Well, it looks as though we have found funding to hold two further workshops in Kimilili at the end of the month. Millicent and Ericah, our two business and economic graduates, who were our instructors for out last workshop, are coming to Kimilili to hold the next ones. We also are blessed to have two local supervisors, Wilfred and Samuel, to oversee the farming and garden training afternoon sessions.
 
by Rev. Wasike

Today is Blog Action Day 2009 and the topic of this year is climate change. Climate in Kenya is no longer a personal or family issue, but a national issue. Policies in government are being changed to reverse earlier decisions like the shamba system in Kenya; which was a forest cultivation system where people were officially allowed to go and live and exist with the trees and wildlife in the forests, all the while planting various plant crops. Temporary structures were built for landless people to cultivate trees and live from them. At that time, it was a good idea from the government to introduce this system.  

For, in those days, it made provisions for accommodating many landless people and provided food for their families. However, not all was good. The people cut so many trees for building timber, for firewood, and to burn for charcoals. They ended up harming the available trees.  Extensive and unchecked food growing/planting in the forests also turned our to be harmful to the trees hence. The number of trees decreased radically, far below recommended percentage. Thus it was necessary for radical changes to be made in order to rescue the situation, and hopefully arrest any further deforestation in the future.

All this deforestation has resulted in dry rivers, which directly affects the water levels in large bodies of water. Hence in Kenya, we experience rationing of electricity almost daily. There are official rationing announcements for electricity countrywide and government updates residents of various areas about these, as well as water rationing. The reason there is water rationing is because of destroyed water catchments areas, e.g. Mau forest has rivers running into neighbouring countries and has been affected greatly by the deforestation.


This has also resulted in changing conditions for our wildlife. When there is not enough water to grow crops or grazing grass for domestic animals, there is often no enough water to nurture plant life for wild life. Many tensions arise in the relationship between humans and animals as a result. If there is not enough water, than wildlife leaves the forest areas in search of water and food.

 
Another area where we have noticed a change is in the planting and harvesting seasons. Now these seasons widely vary to those days we were young. I remember our first growing season always ending by the end of March or early April of each year. It was a time to cultivate, weed the maize in home farms. Today, the raining season starts later and thus people plant from May to June; something unheard of in the past. There used to be sufficient rain even after harvesting main crops like maize and beans, and our mothers used to then plant vegetables that had short growing seasons (2-3 months). This is no longer possible today because the rains are too short and quiet unpredictable.

This is year the government has encouraged traders to import maize for free again after realising that the harvest of the year is below 40% of the annual expected harvest. This decrease is due to climate change. The government is warning people not to misuse in food that is available to them due to scarcity if produce in the future.
Churches are praying that God intervenes in the situation in Kenya and reverse the climate back to what Kenyans have enjoyed in the past.
 

Amen

 
by Rev. Wasike

We are very excited to inform you that various people have made donations of drip irrigation kits for families or small-scale garden co-ops in Kimilili. Dr. Thomas Winkler from Germany has generously donated the funds for a drip irrigation kit. Dr. Rikea Schoen from Germany held an open house for her veterinary practice and sold cake and coffee to all who came. The money earned on this day is also sufficient to buy a family drip irrigation kit.

Lia organised a Tea Party for Kimilili last weekend. Over fifty people came to enjoy the last of the sunny autumn weather. The donations given during this event will, hopefully, suffice to pay for the two planned workshops we are holding at the end of the month and three family drip irrigation kits.

The children and guardians of Community Breakthrough Support Mission had a very difficult time this past spring and summer due to food shortages. Now that it looks as though the drought conditions will persist into next year, the donations of drip irrigation kits will change the lives of the children from one threatened by hunger to a prosperous one.

 
by Rev. Wasike

This year's Blog Action Day concerns climate change. This is a topic near and dear to the hearts of all the people in Kimilili. I am looking forward to writing about this topic and hope you will all return here on Thursday to read and comment on my post.
 
by Rev. Wasike and Lia

We are in great need of donations to buy Family Drip Irrigation Kits for our community members. This past year, Kenyans nation-wide suffered great food shortages due to drought. All predictions point in the direction that next years’ crops will be drastic decreased due to the persisting weather conditions.

We, at Kimilili are doing our best to modify our gardening and farming practices accordingly. One way we can do this is by installing family drip irrigation kits to household gardens and farm plots. We are trying to raise money to buy our community members drip irrigation kits (see attached pdf).

The costs are:

200 Litre Kit (300 sq meters) costs 150 USD
500 Litre Kit (1000 sq meters) costs 225 USD

We have made an arrangement that any family who receives these kits will donate a percentage of the harvest or profits from selling the produce at market to help feed the children at CBSM School for the next two growing seasons (after which the kits is theirs). Last semester, many of our children did not attend school because their guardians could not afford to feed them.
 
by Rev. Wasike and Lia

Now that sister Millicent is situated in her new home, we are thinking about holding another Best Business Training Workshop. If all goes well, we will hold Worshop II (Workshop I was last spring) at the end of October. The outline looks the following:

Workshop II

Participants: up to 21 of the participants who attended the first best business practice workshop (all the 8 Village Phone Operators (VPOs)).

Trainers: Rev. Wasike as spiritual guide and motivator, Millicent and Ericah for business practice training, Wilfred and Samuel for agriculture and garden practice training

Goals: The goal of this training is to empower targeted women and youths with knowledge that can help them run small-scale agricultural businesses profitably and be self-reliant in their rural business environment. The workshop offers them basic training needed to create business ideas, business plans, calculating needed financing, and estimating profits and risks. They are show how to keep records properly, so that they can know in the future if they are making profit or loss and what actions they need to undertake in each of these cases. The participants are also trained on how to manage borrowed mirco-finances (loans) and repayments as part of a work collective.

Time: a whole day’s workshop

Location: CBSM school

Needed volunteers: persons to prepare beverages and midday meal

Workshop schedule will be more or less the same as we carried through in our Workshop I, except that there will be an agricultural training sessions as well.
 
by Rev. Wasike and Lia

Now that sister Millicent is situated in her new home, we are thinking about holding another Best Business Training Workshop. If all goes well, we will hold Worshop II (Workshop I was last spring) at the end of October. The outline looks the following:

Workshop II

Participants: up to 21 of the participants who attended the first best business practice workshop (all the 8 Village Phone Operators (VPOs)).

Trainers: Rev. Wasike as spiritual guide and motivator, Millicent and Ericah for business practice training, Wilfred and Samuel for agriculture and garden practice training

Goals: The goal of this workshop is to deepen the knowledge of the participants’ best business practices, as was taught in the first workshop, and to create an exchange of business experiences (e.g. Janerose’s and Margaret’s Village Phone Salons (VPS)) so that others can learn from each other.

Time: a whole day’s workshop

Location: CBSM school

Needed volunteers: persons to prepare beverages and midday meal

Workshop schedule should include time to do the following:

  • to repeat some of the business material content from the last workshop to refresh their memories
  • to explain in more detail some of the topics that were discussed only briefly the first time
  • to explain new information about possible small-scale gardening and agricultural practices
  • to discuss different small scale business ideas
  • to calculate the finances needed to set up these business models
The morning is taken up with theory and the afternoon is separated into two groups; the VPS groups and the agricultural groups.