GVI Kenya

Category: Community Conservation, Environmental Education, Uncategorized | Date: Apr 29 2009 | By: gvikenya

Saturday morning wasn’t a promising start… pouring rain in which I had to drive Squirrel, our little wooden dinghy, between Shimoni  and Mkwiro… I jumped overboard just to keep warm in the sea!

The next stage of the journey was more comfortable; after drying off and dressing up, our small party of staff and volunteers climbed in to the car and headed south, to the coastal village of Vanga on the border with Tanzania. Leaving the car behind for fear of getting stuck in the mud, we walked the final leg, at times bare foot through the mud, to the smaller village of Jimbo. The reason for our little odyssey was an invitation to a traditional Swahili wedding. A niece of Athumani, our friend from Shimoni, was marrying the son of Mchasa, boat captain with Paradise Divers, our neighbours in Mkwiro.

The rain came down once more as we joined the procession of men escorting the groom from the mosque where he had been married, to the house where he would be united with his new wife, but the excitement running through the jostling crowd clearly wasn’t about to be dampened by the weather.

Meanwhile, the ladies in our party had taken up their positions, along with the other women, beautifully wrapped in bright, bold kanga patterns, at the bride’s house, to witness the union. In contrast to weddings back home, this is not meant to be a time for beaming brides – tradition expects her to appear sad as she prepares to leave her family behind. As a result, photos of the ‘happy couple’ can appear anything but… however it was reassuring to see that this particular bride was clearly struggling to keep a smile from her face, even if it did go against protocol!

With our party reunited, we were ushered in to one of the family homes, sat on colourful hand-woven mats, and presented with vast plates of lemon-coloured rice and richly flavoured beef dishes. With no disrespect to the bride and groom intended, our traditional Swahili wedding lunch was probably the highlight of the day, and we all ate our fill. Then down to the beach to wave off the bride and groom, as their dhow set sail for the bride’s new life on Wasini island.

But conservation in Kenya is found even in the remotest villages and before setting off home ourselves, I was  privileged to spend time talking to Hassan and Mwichambi of Jimbo Environmental Group. With support from Kenyan organisations including East Africa Wildlife Society and Kenya Sea Turtle Conservation Committee (KESCOM), the group of nearly 50 have been busy these last few years restoring mangroves, protecting turtle nests, planting trees and keeping bees.

It was obvious that this was a team of bright, environmentally aware and dedicated community conservationists that had already achieved great things for their small community. One more group of unsung heroes, conserving Kenya simply because they understand it’s the right thing to do. We talked about the possibility of GVI Kenya returning in the future to share some of our knowledge with them, and they were eager to learn about the dolphins they see there… it made the journey incredibly worthwhile and one I hope to repeat in the not too distant future. Watch this space!

Corti

Tags: bee keeping, Community-Based Conservation, environmental awareness, jimbo, mangrove restoration, tree planting, turtle conservation, vanga

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Category: Coastal Forest, Dolphin Clubs, Environmental Education, Kenya Wildlife Service, Year of the Dolphin | Date: Feb 18 2009 | By: gvikenya

2007 was designated the ‘International Year of the Dolphin’ by UNEP’s Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and GVI Kenya spent the year working closely with Mkwiro Primary School on education and activities that supported awareness of dolphin conservation. So successful was the year, which included the introduction of the dolphin-watching code of conduct by Kenya Wildlife Service, that CMS extended it in to 2008.  Halfway through 2008, ‘Dolphin Clubs’ were launched in 10 local schools in an effort to ensure that the achievements of the initiative continued beyond the two years and resulted in something more long-term. The clubs were supported with a donation by CMS of 10,000 KSh to each one to ensure that awareness and conservation activities could be undertaken. 

It was a fantastic idea, but sadly fell in to the trap they hoped to avoid… with no follow up or support from the 2008 stakeholders, the schools didn’t quite know what to do with their clubs. When GVI Kenya got back up and running we found the Mkwiro Dolphin Club with it’s student members at something of an impasse, and so in collaboration with the school and its teachers we have adopted Mkwiro’s Dolphin Club.  The next obstacle we came across was something of a misconception amongst the student members of the club… although just primary school children they had developed an acute sense of financial awareness, more so than environmental awareness unfortunately. It seems that the children in the club thought they were entitled to a cut of the 10,000 KSh!  So we decided to take it back to basics and seek out the children that want to actively participate in environmental learning and action, rather than those ‘in it for the money’. We have been hosting the dolphin club on Tuesdays afternoons, in their 3.10 to 4.10 clubs and societies schedule, aiming to work our way through all of the students from standard 8 to 4, giving them a taste of what the club is about, before opening up ‘full-time membership’ to the wannabe dolphin eco-warriors! 

Having worked our way through standards 8, 7 and 6 with treasure hunts at our land-based dolphin research site and turtle lessons in the school, this week we took on standard 5 for an hour, with an ambitious concept - water cycles, mangroves, deforestation and the impact of increased sedimentation on near-shore coral reefs and the animals that depend on them, such as fish and in our specific case the humpback dolphins that favour the reefs fringing Shimoni’s coastal forest as a feeding ground.

It sounds like a lot of information eh? Well, we started with a warmer game, provisionally called ‘monkey’ and a bit like musical chairs… the children race to ‘climb in to a tree’ (a sack on the ground!) and whoever can’t find space is out. Each round, a tree is ‘cut down’ until at the end we were left with just two ‘monkeys’ remaining - a simple but effective introduction to deforestation we thought! The kids loved it, shoving each other out of the ‘trees’ to stay in the game. Then they rotated around three educational activities - a water cycle jigsaw that they had to arrange in order; a ‘true or false’ mangrove facts game that got them running from true to false depending on whether they believed our ‘facts’; and a simple science experiment pouring ‘rain’ on to bowls of ‘forested’ and ‘deforested’ earth to watch the difference in the water quality running down the ‘rivers’ and in to the ’sea’.

The session ended with our water cycle obstacle course, as teams ran relays with cups of water, zig-zagging along our winding ‘river’, ducking underneath our ‘ocean waves’ and jumping from ‘cloud to cloud’ to fill up a jug at the end. As we predicted it soon descended in to mayhem but it was hilarious to watch for both us and the children. Another successful introduction to dolphin club, or as the Tuesday afternoon chant goes… “dol-fin ki-la-bu, dol-fin ki-la-bu…”

Tags: deforestation, Dolphin Clubs, environmental awareness, mkwiro primary school, Year of the Dolphin

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Category: Community Conservation, Kenya Wildlife Service, Kisite Mpunguti MPA, National Scholarship Programme | Date: Sep 12 2008 | By: gvikenya

Over the last two years we have been very happy to host Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute students for their field attachments and so support both our partner KWS and the new generation of conservationists in Kenya. As part of our National Scholarship Programme they have always impressed us, and even been recruited for our internship.

Yesterday we were very excited to host the class of Wildlife Management students having travelled all the way from Naivasha on a field trip to the South coast and Shimoni.

I had spent time this week working with Fadhili, chairman of Mkwiro Youth Conservation Group, to prepare a lecture for the students on the community’s use of natural resources, perceptions of the Kisite Mpunguti MPA and relationship with KWS, as well the challenges they face in their dependence on the marine environment’s resources. Despite the late-running schedule, Fadhili did a fantastic job in enlightening the students on the issues and roles associated with local communities when it comes to natural resource and wildlife management.

I then took my turn to talk about the role of our research programmes in supporting governmental agencies, NGOs and community-based organisations in managing natural resources and conservation, illustrating how scientific data can be applied to target awareness and management strategies. It is always a pleasure to have the opportunity to raise awareness and reach new audiences with the issues and achievements associated with our work here, and the interest from the students in the National Scholarship Programme and field attachments was very encouraging. KWS TI have already allocated 3 students to join us in October, but I hope that we will have the chance to support some of the other students in the future, building capacity for research and conservation management within Kenya.

Tags: , environmental awareness, kenya wildlife service training institute

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