One of the big goals of the hospital in the past year or two has been to develop a brand. We've done this with photography, and if you have ever worked in the corporate world, you are probably very familiar with the concept. I was talking about it with a friend, and he pointed out what a big deal it is for things at the hospital to be done with excellence and how the 700+ employees can really take pride in Kijabe hospital and what it stands for.
A designer came up with the first logo, and since our visit last year I've been doing off-shoots of it for different hospital enterprises, the latest of which is for the Kijabe College of Health Sciences:
Another endeavor has been a newsletter/magazine called the Kijabe pulse. Henry, a Kenyan who works for resource mobilization at the hospital, gathers stories and photographs, then it comes to me for design, then on to the powers that be for approval, then out via email to friends of Kijabe Hospital around the world.
Above is a screen grab of page last issue. If you want you can see the full issue here:
Next projects, video, which is newish territory for me. Our cameras shoot video, but it is a very different way of looking and thinking than still photography. The fun part of the video project has been catching a vision of just how remarkable the growth at Kijabe has been in the past years and will be in the future. In the 1980's there were a handful of doctors for the whole hospital. Now there are Pediatricians; OB's; Orthopedic, General, Pediatric, and Neurosurgeons; ENT's - the resources and quality of care this "rural" hospital provides absolutely phenomenal. I'm excited that Arianna can be here at a time where she can develop training protocols and impart learning that will literally spread to all of Africa.
Here's the first video we put together:
And last, but definitely not least, the Centennial Book. The hospital is coming up it's 100th birthday, and the question is, how do we celebrate? There have been books written about RVA and some amazing missionaries, but very little is directly about the hospital. So I'm working with a couple of other doctor's spouses and a growing network of people who have attachments to the hospital to compile a history and storytelling record of what God has done here.
There are some really cool parts of this project and one of the greatest so far is the treasure trove of glass-plate slides that a local historian (Shel Arensen creator of Old Africa Magazine) let me borrow to sift through. So I set up a lightbox and photographed them, and they are absolutely amazing both from a historical and artistic perspective.
This is a colorized slide (originally in black and white, but color was painted in) of the original Theodora hospital that was built in 1931 on RVA's campus. But is is also a fantastic composition with the foreground, the little boy right on the third, and the repeating lines of the building. I assume that the missing text at the bottom said Original Location of Kijabe Hospital.
Many of the slides will forever be anonymous, but they are beautiful. This is another colorized slide of a Kikuyu gentleman.
Many are in negative form, like these three Kikuyu boys.
Here is another negative that I almost didn't photograph as it looks like a throwaway slide. The original was upside down when I shot it, and it shows a view of Kiambogo, the original building at RVA (where Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone) with Mt. Kenton to the right background and Mt. Longonot (the volcano) to the left. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess from the lack of structures that this image was from around 1920. The current hospital would be in the field to the bottom left, and all around the Kiambogo building are houses and school-buildings. Mt. Kenton has a patchwork of terraced farms and houses, and only Mt. Longonot, which is a national park (and somewhat active volcano) remains untouched today. Looking at something like this really is like finding treasure!
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