Early last week, Kenyans in Charlotte, North Carolina hosted the Kenyan Ambassador to the United States of America. This meeting followed another one held in Atlanta two weeks earlier. On both occasions, the ambassador Elkana Odembo stressed his intention to fully engage the Kenyan community in the USA as they organised to increase their voice and practical participation in building their country.

In an engaging question and answer session, the Charlotte community petitioned Odembo to facilitate the abundant capabilities of Kenyans living in the USA to help in exploiting the main economic opportunities available in Kenya.

They specifically asked Odembo to establish a clear channel for obtaining information pertaining to foreign and local investment opportunities, economic, education and cultural activities that would enable them participate meaningfully in Kenya's development agenda.

They were particularly concerned about Kenya's bureaucratic processes in acquiring property deeds, passports, national identity cards and PINs.

One area of concern was how to be assured of legal protection of diaspora investments in Kenya, citing many instances where locals had dispossessed them of their investments through a corrupt judicial system. They appealed to the government to establish a department dedicated to dealing specifically with diaspora matters as Egypt, Ghana, India and China have done.

In response to these issues, Odembo suggested that Kenyans in the diaspora form a strong and credible organisation and work together with similar Kenyan community groups across the US in order to strengthen their position when engaging the government and its agencies. He emphasized the need for Kenyans living in the USA to register with the embassy to make it easier to reach them in the event there was need to facilitate their safety.

Since coming to Washington hardly a year ago, Odembo has been actively reaching out to the diaspora community in the US with a view to establishing channels of communications. Odembo has visited 16 states, a feat that may not have been achieved by his predecessors.

There are serious issues that Odembo must confront head on. Though the number of Kenyans living and studying in the USA is significant, there is currently no database to quantify and verify the actual number. The estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of various categories that include students, professionals and naturalised Americans.

There are also quite a number that do not have legal papers allowing them to remain in the US. Among these are people who came as visitors or students but something went wrong and they have hence remained as illegal immigrants. This category is naturally the most vulnerable group considering the ever increasing stringent US immigration laws. In an ideal situation, this is the group that should be supported by the Kenyan embassy through petition to the State Department and have their status regularised.

The other vice that Odembo needs to deal with is the imported negative ethnicity. There exists tribal colonies in certain states to the extent that when you visit them, the air of ethnicity is difficult to miss.

The vastness of the US itself is also a challenge. With 50 states spread across the continent from the Atlantic East Coast to the Pacific West Coast, it is next to impossible to expect Odembo who lives in the District of Columbia to effectively represent Kenya in this subcontinent.

Odembo is therefore right in suggesting that Kenya must consider opening honorary consulates in strategic states and place well informed US citizens in charge of those consulates to sell Kenya to the rest of the federal government.

Kenya is wasting over a million dollars every year to pay a PR company whose fruits are yet to be seen. This money can be given to the embassy and the ambassador can decide who will work to clean up Kenya's image.

With his experience as Ford Foundation Africa executive, coupled with his heading the NGO Council in Kenya for several years; not to mention his many years of activism against bad governance under the last two regimes, one can expect that Odembo will change the game in Washington.

With his already excellent rapport with the White House and Congress, one only expects that the ever critical Kenyans who at one time could see nothing coming out of the embassy and the government back home will have a change of heart and let Odembo harness their talent for the good of Kenya.