- Project:
THEME : ECO-TOURISM-IMPACT ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
- LOCATION:
Sengeri Women and Youth Group is located on the foots of Sagalla hills approximately 15 km from the Nairobi-Mombasa highway after Voi town, in Taita District, Talio village bordering Tsavo National Park. It is approximately 316 kms from Nairobi to Voi town.
Sengeri Women and Youth Group is in the hearts of Taita sometimes referred to us semi-arid zone. The location of the project is within the precints of a nearby school known as Gideon Mosi Primary School.
- COMMUNITY:
Taita is the community found in Taita District, which consitutes the legendary Coast province characterized by humid, hot and dry condition. Its one of the 42 recognised ethenic communities in Kenya known for their hospitality. Taita are farmers in nature practising mixed farming, keeping animals and growing of food crops. Taita district host the largest National Park in Kenya ; both Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks. The total area of Taita district in square kilometres is 62,450 where 60% of the total land is a National Park. Human/Wildlife conflict happens to be the biggest challenge in these community where herds of Eléphants at times cause harvoc in the community,destroying food crop and sometimes injuring community members. The impact of the Human/Wildlife conflict manifest itself on the socio-economic development of the community.
The majority of the population live on the hills which offers cool and conducive environment for agriculture. Sengeri Women and Youth group is located on the lowland where climatic conditions are real not favaourable for meaningful agricultural activities despite the fact that community members are very harding working. Taita Hills rise from the south-Eastern Nyika plateau. The hills are acient fault block formation stretching south to Malawi through Eastern and Southern Tanzania. The hills Seat almost cheek-by-jowl with one of the region’s recent volcanic ranges, the Chyulu Hills.
The Taita hills rise from the South-Eastern Nyika Plateau. They are ancient fault-block formation stretching south to Malawi through Eastern and Southern Tanzania. They sit almost cheek-by-jowl with one of the region’s recent volcanic ranges, the Chyulu Hills.
- LOCAL PARTNER:
Sengeri Women and Youth Cultural group was established in 2007 as a result of community and volunteer’s initiative. Sanja Melovic from Croatia was a long term volunteer who was posted at Gideon Mosi primary school Talio from December 2007 to June 2008. Initially there was inactive Women and Youth group in the community but because of the harsh socio-economic and environmental conditions the groups were somehow dormant.
The presence of volunteers in the community re-activated the development process and the community felt there was a need to combine both the Women and Youth group together for a common purpose. The initiation of Sengeri Women and Youth Group came in handy with the many challenges that affect the community. Their struggles can be defined as follows...
- Human/Wildlife conflict.
- Alcholism, drug and substance abuse.
- Adverse climatic conditions {unrealiable and unevenly distributed rainfall}.
- Early pregnacy for teenage girls.
The source of income on this community is charcoal burning which is detrimental to the environment as regards to sustainable development.
The challenges of Human/Wildlife conflict creates a direct impact to the educational standards and sustainable food production. Ironically, the community struggles to grow food crop with the adverse weather conditions where by herds of elephants cross over from the National Park and destroyed the hard grown food crops. This pits the community vis-à-vis elephants at logger heads and the end results is constant conflicts. Tourism being the leading economic earner in Kenya protects wild animals at the expense of the community who at times are classified as part of Tourism {like instances about Masaai community} Government policies regarding compensation of damage by Wildlife are unfairly constituted followed by bureaucracy.
Its on these notes that the ideas on formation of the Women and Youth group started in earnest with the presence and participation of Sanja. The idea was to look challenges in a positive way by engaging and challenging government ministry in charge of Tourism and Wildlife to assist the community. The institution directly involved with Wildlife which is Kenya Wildlife Service {KWS}.
The women started by selling pancakes in the community to raise funds to support their initiative. Soon afterwards the group acquired a piece of land within the community to set up a cultural center to support their activities.
Talio village on which both the Youth and Women group are based is adored with many interesting sites that acts as sight seeing for tourism attraction apart from the community traditions.
FOCUS ON ECO-TOURISM IMPACT ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES:Many at times communities living near National Parks in Kenya are always classified as tourism attraction. A study case is the Massai community. Tsavo National Park is the largest national reserve with all the BIG FIVE animals.
It is estimated that the population of elephants is approximately 4,000.These big number sometimes becomes a big challenge to the community especially during dry seasons. Herds of elephants roam around the community in search for food and water. These results in what is known as Human/Wildlife Conflict. The community has been always negative about the Wildlife because policies in place favours the game at the expense of the local communities that live close to these National Parks.
This initiative is meant to change the attitude of the community towards Tourism by utilizing natural resources such as traditions like cultural dance, caves, cages, rocks and hills to attractive, preserve and expose the heritage of the community. Such initiative is known as Eco Tourism.
Tourists who visit both Tsavo East and West have the opportunity to experience the African culture at the grass root level by seeing traditional dance, the cultural rite of passage, unique rock, caves and cages. These help to resonate the myths surrounding the African beliefs about certain happenings.
Sengeri Women and Youth Cultural Group hope to raise awareness about importance of restoring the national heritage and offer alternative sources of income to raise and support their living standards through utilization of natural resources away from harmful and detrimental practices that affect environment for sustainable development. Once the cultural centre is complete the Women and Youth group and the entire community will definately benefit from Eco Tourism.
- PROJECT ACTIVITIES:
The work will include the following...
- Brick making.
- Digging foundations.
- Construction of shades.
- Roofing.
- Fencing.
- Clearing of bushes.
- Home visits.
- ORIENTATION:
9th April 2010.
Orientation for all the volunteers will be done on the 9th April 2010 from 9 am at the KVDA Residence in Kilimani-Nairobi and all the volunteers must attend in order to initiate the much-needed teamwork. It will entail, introduction, team building and group formation, visit to residential estates for both privileged (the elite) and the under-privileged (slum dwellers) to grasp and understand poverty levels in global south, psychological preparation and set out possible interventions. KVDA will be responsible for meals and accommodation for volunteers during the one-day orientation sessions.
- LEISURE:
There are possibilities for group excursion during the work camp and especially over the weekends and these will be done at an extra cost borne by the volunteer.
Such excursions should be organized in consultation with the community leaders and the KVDA project facilitators will play a key role.
It should also be noted that majority of Kenyan volunteers are either students or youths out of school and may not have money for such excursions and volunteers from other nations have no obligation to pay for those who do not have money. This issue should be handled with care so as to avoid possible conflict that would be injurious to harmonious relations among volunteers.
- TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS:
Volunteers will travel as a team to the campsite on 10 April 2010.
The work camp ends on 30th April 2010 and the volunteers travel back to Nairobi on 1st May 2010. Transport to and from the camp will be organized by KVDA.
- AIRPORT TRANSFER:
Transfers on arrival to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and departure from Kenya will be done by KVDA. Flight confirmation MUST be done by e-mail with full flight details provided. On arrival volunteers will be taken to KVDA residential.
- ACCOMMODATION:
The local community will accommodate the volunteers at a house within the local community with two rooms made available for the male and female volunteers. There are pit latrines and bath-shelters for use and we strongly advice volunteers to be flexible and easily adapt to the provision of other culture within the local environment and appreciate its uniqueness. Volunteers will sleep on the floor to experience the complex development challenges and will be expected to climb down to the level of host community, be guided on the customs and conduct and should not strive to portray living standards beyond their means.
- Hosting Costs:
- Airport Transfers (Transfer to and from Airport) - Euro 30.
- Participation fee (Meals at the project + KVDA administrative expenses) - Euro 200.
- Orientation day (One day orientation with full board including a Nairobi slums tour) - Euro 30.
- Transport (To and from the workcamp) - Euro 40.
- Total:
Euro 300
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