Kenya Red Cross Society Secretary General Abbas Gullet. Photo/FILE
By JULIUS SIGEI jsigei@ke.natiomedia.com
Posted Friday, August 19 2011 at 22:30
Posted Friday, August 19 2011 at 22:30
He was orphaned at the tender age of six and does not ever want to hear that a person has died of hunger.
Mr Abbas Gullet, the man at the helm of the Kenya Red Cross Society, is in the face of a massive humanitarian crisis in Northern Kenya triggered by the worst drought in the region in more than six decades, putting 3.5 million Kenyans’ lives in danger.
Flash floods have also recently conspired to worsen the anguish of the drought-stricken pastoralists in Turkana.
The society, working with corporations and media houses, recently launched a campaign called Kenyans for Kenya which this week had raised about $7 million (about Sh650 million) to feed hungry the hungry.
An early riser, Mr Gullet’s day at the office begins well before 7am.
Saw a dead person
“Our mandate is to protect lives and alleviate suffering and it is as disheartening as it is belittling when I hear this debate about whether people have died or not,” he told Saturday Nation in between taking calls at his Nairobi offices this week.
“Okay, we saw a dead person in Turkana but we don’t want to engage in a shouting match about it. In any case, even the many others we saw there who are suffering should not have been in that condition. It is those pictures that we brought from Turkana which inspired the funds-drive,” he says.
Apart from the Kenya for Kenyans campaign, the Red Cross provides relief food in Ijara, Garissa, Kwale, Malindi and Kibwezi where 400,000 schoolchildren, pregnant women, the elderly and HIV and Aids orphans are fed.
Drawn criticism
A few minutes into the interview, he plunges into the investments the organisation is involved in, which have been criticised.
Critics say humanitarian organisations should not engage in business.
The Kenya Red Cross is created through an Act of Parliament.
He says: “The aid business has become very competitive with many NGOs competing for the same resources. Donor funding is diminishing by the day and we had to think of a way of sustaining our programmes,” he said.
“We got a loan of $22.5 million (Sh2.1) billion from Equity Bank payable over 10 years to build hotels in the country after realising there was inadequate bed capacity and that the investment would employ many young Kenyans,” he said.
The hotels are in Nyeri, Eldoret and Nairobi, with the latter already an generating income.
Mr Gullet says he has always been interested in the hospitality industry.
“As a young man, I went to Germany to train in it but it did not work out. It is good we have entered the sector through the Red Cross to serve the needy,” he says. He says the hotels are run independently and professionally.
A report titled “Kenya Red Cross: Resource flows and humanitarian contribution” by Jane Keylock and Kerry Smith produced in May says the Red Cross’ two main ventures are a private ambulance service (E Plus), and the Red Court chain of hotels.
Mr Gullet’s journey in humanitarian work started 38 years ago when he trained as a volunteer in first aid at the President’s Award Scheme in Mombasa where he was brought up after leaving his place of birth in Modogashe, Garissa.
He later joined and rose to senior ranks at the International Red Cross Society and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Between November 1991 and September 1993, he lived and worked in Malawi with millions of Mozambican refugees as the acting head of delegation.
Between June 1999 and December 2002 he was posted to Fiji as regional head of delegation for the Pacific.
Come January 2001, he was back in Kenya on secondment from the international federation to turn around the fortunes of the Kenya chapter which was reeling under financial problems.
Resigned in a huff
He later went back to headquarters as head of operations and by 2004, had become the organisation’s deputy secretary-general.
He resigned shortly after in a huff and returned home to the Kenya Red Cross where he worked as a volunteer treasurer 10 months before being elected secretary-general in May 2005.
“My highest and lowest moments were in 2007-2008. It was sad to see people die and the country literally go up in flames. But it was also the time the Kenya Red Cross Society came of age as it handled the post-election violence crisis,” says the father of four.
He says the Kenyans for Kenya campaign, whose aim is to alleviate the suffering of more than 3.5 million Kenyans, is the highlight of his almost 40-year career.
“Our target was Sh1 billion and we have already raised almost Sh700 million. We hope to get even more from funds-drives this week. We owe this to corporate and individual Kenyans,” he says.
Mr Gullet says he gets calls from all over the world as it was a first in Kenya and in Africa.
In 2007, Mr Gullet was named UN in Kenya Person of the Year. The recipient is chosen for commitment towards achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
Speaking for UN agencies based in the country, resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme and coordinator of UN system operational activities in Kenya Elizabeth Lwanga said: “Abbas Gullet’s timely interventions and leadership has made the society the leading national humanitarian organisation in the country, recognised across the world as one of the best performing National Red Cross Societies, and an example of what local relief groups can achieve.”
Under his leadership, the Kenya Red Cross has warehouses dotted around the country, offices linked by radio, telephone and Internet and today can handle more than 120,000 people in distress.
After he had been in office for one year, the society’s annual budget grew from Sh338 million in 2005 to Sh1.4 billion in 2006.
Its assets grew by 400 per cent after the completion of a multi-million shilling complex comprising four-star hotel with a health club, conference facilities and an office block
His vision extends beyond Kenya. He organised African Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to be responsible for their own development under the aegis of the New Partnership for Africa Red Cross Societies.
One of the society’s most successful project is in Tana River where thousands of hectares of land owned by 5,000 farmers from Tana River and Garissa counties are under irrigation.
“The mostly pastoralist communities who relied on relief food are today proud exporters of vast amounts of bananas, chillis, onions, tomatoes, oranges and mangoes to Far East markets,” says Mr Gullet.
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