THE COMMUNITY
LOCATION OF THE SCHOOL
The School is situated 1 Km from Mutuati Market, along Mutuati-Antubetwe-Maura Road. The School is in Kabachi location, Mutuati division, Igembe North District in Eastern Province.
STAFF
The School has two teachers employed by Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) and five employed by the Parents. The non-teaching staff includes, two cooks, a secretary and watchman all employed by the School
ENROLMENT
Currently the School has a population of 157 students from form one to form four; 79 boys and 78 girls
PHYSICAL FACILITIES
There are two permanent classrooms in use and two more of the same type under construction , 6 pit latrines and a small semi-permanent kitchen, 5 hectares of land un fenced, water tank with storage capacity of 11, 000 litres
WATER SUPPLY
The School obtains water from Tuuru Water supply, a Catholic Diocese of Meru project. In addition water harvesting from rainfall supplements the overall supply.
PHYSICAL FACILITIES REQUIRED
Science laboratory, administration block, another classroom to accommodate the second form one class, perimeter fence, electricity, computer laboratory, dining hall, teachers’ houses and school bus
BENEFITS TO THE COMMUNITY
a)Provision of Secondary school education at low cost. The School does not charge School fees under the free Secondary School education program finance by the Government of Kenya.
b)Raising literacy levels in the community
c)Reducing crime rate and other social evils rampant among the youth who drop out of School
d)Job creation for the community members when the School expands

BACKGROUND MKAMATHI SECONDARY SCHOOL
Mkamathi Secondary School was started as a community educational project in the year 2007. The main objective was to help children from needy families acquire Secondary school education at affordable cost. Earlier, it had been realized that bright children were leaving school after Primary School level and such youths were turning to crime, drug and alcohol abuse among other evils spurned out of frustration and loss of direction in life.
In view of these, community members held a meeting, raised money and started the School in one of the classrooms of Mkamathi Primary School. The first form one class had 29 students. In 2008, when the second class was admitted, the School re-located and occupied Nkamathi Special School unit classrooms. In September 2008, the current Principal was posted to the School by the Teachers’ Service Commission and by this time the School had enrolled 72 students. The first Board of Governors was appointed the same year. In 2009, the first two permanent classrooms were constructed with the assistance from Igembe North Constituency Development Fund and these were built on a piece of land donated by Nkamathi village community and two more classrooms are under construction in 2010.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
The stark reality on climate change has impacted negatively on livelihoods, rendering communities destitute, devoid of nature; as human beings and wildlife compete for resources; eventually dealing deadly blow on the Eco-system. Never than before, is the reality sinking in at the moment as witnessed by persistent drought, erratic rains and untold natural disaster occasioned by the sudden change of climate.
It becomes imperative to champion the cause of tree planting and sensitization of environmentally friendly practices that are paramount to safeguard nature, its endowments and posterity. Environmental conservation campaigns will put into consideration the big gap occasion by commercial ventures and compromises entered by state and non-state actors that gravely compromise the efforts to reduce the emission of dangerous fumes with impunity. It is incumbent upon all the players to be pro-active in their efforts to nurture mother nature and be educated on what it takes to safeguard the interests of posterity; including the urgent need for civic education to trickle down to the Schooled and un-schooled masses in society to appreciate the impact of the environment on our daily lives.
WORK
Volunteers will work for six hours daily from Mondays to Fridays. They will be involved in awareness campaigns, construction of classrooms, brick making and home visits. Volunteers are advised to carry work cloths including rubber gloves, boots , sandals, rain coat, umbrella, torch, sleeping bags , mosquito repellant, sunscreen lotion , donations of every kind and official cloths for special occasions etc . A personal first Aid kit is also essential.

Sun glasses, water bottle, musical instruments, Local food stuffs to be shared during the work camp, souvenir, gifts for friends or for the project.
ACCOMMODATION
Volunteers will be accommodated in classrooms at the school with two separate rooms for male and female. This will be in a work camp set up where there are no beds and they will sleep on the floor on their mats and sleeping bags to experience complexities of development challenges in rural Kenya.
Volunteers with special needs like those who are physically challenged should alert KVDA on application so that efforts are made to accommodate them appropriately.
CAMP FEES
Volunteers participating in this project will be required to pay 300 Euros for a package of three weeks and this will include Airport Pick Up and drop off after the work camp, one day full board accommodation during the orientation day, fares to the project and back, food, facilitation, certificate of participation and will cater for Administrative costs as well.

KISWAHILI TRAINING PROGRAM {optional}
Kiswahili training program is tailor-made to suit volunteers’ preference and open to individuals keen to have basic knowledge in Kiswahili that is widely spoken in East Africa. Those willing to participate in the 10-day program should inform KVDA at least two weeks before arrival. Charges: Euros 200 all inclusive.

EDUCATIONAL TOURS
KVDA Organizes educational tours to spectacular sites of Interest and the fees charged are inclusive of meals, accommodation and tour guiding. This will be held before or after the work camp and those who wish to participate should make the application at least two weeks before arrival to enable KVDA put its act together. 10% of the income from the Educational Tours is used to support community projects.
Due to an increase in the park fees by Kenya Wild Life Service, the following are the charges with effect from 1st January 2011.
3 days tour to Masaai Mara National Park 350 Euros
4th day tour to Lake Nakuru an extra 150 Euros
Nairobi National park (One Day) 150 Euros
Bomas of Kenya 100 Euros

Volunteers will work for six hours daily from Mondays to Fridays. They will be involved in awareness campaigns, construction of classrooms, brick making and home visits.

Volunteers will be accommodated in classrooms at the school with two separate rooms for male and female. This will be in a workcamp set up where there are no beds and they will sleep on the floor on their mats and sleeping bags. Emukhuya Primary School is located in the Western part of Kenya. The school was founded in 1983 through a community initiative. Currently the school has 269 pupils including 40 orphans. The school motto is “discipline and hard work leads to success”

The community is located along the equator. It consists of Luhya speaking people. The inhabitants are agriculturalists and grow maize, beans and groundnuts.
Poverty levels are high due unemployment with a high rate of school drop outs due to early pregnancy and drug abuse.

DRUG ABUSE
Drug abuse is a major issue in the western part of Kenya and goes hand in hand with poverty. Recently, Drug and substance abuse has become a major hindrance to development in this area. All categories of the population, from the youth to the old, men to women are affected. This has impacted negatively on education, social behaviour and health. It has also led to low levels of engagement in positive economic activities.
Volunteers will be required to join hands with the community in addressing the issue of drug abuse.

Volunteers are advised to carry work clothes including rubber gloves, boots, sandals, rain coat, torch, sleeping bags , mosquito repellant, sunscreen lotion , donations of every kind and official clothes for special occasions etc . A personal first Aid kit is essential.

Volunteers with special needs like those who are physically challenged should alert KVDA on application so that efforts are made to accommodate them appropriately.

Volunteers participating in this project will be required to pay Euros 300 for a package of three weeks and this will include Airport Pick Up and drop off after the work camp, one day full board accommodation during the orientation day, fares to the project and back, food, facilitation, certificate of participation and will cater for Administrative costs as well.

KISWAHILI TRAINING PROGRAM {optional}
Kiswahili training program is tailor-made to suit volunteers’ preference and open to individuals keen to have a basic knowledge in Kiswahili that is widely spoken in East Africa. The 10-day program is organized in a serene atmosphere among volunteers. Those willing to participate in the program should inform KVDA at least two weeks before arrival.

Euros 200 all inclusive
EDUCATIONAL TOURS
KVDA Organizes educational tours to spectacular sites of interest and the fees charged are all inclusive of meals, accommodation and tour guiding. This will be held before or after the work camp and those who wish to participate should make the application at least two weeks before arrival to enable KVDA get its act together. 10% of the income from the Educational Tours is used to support community projects.
3 days tour to Masaai Mara National Park – 350 Euros
4th day tour to Lake Nakuru an extra 150 Euros
Nairobi National park (One Day) 150 Euros
Bomas of Kenya 100 Euros

It is important to make confirmation of project participation at least one month in advance for conventional purposes.

Volunteers will work for six hours daily from Mondays to Fridays. They will be involved in guiding and counseling, sports, drama, planting trees, soil conservation, brick making and home visits. Volunteers will help to sensitize the community on why they should place restraint on activities that cause environment degradation and also advocate for strategies for a sustainable use of the forest which is a tourist attraction.

Volunteers will be accommodated in classrooms at the school with two separate rooms for male and female. This will be in a work-camp set up where there are no beds and they will sleep on the floor on their mats and sleeping bags. The school was started by the community in 1957. It has 312 Boys, 334 girls, 16 classes and 11 teachers. It captures the philosophy “Discipline and unity lead to success. The school was started so as to enable students’ access quality education.

The inhabitants are Luhya speaking people of western Kenya. Their major economic activity is fishing and farming. Kakamega Forest is the main tourist destination in the area. Another tourist attraction is the crying stone. It is a high rock dome resembling a human figure whose eyes drop water. It is located along the high way of Kisumu. Poverty levels in this community are very high but the community is one of the most interesting contestants in the country. The Kakamega area receives a very high amount of rain. The Kakamega Forest is a reserve which is a remnant of a rainforest that once stretched west through Uganda. More than 400 species of birds have been found in the Kakamega rainforest. The many song birds fill the air with various birdcalls.
Kakamega is also home to Africa's largest and most aggressive cobra, the Kakamega forest cobra. Other snakes in the area include the forest adder, black mamba, and the green mamba.

ENVIRONMENT CONSERVATION
Environmental conservation entails proper use of resources. It is the practice of protecting the environment due to the pressures in population and technology, the biophysical environment is being degraded. Volunteers will sensitize the community on why they should place restraint on activities that cause environment degradation.

Volunteers are advised to bring work clothes including gloves, boots, sandals, rain coat, torch, sleeping bags , mosquito repellant, sunscreen lotion , gifts of any kind and official clothes for special occasions. A personal first Aid kit is essential.

Volunteers with special needs like those who are physically challenged should alert KVDA on application so that efforts are made to accommodate them appropriately.

Volunteers participating in this project will pay 300 Euros for three weeks and this will include Airport Pick Up and drop off after the work camp, one day full board accommodation during the orientation day, fares to the project and back, food, facilitation, certificate of participation and will cater for Administrative costs as well.

KISWAHILI TRAINING PROGRAM {optional}
Kiswahili training program is tailor-made to suit volunteers’ preference and open to individuals keen to have basic knowledge in Kiswahili that is widely spoken in East Africa. The 10-day program is organized in a serene atmosphere among volunteers. Those willing to participate in the program should inform KVDA at least two weeks before arrival.

Euros 200 all inclusive

EDUCATIONAL TOURS
KVDA Organizes educational tours to spectacular sites of Interest and the fees charged are all inclusive of meals, accommodation and tour guiding. This will be held before or after the work camp and those who wish to participate should make the application at least two weeks before arrival to enable KVDA put its act together. 10% of the income from the Educational Tours is used to support community projects.
3 days tour to Masaai Mara National Park – 350 Euros
4th day tour to Lake Nakuru an extra 150 Euros
Nairobi National park (One Day) 150 Euros
Bomas of Kenya 100 Euros

It is important to make confirmation of project participation at least one month in advance for conventional purpose.

7TH JULY 2012

WORLD HERITAGE VOLUNTEERS CAMPAIGN IN COLLABORATION WITH THE COORDINATING COMMITTEE FOR INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE AND THE WORLD HERITAGE CENTER

ENGLISH

COAST REGION AMONG THE LEGENDARY MIJIKENDA COMMUNITY

The community is located in Kinango which is one of the poorest townships in Kenya located at the coastal region. Rain fall has been a lifetime problem.
The Kinango community depends heavily on the trade of fruit, vegetables and live stock. During periods of low rain fall the many of the small businesses will cease trading due to the supply of agricultural products being cut off; the slaughter house will close due to insufficient water to maintain acceptable standards of hygiene.
HIV/AIDS has not spared Kinango with 33.2%. of its population being infected. Despite efforts by Schools, youth organisations, NGO’s and government campaigns AIDS is a myth to many people, more needs to be done to see the those living away from the main village are educated in the risks of HIV/AIDS.
Despite the Kenyan Government enacting marriageable age laws to limit marriage to a minimum age of 18, early marriages are widespread. Poverty, religion and tradition make the incidence of child marriage Kinango part of daily life with girls as young as seven years old being sent away by their family to be married.
Single parents make up a significant number of the population, the majority are woman who rely on small scale production of charcoal, with very little income that their children are unable to attend school. Children very often play a vital role in the day to day survival of themselves and parents collecting water from as far as 14 km away.

The Sacred Miji Kenda owes its existence to the cultural belief and history to the nine coastal Miji Kenda tribes. It is found a few metres from the Indian Ocean located near Diani Beach which is internationally recognized as a tourist destination.
The project seeks to initiate and test the viability of eco tourism as a means of linking conservation to tangible social and economic benefits of the local community.

After 3 years of fruitful experiences with 50 projects in 5 different regions of the world, we have the pleasure to launch the 2011 World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) projects campaign.
In the framework of UNESCO World Heritage Education Programme, this campaign co-organised by CCIVS and the World Heritage Centre (WHC) follows 3 main objectives stated in the global vision defined during the first WHV Evaluation and Planning meeting in March 2010. First of all, it aims at sparking interest about the importance and necessity to protect and promote cultural and natural heritage in general and World Heritage related sites in particular. The target group must be as wide as possible and include motivated volunteers, hosting local communities and concerned authorities. Then, the WHV projects are expected to develop appreciation of the WH values through non formal education methods disseminating the inter-governmental and national expertise to a large public and more specifically young people. Indeed, awareness-raising about WH should rely on a dynamic dialogue and synergies between all the WH stakeholders. Lastly, work camps run by international voluntary service organisations and whose activities are based on the concrete needs of the site are the type of project chosen to bring local and international communities together around the issue of WH in connection with the issue of sustainable development.

An increasing number of projects have been selected since the first edition. However and even though the selection is open to all, the future WHV projects must fulfil a set of criteria. Such process not only aims at the participation of the most relevant projects but also a better coordination of the selected projects. The organisations are also required to send a detailed programme of activities after the official selection of projects.

KVDA’s project is among the 32 projects that were approved by CCIVS to participate in the campaign in partnership with World Heritage Centre at UNESCO. This is the second workcamp hosted by KVDA on World Heritage Volunteers and it seeks to build the capacities of the local people to enable them to actively participate in efforts towards the conservation of the world heritage sites that often are endangered courtesy of human encroachment, among others.

Volunteers will work for six hours daily from Mondays to Fridays. Volunteers will be involved in making bricks for planting trees, naming trees, teaching and landscaping at the nearby school, creating awareness on the conservation efforts, prepare tree nurseries as well as extra curriculum activities, as well as go for home visits in the local community.

Volunteers will be accommodated in a house provided by the local people with two separate rooms for male and female. This will be in a work camp set up where there are no beds and they will sleep on the floor on their mats and sleeping bags to experience complexities of development challenges in rural Kenya.
Volunteers with special needs like those who are physically challenged should alert KVDA on application so that efforts are made to accommodate them appropriately.

Volunteers participating in this project will be required to pay Euros 300 for a package of three weeks and this will include Airport Pick Up and drop off after the work camp, one day full board accommodation during the orientation day, fares to the project and back, food, facilitation, certificate of participation and will cater for Administrative costs as well.

KISWAHILI TRAINING PROGRAM {optional}:Kiswahili training program is tailor-made to suit volunteers’ preference and open to individuals keen to have basic knowledge in Kiswahili that is widely spoken in East Africa and nowadays taught in prestigious Universities in the world. The 10-day program is organized in a serene atmosphere in order to quench for thirst among volunteers. Those willing to participate in the program should inform KVDA at least two weeks before arrival.
Charges; Euros 200 all inclusive.

KVDA Organizes educational tours to spectacular sites of Interest and the fees charged is all inclusive of meals, accommodation and tour guiding. This will be held before or after the work camp and those who wish to participate should make the application at least two weeks before arrival to enable KVDA put its act together. 10% of the income from the Educational Tours is used to support community projects.
Due to an increase in the park fees by Kenya Wild Life Service, the following are the charges with effect from 1st January 2011.
3 days tour to Masaai Mara National Park – 350 Euros
4th day tour to Lake Nakuru an extra 150 Euros
Nairobi National park (One Day) - 150 Euros
Bomas of Kenya - 100 Euros

It is important to make confirmation of project participation at least one month in advance for conventional purpose.

Report on KVDA/CCIVS/UNESCO Patrimonito workcamp in July 2010 at Sacred Miji Kenya Kaya Forest by Nigel Watt, chairman of VAP

The World Heritage Site

The Mijikenda are long established inhabitants settled along the length of Kenya's Coast Province and there are 11 separate sacred forest sites, known as Kayas and containing evidence of former fortified villages, along this coast. They were respected as holy places in the past but in the last 50 years people have started to destroy parts of the forests to make way for agriculture or housing and the unique flora, fauna and tree species have become seriously threatened. As elsewhere (e.g. Togo) income from tourism can help persuade the local population that such places are worth preserving. At the Kinondo Kaya, a very good visitors' centre has been built and visitors pay a fee and are taken on a tour of this small piece of forest where some of the rare trees are pointed out and they have a chance to see the site of the village, its water source and a few reptiles or mammals. (We saw a green snake and some baboons).

KVDA's role

KVDA's local partner, the Shimba Hills Forest Guides Association (SHIFOGA), played a key role in helping to set up this volunteer project. Kinondo is not in the Shimba Hills National Park but nearby on the coast. KVDA and SHIFOGA planned a work programme which would include conservation work in and around the sacred forest including weeding out invasive species of plants, educational activities with local schools to underline the importance of the site and other useful work with the local community. The original plan had been for the volunteers to camp at the visitors' centre but it was considered that security could be a problem there and a classroom was kindly provided by Kinondo Primary School to serve as a dormitory. This meant a healthy walk from the school to the forest but this was not a problem; it also meant that the info sheet was not wholly accurate. The actual work carried out by the volunteers included planting appropriate trees along the outside of the forest, weeding, removing traps that local people had set for catching monkeys, helping to create an environmental club at one of the schools visited and some general work on the school grounds as a "thank you" for the accommodation. Being in the school during term time gave the children a good chance to interact with the volunteers (at first gazing at the Wazungu and later getting to know them!). The camp was privileged to have Gerald Gambo, the manager of the Kaya Kinondo Ecotourism Project, and his assistant, Juma Harry, present throughout. There were good links generally with the local community. Elizabeth from KVDA and I, together with the Chairman of the school committee, called on the Chief. The volunteers visited the unique and highly successful community bank which had been set up in the village.

The volunteer team consisted of 5 Kenyans from outside the region, another 5, sometimes more, from the coast, 3 Koreans, 1 Czech (and me for three days). The volunteers (apart from those from the coast) took part in KVDA's excellent orientation day for all their incoming volunteers which was held in Nairobi before the camp and travelled by bus from Nairobi to Mombasa where a minibus was hired to bring the group to Kinondo. The small number of international volunteers was this camp's only real weakness. KVDA hesitated to put the project in their programme before it had been approved as a World Heritage project and KVDA's Director agreed with me that this was an error. However, the African nature of the camp gave it a great atmosphere with games and songs around the camp fire every evening and a well organised structure of committees and duty rotas. The Patriminito t-shirts from Korea arrived late but in time for the the end of the camp. One other slightly negative aspect was that no great effort was made to get publicity in the local media.

The future

This World Heritage site is one where volunteers can play a useful role in future, especially in raising the profile of the site among the local population, especially schools (maybe secondary schools next time) and by making a greater effort with the media. The location is one that would certainly attract more volunteers as the forest is within 200 metres of the Indian Ocean shore and the Shimba Hills National Park is just a few kilometres inland.