micro-lending opportunities for small home businesses and how these women might continue to encourage such activities.

The experiences provided the Kenyan women by the Wichita-Metro League included tourist and educational experiences such as a visit to a local school, to the authentic "old west" living history museum of Old Cowtown, lunch and a visit to the Wichita Art museum, meetings in the Kansas African American Museum and a trolley tour of the city.

The local host families were both effective advocates of ordinary people in politics and government service as well as gentle kind surrogate families for our guests. Sally is currently the president of the county Republican women. Sally Dewey has served on the Wichita City Council and her husband David was an elected district judge. He is the chairman of the Cowtown board and gave the ladies the tour of it though it was closed for the season.

 ß Dave Dewey / à Jill Docking

The other host family, Jill and Tom Docking are active in Democratic politics. Tom has been Kansas Lieutenant Governor (his father and grandfather were both governors) and Jill Docking was the Democratic candidate for US Senate in 1996. The conversations at meals provided insights and encouragement about democracy and good governance.

There was not much "down time" but when there was, these hosts provided comforts and friendship. At the Dockings, Jill hired someone to give them a massage after one of the very long days of many meetings. The Dewey's took their guests for a drive into the countryside to see the peach orchard run by their daughter and husband. Going out for ice cream was a big hit.

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