International Education: Kenya

(c) Peter Ndung’u

With a teaching outline closely linked to the Kenyan National Curriculum, this programme combines talks, film, art, creative thinking, drama, songs, dance and essay writing with practical activities; such as tree planting, identification of native species, and visits to protected conservation areas. We also aim to support student and school welfare, ensuring that the learning environment meets the students’ needs.

One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.  

This project uses a holistic approach to sustainable development around Meru National Park, reflecting the synergy between healthy environments and healthy human communities. Here, we provide community members with preventative and curative health services. Strengthening their ability to cope with environmental challenges and in turn supporting local environmental, and animal health.  

Activities include:  

• Mobile medical camps  

• Community engagement and environmental education  

• School-based health education  

• Capacity building for Community Health Volunteers and public health professionals  

• Raising awareness via radio and TV broadcasting  

• Supporting surrounding clinics with anti-venom and rabies medication  

• Community awareness sessions on public health issues, environmental health and lifestyle disease prevention 

• Stakeholder meetings to build and maintain partnerships  

All of which go hand in hand with discussions around wildlife and environmental protection. 

These activities are delivered in partnership with the Ministry of Health for Kenya (Meru County Government, Department of Public Health), who provide the technical health component of the project.   

(c) Peter Ndung’u

Rural communities around Meru National Park face many challenges, including the impact of droughts. Unfortunately, competition for water resources not only impacts relationships between communities and individuals but also causes human-wildlife conflict. High abstraction (water removal from springs and rivers) outside the park forces wildlife to enter community land to find food and water. This frequently endangers people, animals, and crops, and decreases tolerance between humans and wildlife.  

To understand the current water situation, a survey was conducted between 2020 and 2021. Guided by its results, we are working with Kenya’s Water Resource Authority to help communities manage their water use through locally-appropriate, community-led management plans. More sustainable water usage will benefit people and wildlife alike, in a time of diminishing water availability.   

(c) George Leakey

Understanding elephant behaviour is vital for communities facing human-wildlife conflict. We therefore deliver workshops (developed with No Strings International) to improve knowledge and attitudes towards wildlife and reduce the impact of human-elephant conflict. 

Education Officer, Nicholas Bii, highlights that once community members understand the reasons for conflict, and learn to better identify elephant behaviour, it can “reduce death and crop destruction [so] all of them live in peace.” Giving hope that, with continued efforts to better understand elephant behaviour and human-elephant encounters, along with our other conflict mitigation work, we may begin to see a more harmonious coexistence, in which crop destruction, elephant fatalities and human fatalities are significantly reduced.  

(c) Peter Ndung’u

By caring for the needs of local people we can support their development as well as create an enabling environment for conservation education. Like many adolescent girls in marginalised communities, some students in our partner schools lack the necessary resources to purchase sanitary pads, leading to monthly school absences that affect their academic performance and future prospects. By providing them with an annual supply of sanitary pads, soap, underwear and key knowledge about menstrual health, we hope to give them a better chance in their education and future.   

A Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) is a group of 10 – 25 people who save money together and take small loans from those savings. This is a well-established system in which Village Agents (members of the community) are trained to support group members.  

Born Free has trained 14 Village Agents in Amboseli and 10 staff in Meru, helping 55 groups establish themselves. Our investment ends with community agent training, the provision of lockboxes and books and initial stipends. From here, the agent and community carry out the work themselves, creating sustainable groups that no longer need any support from Born Free. 

So far, the groups have accumulated large savings, benefitting well over 1,131 people and their families. These have been used to pay school and medical fees, as well as provide loans for new businesses (e.g. purchasing fuel to sell in remote villages). The interest from these loans (which all members share) is helping group members to improve their houses, purchase gas stoves (reducing their reliance on fire wood collection and the negative health implications of burning wood in a confined space) and reduce their reliance on livestock and other activities that are being impacted by climate change, habitat loss and local population changes – helping to create more resilient communities and reducing the reliance on natural resources such as pasture and wood. 

(c) Peter Ndung’u

Planting trees is a well-established way of removing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is also low-cost and helps prevent soil erosion and ensure the survival of forests, restoring soil fertility and protecting water sources. In addition, growing trees supports communities with more sustainable fuel wood, where wood is still required.  

This is why Born Free plants thousands of trees in Kenya each year. Firstly, we identify key areas to plant trees, then decide which native species would prosper where, before planting seedlings and maintaining them in partnership with schools and communities. 

Through our work with communities, we aim to help them adopt more sustainable livelihood practices, such as those that are less harmful to the environment and consider the needs and importance of wildlife as part of biodiversity and ecosystem protection. We raise awareness on various conservation issues through regular talks with community members and their leaders, who are key decision makers.

This might include holding a meeting with a sub-location assistant chief when wire snares are recovered in Meru National Park. This allows us to highlight the dangers and consequences of bushmeat consumption, including disease transmission to the community and livestock and its effects on the economy of the area. 

We engage communities in conservation education through sports like volleyball and football. Our Born Free staff team (Bush Trackers), along with a team from Kenya Wildlife Service, plays matches with communities that frequently experience human-wildlife conflict. The matches are followed by a talk and a cleanup activity (collecting litter). Sports provide a relaxed informal forum for us to interact, empathise and jointly find solutions to conservation and social challenges.