‘De-tribalising the mind’: Jonathan Doering reports on a ‘bread and roses’ project in Kenya

‘There is a psychological aspect to this social and political work.’

‘Compassion, to be effective, requires detailed knowledge and understanding of how society works… What is important is… that those who are concerned about these values be prepared to grapple with the complex realities of modern society as it is.’

Grigor McClelland in Quaker faith & practice 23.47

Kenya is lush, energetic, and chaotic, its people brimming with vision and vibrancy. Yet it is also riven by economic exploitation, the history of colonialism, and inter-tribal tensions and civil strife. My family and I were privileged to spend four weeks on a working visit there in 2019, and were awe-struck by the people and the land.

Despite two thirds of Kenya being arid or semi-arid, you can travel across miles of the most fertile agricultural landscape imaginable. You see two colours: rich red soil and stark green cash crops – often tea and coffee, grown for Western markets.

Returning home, we were soon battened down against Covid, but felt destined to maintain a connection with Kenya. Life felt like a bottle shaken with the cork wedged tightly in place, and the pressure building, building.

Then, in 2020, George Floyd’s death at the hands of four Minnesota police officers provoked a heartfelt response of protest and soul-searching around the world. There was a clear understanding that this couldn’t simply be a case of muted regret, then a delicate return to business as usual. I reached out to fellow Quaker and seasoned social activist, educator, chaplain, and writer Nim Njuguna; we embarked together on a dialogue project that grew into our book about racial justice, Enlarging the Tent (see review, 19 January).

When we began working together, Nim was still based in North London, attending Harrow Meeting. Originally from Nakuru, Kenya, he first arrived in Britain over forty years ago, working across a dizzying array of church, charity, and community roles, while never neglecting his roots. Last year, he and his wife Liz returned to Kenya, beginning the next stage of their life: an integrated community project, the Mbaruk Field Studies Centre, offering Mbaruk community people – some internally displaced by inter-tribal violence – a space to meet. Kenyan society is complex, and this project is similarly multifaceted.

Nim and I met on Zoom recently to discuss this work, as well as his life and work more broadly. How does it feel, to return to Nakuru, now Kenya’s fourth-largest city?

‘It’s a place we know yet has changed dramatically… Nakuru is a city under construction. The working-class people who used to be able to afford to live in the centre can no longer do so. An international airport is coming… Five-star hotels owned by multinationals are springing up. We’re very fortunate that we acquired land in the 1970s which can now spring back up.’

The community project involves developing five-acres of land into a community park: ‘The government has issued each internally-displaced family an eighth of an acre to build a home and grow food. There’s no space for a children’s play area, or for people to walk and socialise – that’s what we want to create.’

This is a project that attempts to address the multi-layered complexity of development. ‘People have been displaced by tribal clashes, and this offers them a safe space to meet and engage.’

There is also an economic dimension to the work: ‘There will also be space for stalls to sell produce, as well as for community meetings and a refreshment facility. The hope is that there will be opportunities created by an international airport being built six miles away, along with hotels, for a tourist industry to generate community income which will help food security. It will also offer a neutral space for other meetings, for instance agricultural and health outreach workers in the community.’

Nim’s life has been rich and full of incident, each phase building towards the next: ‘I see each stage as steps on a journey… I attended a Bible school in England, and managed Richmond Fellowship Therapeutic Community. I was working with so-called vagrant alcoholics in Spitalfields Crypt in 1979-80, very much involved in the life of Brick Lane in the East End, where I lived. I saw many of the National Front marches, the riots of the early eighties [during which PC Keith Blakelock was killed]… then off to Glasgow, working with patients with mental health issues for two years, then back to London.’

This was when Nim began work at the 259 Project, on Waterloo Road in London, helping to resettle homeless young men. Also during that time, he was training social work students, through which he met his wife, Liz.

Nim has moved through a wide range of roles: university and prison chaplain; social activist; selector of potential magistrates; and therapist, across London, Cambridge, and Kenya. Each stage has been characterised by a deep sense of strategic thinking, as well as a relentless drive to break down the walls that divide. This included working to develop contacts between white medical graduates and black and minority ethnic (BAME) citizens while an Open University (OU) tutor, before setting up a counselling service, management company, and an ecology centre back in Kenya. There he applyied the experience and insights gained from the OU, as well as arranging for British and US students to spend time working on local projects.

‘That was very important: it was part of intercultural and de-tribalising work… Earlier, in the 1970s, with funding from the World Council of Churches, I was getting students from one tribal area to live in another tribal area for a few weeks. That got me thinking about inter-community and inter-tribal dialogue, invaluable for later peace-making work.’

Nim then brought these insights back to Britain, working on a church-based community project in London, then as the director of Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum, an umbrella body of thirty-five ethnic organisations. It was an exciting time, with different groups arriving in the area, offering opportunities for engagement: ‘I remember arguing with some of my black friends about the need to dialogue with the Eastern Europeans who were arriving in the 1990s. They would be accepted after a generation or two, they’d come to be seen as white British. I felt that we needed to start a dialogue with people who had not made their minds up about living in a multicultural society, even though they might have been ignorant of the lives of black people.’

During this time, Nim was an ordained Baptist minister, also serving as an associate chaplain at Anglia Ruskin University. After this period, he returned to London, working as a therapist with addicts, circling towards a new spiritual stage. ‘I knew that I had to become a Quaker. I had arrived in my spiritual home.’ Very quickly, he took Woodbrooke’s ‘Equipping for Ministry’ course, later holding an Eva Koch Scholarship, and serving as an associate Woodbrooke tutor.

Harvey Gillman remarks in Quaker faith & practice that the term ‘testimony’ is ‘used by Quakers to describe a witness to the living truth within the human heart as it is acted out in everyday life… They are not optional extras, but fruits that grow from the very tree of faith’ (23.12).

That integrated approach to living out Quaker values is something that Nim and Liz are passionate about: ‘It’s to do with social justice. All of our Quaker values, of being peacemakers, living simply, coming alongside people who are poor and deprived, is a massive aspect of our life here. A key aspect of our work is showing people how they can grow foods that are not so common in this area but are indigenous to it. There are young, talented and creative women who, due to the effects of patriarchy, are denied job opportunities. The whole concept of social justice and speaking truth to power through direct action is very much part of our spiritual journey.’

This journey has also taken them to Pendle Hill, an experience which has raised Nim’s awareness of different approaches to racial justice. ‘In America we experienced racial justice being taken seriously. The notion of reparations seemed much more accepted, it’s not a debate in the way that it still is in Britain.’

Thus far, we’ve covered the new project’s practical considerations – what you might call the ‘bread’. But Nim and Liz are also tending a space for ‘roses’, in the shape of an Art House that brings together Kenyan artwork, provides space for Kenyans to make their own art, and presents ‘Kenya’s Story in 100 Objects’.

We talk a little more about the Art House, where cultural meets social and political: ‘There are forty-four different tribes in Kenya. That means forty-four different cultures. We are collecting art from these different tribes and acquiring objects used by all of them, and having replicas made of Kenyan artwork which is being sold and collected or displayed in museums.’

Connected to this, there is also a psychological aspect to this social and political work: ‘It’s all part of de-tribalising the mind through art. Young people will come and see artwork from people who they see as the Other. Tribal pride is okay – it’s tribalism that’s wrong, seeing yourself as superior to others because of the tribe that you belong to. We want to work on that and support self-taught artists through promoting their work.’

Admiring images of some of these works, with their smooth, organic planes and edges, it feels to me as if they have been lifted and formed from the land itself, sculpted from earth and rock and wood: warm, living objects carrying memory and meaning.

A further dimension of Nim and Liz’s life in Kenya is what they call ‘radical hospitality’: ‘We’ve welcomed people who are visiting and working in Kenya: a mixed heritage couple from Europe, a PhD research student from the US/China, a UK family, a Kenyan artist, a retired Anglican priest visiting a local children’s project. We’re able to offer board and lodging to people who can volunteer with our community projects. This is part of our ministry of hospitality.’

It is a generous and flexible hospitality: ‘If people are interested in coming to work alongside and help us or if you’re passing through Kenya, just pop in. If you don’t want to live in a hotel but prefer to live in a home and get involved and see what we do, come and stay.’ This wide-ranging project is an exciting one, and Nim and Liz hope to hear from people who would like to learn more. Any financial support will also be gratefully received.

To find out more about the Mbaruk Field Studies Centre and Art House, and/or to donate, contact: mah.kenya100@gmail.com.

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