GVI Kenya

Category: Ex-poachers, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Sep 18 2009 | By: gvikenya

I’ve been writing about our ‘adventures’ in Tsavo on a water access project for Kasaani village where former paochers have turned their back on the bush meat trade in search of a more sustainable way of life. We are all rightly proud of what was achieved in two weeks armed with just spades and hoes but much of the credit goes to our project leader and mastermind, Sara… so here’s what those two weeks traversing the Tsavo bush meant to her:

It takes a fair bit to make me cry, but I do cry.  People cry for different reasons and at different times.  Some cry around others who are crying, other people cry when they are alone.  Some wear big sunglasses and let a few tears sneak out when no one is watching (that’s me), others cry loudly and freely.  The last time I cried was sitting on a bus from Mombasa to Taveta – I looked out of the window and saw people carrying empty yellow water jerry cans to the north of the village of Kasaani.  I knew some of the people and didn’t know others.  So why would I cry about that?  Because it meant that the water pipeline I had been working on a week earlier was up and running and the people of this village were no longer making the 5km return journey to fetch water from the water source they previously relied upon.

When I left Kasaani a week earlier, the pipeline was complete but there were a few teething problems and I was yet to see the water flowing for any extended period of time.  Even though countless people from the community had called me the following week to tell me that the water was flowing, the sight of people carrying their jerry cans out in the direction of the tap in Kasaani somehow made it more real.  I knew for sure that the pipeline was being used and making a difference to the people of this community.  Seeing people fetching water from the tap in Kasaani was worth every ache and pain that arose during the two weeks we spent working on the pipeline.

Priscilla collects water in her own village 

Working on this project has been one of the best things I have ever done and I don’t say things like that lightly.  It has been tough.  More things went wrong than I dared to consider could possibly have gone wrong.  But at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the people of Kasaani now have their own supply of drinking water in their village.

Sara (left), David the chairman of the Kasaani ex-poachers group and Zaya witness the first waters flowing towards Kasaani 

I owe thanks to so many people who made this project possible – to Taveta District Council’s Constituency Development Fund for putting in the greatest financial contribution, and doing it within the time frame required, to the other GVI staff who ventured out there and covered me while I was tied up in endless meetings, to the community of Kasaani for their endless work, to my boss for believing that I could pull this project off, and, to the amazing volunteers who came out to work on this project – it would never have happened without them.  Asanteni sana.

Tags: ex-poacher groups, kasaani village, sustainable development, tsavo west national park, water access, water pipeline

No responses yet

Category: Community Conservation, Ex-poachers, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Sep 15 2009 | By: gvikenya

So, as I wrote about before, a small team of us had two weeks to lay a 3.5km water pipeline from Salita bore hole to Kasaani village. And bring them a water supply for the first time in living memory.

We didn’t have any kind of modern machinery to help us. Instead we had a collection of hoes and spades. And 3.5km of red earth baked rock hard by the Tsavo sun. However we also had the community members of Kasaani, by our sides, literally day and night; to teach us their digging techniques, to swell our numbers from 7 to over 70 on some days, to sing us songs, tell us stories, make us laugh when the going got beyond tough, to make us cups of hot sweet Kenyan chai at the end of a long day, even to cook us dinner when we barely had the energy to walk home. They sat with us around the campfire until we went to bed, and they were there waiting for us at sunrise the next morning.

Their belief in the project and their commitment to making it work, within our 2 weeks, left us with no doubt that it would happen… even on the morning of day 2, when we returned to Salita village to admire the maiden 80m of trench we’d dug the first day… only to find there was no trench. It had been filled in. In its place was a group of rather upset, rather intimidating, Maasai women. It turns out that despite the project leaders dutifully going through the process of informing all stakeholders, including the Maasai leaders, the message had not been passed down to their Maasai community. In a region where living is a daily struggle and resources hard to come by it is understandable that the women of the community were alarmed by the ’sudden’ rush of activity to divert precious water from their borehole. Over and above that, there are certain protocols that should be respected!

Disheartening as it was to see our previous day’s hard work undone, it was an interesting and very genuine cultural insight, as members of Taveta District council teamed up with the Maasai leaders to explain the project, explain the surveys that showed there was sufficient water in the borehole to supply both villages, and thanks to the local MP, to promise a new water pump that would actually increase the flow of water through their tap. So by mid afternoon, with protocol duly complied with, we were back with the chattering, smiling Maasai women who had watched us the day before and more importantly back with spades and hoes in hand. We made sure we reached 100m before putting them down, just to feel that we had made some progress that day.

The rest of the week was thankfully less ‘eventful’, characterised by a daily increase in blisters, sore muscles and physical exhaustion! The ground was hard… very very hard. Even with up to 30 of Kasaani’s human digging machines putting us to shame, were closer to a third of the way by the end of week one, not half way where we needed to be! The weekend off became just the Sunday off as we spent Saturday playing catch up until we could no longer physically raise a hoe above our heads.

Fortunately the villagers of Kasaani spent the weekend rallying the troops and with some astute negotiations from David the chairman of the Kasaani ex-poachers group, the following Monday saw 50 villagers join us. Before the end of week 2 we had close to 80 and come Thursday morning we had the privilege to be laying 3.5km of pipes along a trench that stretched from Salita to Kasaani… 3.5km of blood, sweat and tears!

Standing in Kasaani village at 8pm on Thursday night to watch the first water flow down the pipe, it was almost too close a call for comfort… but we had the sheer overwhelming joy of seeing water make its way, finally, to Kasaani. Not quite all the way; a dodgy connection along the pipework meant we didn’t quite get to see it flow from the tap, but the hard work had been completed and we could leave Kasaani Friday morning knowing that all that stood between the villagers collecting water from their very own supply were a few hours of tinkering with pipe connections.

The final sighs of relief and tears of emotion came the following Tuesday morning. David called to tell us that the villagers of Kasaani were filling up their 20l water containers from the tap in their village! But the actual reason he called was simply to thank us… they finally had water in their village and it meant the world to them. 

Tags: ex-poacher groups, kasaani village, salita village, tsavo west national park, water access, water pipeline

One response so far

Category: Community Conservation, Ex-poachers, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Sep 09 2009 | By: gvikenya

It was back in early 2007 that GVI first met and began to work with the community of Kasaani village… in many ways your ’stereotypical’ rural dusty Kenyan community trying to scrape a living from the land.

The Tsavo landscape around Kasaani village

In their case the land lies on the very edge of Tsavo West National Park. The landscape is stunning with views of Chyulu Hills and Taita Hills dotting the Kenyan plains to the North and East, the impressive North Pare Mountains of Tanzania to the South and, when the clouds clear, the majestic Mt Kilimanjaro to the West.

Collecting water from the neighbouring village of Cess

However it makes for tough living, the rains so unpredictable that their efforts at subsistence farming are more like a lottery than a livelihood. It’s not just the crops that suffer from lack of water; the community of Kasaani have never had a water source in their village and normal daily life requires the men, women and children to make a 5km round trip to their nearest source. Those lucky enough to have a bicycle can fetch 60l at a time, on foot you have to triple the number of journeys. Beatrice highlighted just one example of how they are forced to economise on water when she pointed to a group of children and told me how they don’t wash their children’s clothes when they need to because they just can’t spare the water.

Some of the curious children at Kasaani

Poor access to potable water is cited as one of the key objectives of the millennium development goals. So getting water to this community that we have been working with to promote sustainable alternative livelihoods in place of poaching and the bush meat trade has become a priority… with volunteer manpower and some funding sourced, we set ourselves the challenge - 3.5km of trenches to be dug to run a water pipeline from the borehole at Salita village.

We teamed up with Taveta District Council’s Constituency Development Fund to co-finance the project and bring the expertise, and we, our volunteers and the ex-poachers of Kasaani teamed up for two weeks of digging.

At the outset it seemed a huge task for our team armed only with pangas, hoes and spades but when on the first day we took the 5km round trip with a 20l container to get our own water the value of the project struck home and the seeds of determination were sown.

Our own attempts to fetch water from the nearest supply

Stay tuned for our progress,

 Corti

Tags: alternative livelihoods, bush meat trade, sustainable development, tsavo west national park, water access

No responses yet

Category: Community Conservation, Ex-poachers, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Aug 10 2009 | By: gvikenya

The work GVI does on the border of Tsavo West National Park with three villages of ex-poachers continues at an exciting pace.  The villagers, who all chose to stop poaching and to actively seek alternative livlihoods, are progressing in leaps and bounds with both conservation and income generation.  Brittany, who recently returned from the village of Kasaani, tells us how she saw things…

 We arrived in Taveta dusty, dirty and bruised – the bus journey was our first challenge. The final leg to Kasaani was brief and our arrival much anticipated by its vibrant villagers and beautiful baobab trees. The moment we stepped off our matatu and were greeted with fluming tongues and warm embraces by Priscilla (the village elder), we knew the week ahead would be an incredible adventure.

The red dust of Tsavo 

With much excitement, we settled into our new banda and waited our first formal meeting the next morning to share the plan and purpose of our productions with the villagers.

Some of the village women 

The morning, however, was a slow start. Kasaani held a meeting which would last the majority of the day and kept most of the village leaders from joining us. Those who could be with us led a walk to the apiary where they harvest the honey we hope they can use to make beautiful products and hearty income for this community of ex-poachers.

Maritima, a strong and beautiful woman of the village, made a proud presentation of their hard work which made us feel honoured to work with such ambitious people. There would be obstacles – little of our efforts that day registered with the delay of our translators – but there would be far greater rewards, like the hugs and laughter of delight between ourselves and the villagers when both the honey vanilla bath wash and honey caramel sauce, with labels made of elephant dung recycled paper, were completed on Thursday afternoon. On that final evening, we celebrated with a special meal around the campfire with the community, under African stars.

 The Honey caramel sauce
 

In the intervals of our work in Kasaani, we explored more of West Tsavo and witnessed exciting wildlife, Massai villages, the beautiful and eerie Lake Chala, and the always buzzing Taveta Market. It was a different side of Africa and a part and people of Kenya we will definitely never forget.

Tags: alternative livlihoods, bee keeping, Community Conservation, Ex-poachers, honey products, kasaani, tsavo west national park, village elders

2 responses so far

Category: Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Jul 15 2009 | By: gvikenya

Sketches have been drawn, questions asked, lesson plans made and practical lessons trialled – and our team is ready to go!  Well almost, they just need a few more discussions about what to pack for the adventure that is our Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme. In just a few days time they are off to Kidong and I’m very excited!

Our Tsavo West Sustainable Development programme aims to provide assistance to groups of ex-poachers by building their capacity to engage in sustainable alternative livelihoods.  The programmes that GVI operates differ from village to village, and have been developed in conjunction with key members of each community to suit the specific characteristics of the village in question.  I have been lucky enough to have been involved with each of the three communities from the very beginning and can not wait to hear back from Kidong to see how they are progressing with the livelihood options we have been assisting them with over the past year.

Our objectives in Kidong next week will be to teach the community how to make and package a selection of soaps which they can then sell to tourists (we have one order already!), and to continue to assist them with the development of the Cultural Centre they are building.  The Cultural Centre is a community based information centre which will tell the story of the people of Kidong, Kasaani and Mahandakini, and their journey from ‘poachers to protectors’ of wildlife.  The information for the Cultural Centre has been gathered, advertising material is being developed on this trip to Kidong, some of the buildings have been constructed, and, with help of GVI I am very hopeful that the Centre will be completed by the end of the year. Our aim is be able to post pictures of tourists passing through the Cultural Centre during the Christmas break this year… so keep watching this space for updates!

Tags: alternative livelihoods, Eco-tourism, poachers, sustainable development, tsavo west national park

No responses yet

Category: Community Conservation | Date: Jul 02 2009 | By: gvikenya

After months of planning, liaising and meetings, the outcome that we have all been working torwards for the ex-poachers and indeed their whole community of Kasaani village looks like it will finally become a reality! Following a meeting with Taveta District Council’s Community Development Fund yesterday, GVI Kenya are on course to help construct a water pipeline to bring drinking water directly to the village of Kasaani. 

For over 10 years the community of Kasaani has struggled without water in their village; the absence of a water supply has meant that families in this community trek over 3km to obtain drinking water for their homes each day. Not only is this a tiring journey for all of those, including children, who have to make the uphill trip back to Kasaani carrying 20 litre containers of water, it also detracts from the time these families have available to devote to income generating activities and subsistence farming. The significance of this for the conservation of Tsavo West’s wildlife lies in the fact that many within the community had formerly relied upon the illegal poaching of wildlife to supply the bush meat trade in order to earn an income and feed their families. We have been working towards alternative livelihoods for them to subsitute the income they had derived from poaching and bringing a much needed water supply to the community not only rewards them for their commitment to this process but will actively support their ability to engage in these sustainable alternatives. This pipeline also has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life of all the people in Kasaani, as well as surrounding villages.

Although GVI has been working with the CDF over the past four months to find a feasible way to deliver a reliable supply of water to Kasaani, it was not until a few weeks ago that a viable proposal was established to deliver good quality drinking water to Kasaani from a pre-existing bore hole. This paves the way for a working partnership between GVI and Taveta District Council; construction of the pipeline is set to begin in August of this year.

Tags: alternative livelihoods, kasaani, sustainable development, taveta district council, tsavo west national park, water access

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 05 2009 | By: gvikenya

We recently returned to Mahandakini, a village located in the southern part of Kenya close to the border with Tanzania. The village has a population of around 2,000 people, many of whom having given up poaching in nearby Tsavo West National Park and have been seeking to engage in sustainable income generating activities.  GVI’s role is to assist the community with capacity building to support alternative livelihoods. During our week long trip to Mahandakini we continued where we left off last time, developing a Food Security Programme for the community and cotton processing industry that Mahandakini is endeavoring to establish.

Throughout the week at Mahandakini, we worked in two groups; the first focused on developing the Food Security Programme, whilst the second spent time assisting with the development of a cottage cotton industry in Mahandakini.  as part of the Cotton Processing group we worked through problem solving with the community, providing training on using natural dyes and assisting with financial management.  The primary obstacle facing the cotton processing industry in Mahanadakini is the lack of funds for the processing and ginning machines necessary to undertake large scale cotton processing.  Over the week, we managed to initiate a plan for the community to develop the cotton industry by selling the cotton they are already growing, and buying cotton material which can be dyed and manufactured into value-added products. In this way the community will be able to start generating income immediately, some of which can be used to save up for the cotton processing equipment required for spinning and weaving. 

Our week wasn’t all about cotton though; we took time to visit some of the amazing sights in the local area.  We visited caves which were used by British soldiers who were fighting in Kenya during World War 2 and are now home to thousands of bats, went swimming at beautiful Njoro Spings the source of which is melt water from Mt. Kilimanjaro, and visited Ziwani Voyager Ranch, a great opportunity to see some local wildlife including elephants, hippopotamus, zebra, antelopes and a vast array of birdlife. Finally the week culminated with a wonderful traditional dinner prepared by some of the women from the ex-poachers group; the community invited us to share a meal with them as a sign of their appreciation for the work we had achieved together!

Tags: alternative livelihoods, capacity building, cotton, food security, Mahandakini, sustainable development, tsavo west national park

No responses yet

Category: Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Environmental Education, Human-Wildlife Conflict | Date: May 25 2009 | By: gvikenya

Every few months our team rides the rough, red dusty road through Tsavo West National Park, to the village of Kidong, a small but significant dot on the vast landscape that stretches between Tsavo West National Park across the border to Mt Kilimanjaro. We are aiming to support this community-based organisation for former poachers convert conflict with wildlife in to conservation.

The Kidong Education and Cultural centre is already teaching local farmers to protect their crops from elephants using chili peppers but they aspire to make the centre substitute income from poaching with a livelihood from hosting… tourists! On our most recent visit we worked with members of the community to bring together two of the skills we helped teach them previously; making soap from neem trees and paper from elephant dung. With one eye on the potential tourists we have been helping them develop their new found cottage industry of soap making in to a marketable product for tourists, experimenting with moulds and packaging made from recycled paper using elephant dung. With ex-poachers turning elephants from pests in to products, we hope the story behind the packaging will be enough to spark the interest of new customers!

The other side of the equation of course is bringing tourists to the centre in the first place and having already facilitated the collation of the people’s history, culture and evolving relationship with wildlife, we spent time developing a 15 minute presentation to kick off their cultural experience for the eco-toursits we will be targetting. There is still work to be done at the centre to get it ready for eco-tourism but we are also working behind the scenes on ways to get their restaurant built by the end of August.

Our new introduction to their ever-expanding repertoire of environmental sustainability was a workshop on the wonders of vetiver grass… this humble horticultural tool is being viewed as something of a miracle plant by those in the know. Tolerant of arid conditions, but able to cope with high rainfall, it is being used worldwide to stabilise soils against erosion, slow waterflow with its deep root system to ensure rains drain downwards rather than run-off and can be used as almost anything from livestock fodder to weaving mats and baskets. Using a strain that is infertile but propogates readily ensures its use can be controlled but easily expanded. So convinced were we by the benefits of the grass, that before leaving we planted 100 of them to get the community started!

And just to remind ourselves of why tourists should choose to visit Kidong on their safari stop off, the magnificent Mt Kilimanjaro appeared from behind a curtain of clouds and we found time to cool off in its refreshing (some might read ‘freezing’!) meltwaters at the idyllic Njoro springs.

 I look forward to reporting progress in a few months time,

 Corti

Tags: bush meat trade, capacity building, Eco-tourism, Elephants, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Kidong, Kilimanjaro, poachers, soil erosion, sustainabe development, tsavo west national park, vetiver grass, water conservation, wildlife

3 responses so far

Category: Community Conservation, Environmental Education, Human-Wildlife Conflict | Date: Feb 25 2009 | By: gvikenya

“Elephants!” shouted the group of women huddled under the shade of a lone tree by the border of Tsavo West National Park.  Clad in colorful kangas with babies strapped to their backs, the women are not the least bit surprised to see elephants wandering down the main road of their village of Kidong, they are simply excited to point them out to me.  Although elephants are a common sight in this region of Kenya, I still get excited when I see them passing serenely by oblivious to our presence.

Elephants were in fact one of the main reasons that GVI began working with the community of Kidong in 2006, and remain one of the key focal points for GVI’s community development work in this village.  So what to elephants have to do with community development you might ask?  Lots! 

Firstly, many of the community members in Kidong village historically relied upon poaching animals, including elephants, in Tsavo West National Park for subsistence purposes.  In 2006, Kidong and two other villages in this region – Kasaani and Mahandkini – elected to give up poaching in favor of sustainable alternative livelihoods.  This is where GVI in conjunction with the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) stepped in and offered to provide assistance in developing sustainable alternative means of income generation in these villages. 

Secondly, the elephant population has created its own problem… human-elephant conflict! In the area surrounding Kidong agricultural pursuits are one alternative livelihood which is commonly pursued; crop raiding by elephants, however, has a significant negative impact upon the viability of this income generation option as whole shambas (farming plots) are often decimated by elephant incursions.

Constructing chili-oil fences at a local shamba

Not to be deterred from fully embracing their new found sustainable lifestyles, the community of Kidong has managed to put a positive spin on the problem of human-elephant conflict.  With assistance from both GVI and WSPA the community of Kidong has constructed the Kidong Cultural and Education Centre.  The Education Centre provides free educational lessons to communities about sustainable means of deterring elephants from farming land using chili-based deterrents such as chili-oil fences and chili-dung bricks.  The Cultural Centre is currently being developed as a tourism centre where tourists can come and learn about Kidong’s story – ‘From Poachers to Protectors’.

GVI enjoying recent developments at the Kidong Cultural and Education Centre 

On my most recent visit to Kidong, I witnessed the community continuing to take big steps forward in the construction of the tourism related elements of the Centre – in less than two months time a new kitchen, store room, toilets and defined paths around the Centre were all constructed!  Moreover, reports from employees of the Education Centre point to the continued success of chili-based methods of elephant deterrence from farming plots in the Kidong area.  It looks like Kidong’s main road will be marked by the footprints of eco-tourism alongside elephant tracks in the very near future!

Tags: Chili-Oil Fences, community development, Community-Based Conservation, Elephants, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Kidong, Poaching, tsavo west national park

No responses yet

Category: Community Conservation | Date: Feb 02 2009 | By: gvikenya

Hello from Mahandakini!

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I’m blogging this week without even needing my laptop! The only drawback is that I can’t show you the wonderful photos that we’re getting along the way but if you bear with me I’ll illustrate our little safari when I’m back in the office.

So where am I this week? Well 2 years ago we begun a collaboration with the World Society for the Protection of Animals on their project to tackle the bush meat trade of Tsavo West national park. Recognising that the poachers of villages such as Mahandakini, Kidong and Kassani, near the town of Taveta were only hunting wildlife because they struggled to make a living from farming, the focus of their work is to work with community groups of reformed poachers and the women that helped sell the meat of wild animals to find alternative livelihoods.

Although a long way from our coastal home, we recognised the potential to help change people’s lives and the future of Tsavo’s wildlife.

This week I have brought our team back to Mahandakini, a beautiful rural village that lies between Tsavo West and the Tanzanian border, quite literally in the shadow of Mt Kilimanjaro - yes we really are that close to what must be one of the continents most iconic images and in my mind one the world’s most stunning vistas.

Our long bumpy journey yesterday took us through Tsavo West national park, past elephants with young, ostrich and hartebeest and with the sun setting a brief view of Kili’s twin peaks.

This morning we were guided by our ex-poacher hosts through their shamba, or farms, to see how irrigation can make all the difference in the world to these communities. During this week we will be supporting them in their plans to bring food security to their community, sadly a very poignant topic in Kenya right now, as well as plans to turn locally grown cotton in to value-added finished products.

I’ll let you know how the week goes as often as I can check in… And as long as my phone battery lasts!

Bye for now…

Tags: bush meat trade, Kilimanjaro, Mahandakini, taveta, tsavo west national park, wiliflife' poachers

No responses yet