Kasha Patel’s love of science, writing leads her to ‘Pamoja Together’ project

BYCOLLEEN S. GOOD •

TIMESWESTVIRGINIAN

When Kasha Patel was a little girl, she knew what she wanted to be — a doctor, just like her father.

When she left Fairmont for Wake Forest University in North Carolina, she was pre-med, majoring in chemistry. She even took the MCAT, the exam required for getting into medical school, the summer after she graduated from college.

But then she decided to pursue another of her passions: writing.

Patel was involved in her school paper at Wake Forest and even minored in journalism. She was able to find a way to bring her two interests together, with science journalism. She started a year-and-a-half master’s program in science journalism at Boston University in the fall of 2012.

“It was a really great intersection of writing and science learning that I really enjoyed,” Patel said.

That eventually took her even farther from home.

In her spring semester in 2013, she heard about a program called “Program on Crisis Response and Reporting” that would match well with her interests in science and journalism.

The program started a new student-powered news network called “Pamoja Together,” which brought students from three Kenyan universities together with students from Boston University.

The Kenyan students researched aid products in Western Kenya and developed relationships with organizations that were implementing health and development projects in the region. Then a group of eight Boston University students were given the opportunity to go to Kenya with their professors for two weeks and, working with the Kenyan students, produce stories on foreign aid that told the stories from the point of view of the aid recipients.

Patel thought the program sounded like a great opportunity, and she applied that spring.

Out of 60 applicants, Patel was among the eight chosen for the trip.

All eight students had experience in public health and journalism. Half were from the school of public health and half from the communications department.

After the spring semester was over, the students and their professors boarded a plane and started their journey to Kenya. They were there on assignment for the first two weeks of May and, in that time, had to produce two stories and a multimedia project.

They spent the entire first day brainstorming story ideas.

“We just sat around a huge table, and we each went around telling our potential story ideas,” Patel said. “It took all day. And after that, we kind of narrowed down what our story ideas could potentially be, and we had to do a budget to figure out, OK, how much will it cost to get there?”

Patel ended up covering two stories with her Kenyan partner, Faith. She said the Kenyan partners were indispensable. “If I didn’t have Faith there to help me, I wouldn’t have been able to get around anywhere,” Patel said. “And I wouldn’t have gotten my contacts.”

Faith helped Patel develop a relationship of trust with her sources.

“You’re going there and you’re reporting on these intense topics, and these people, they don’t know who we are,” Patel said.

But because the Kenyan students had already developed a relationship with the local organizations, there was a level of trust there from the beginning.

“There was this trust where we’re not going to exploit your stories because that’s not what we want to do,” Patel said. “We just want to tell the story.

“And in order to get beyond the surface, you really have to have those local contacts.”

For one of Patel’s stories, she shadowed a community health worker named Millicent Akinyi Odhiamb while she checked in on households in Ting Wangi village. Odhiamb takes care of more than 400 people and visits almost 100 houses each month.

“It was just an overwhelming number of houses they have to visit each month,” Patel said. “They go and they check up on people and make sure that everything is good with their living conditions and everything is hygienic.”

Walking around with Odhiamb, Patel said she became exhausted in the heat. But Odhiamb was still walking strong, even in her long dress.

Odhiamb also has a second job, running her own store. This is because, while being a community health worker is considered an honor, it pays very little or not at all.

“Very rarely do they get paid, and if they do get paid, it isn’t enough to cover their housing and everything,” Patel said.

Much of Kenya’s health care system is funded by foreign aid, Patel said. This includes the work done by community health workers.

Patel said she enjoyed the program, especially the chance to get close with the local people, like Odhiamb.

SEE PATEL, PAGE 3F

Above, stores in Ashirembe, Kenya, are pictured. Kasha Patel wrote two stories during her time in Kenya. One followed a group of community health workers in the Ashirembe area who produce theatrical shows in residentsʼ native language to educate community members about good health practices. Right, Kasha Patel now works for NASA, writing science pieces. She is pictured standing in front of the Minotaur V rocket in September 2013. Far right, Kasha Patel and Faith Chesire are pictured with community health workers after a long day of hiking to administer vitamins to students at area elementary schools.

SUBMITTED PHOTOS Pictured is the Ting Wangi village in Kenya, where community health worker Millicent Akinyi Odhiamb visits around 454 people over nearly 100 houses a month. Odhiamb provides a variety of services, from checking in on the health of her residents to installing water sanitation systems in bathrooms and distributing malaria prevention materials.

Patel

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She found similarities between the Kenyan communities she came to know and her hometown in Fairmont.

“I like Fairmont because it has a close community,” Patel said. “I think I found a similar sentiment in the areas I visited in Kenya.”

Patel said she saw that closeness in Odhiamb’s hard work as a community health worker. Odhiamb cares deeply about the people in TingWangi.

“Millicent has that connection with Ting Wangi. I have that connection with Fairmont,” Patel said. “I feel like the whole town of Fairmont raised me.”

Patel was born and raised in Fairmont, graduating from Fairmont Senior High School in 2008.

Growing up, she said her family was all about science — from her dad to her mom and her three older brothers, being good at science was something her family valued.

“Now that I’m older, I think that was a good decision, because with science, I feel like I can do everything,” Patel said.

Patel, now 22, lives in D.C., working for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, writing about science for NASA’s Earth sciences department.

While she loved her time in Kenya, she said in the long term she’d like to stay closer to home.

“I don’t think I could be away from my home and my family for that long,” Patel said. “I think there are a lot of opportunities here in America that I could do.”

Now that she lives in fastpaced, traffic-ridden D.C., she said she appreciates her visits home even more.

“I always think of my home in West Virginia as like my vacation home,” Patel laughed. “I love going back there now and seeing my parents and just being in Fairmont, where everything is so much easier. I love West Virginia.”

Patel and her classmates’ stories can be accessed at the project’s website at http://pamojatogether. com/.

Email Colleen S. Good at cgood@timeswv.com or follow her on Twitter@CSGoodTWV.