Building Resilient Communities in Marsabit, Northern Kenya

WHY THE CAMPAIGN?

This campaign is a resilience and sustainable livelihood project in the arid and semi-arid areas of Northern Kenya where Nomadic pastoralism is the main economic activity. These pastoralist communities face food insecurity, poor nutrition and livelihoods are highly dependent on climatic conditions. The project aims at taking off beginning with Marsabit county and then replicated to Isiolo, and Samburu counties.

PROBLEM

Women, men and children living in remote and hazard-prone rural areas in Marsabit Central and Marsabit South Sub-counties rely on smallholder agriculture to provide their main source of food or income. Despite macro-economic growth within each county, communities are unable to maintain a basic standard of living because of poverty which is widespread. Poverty in Northern Kenya means:- Lack of basic needs (Food and water), Elevated illiteracy levels, Lack of schools, Lack of knowledge, Nonexistent health facilities, High insecurity, Increased Malnutrition and as a consequence an escalated infant mortality rate.

The northern part of Kenya has a semi-arid and hot climate and rarely receives rain. The perennial, unpredictable and severe drought force pastoralists in the region to travel further afield for pasture, making them vulnerable to conflict over scarce resources. Men practice nomadic pastoralism while women are good in bead making but lack income generating skills of their beaded products which include:- Bracelets, necklaces, bead chains, bead belts, bead sandals, table mats, bead baskets, bead purses, house mats, door mats, bed mats, shoe racks and indoor decorations.

SOLUTION

We plan to set up a profitable community based training center and a demonstration farm where women will be positively impacted, empowered, educated and mentored on how to maximize agricultural production as well as providing training on how to generate income from beaded products. Maasai beaded products are very beautiful and have a potential of boosting the wellbeing of the pastoralists interventions are made.

The women and youth groups will also be trained on financial skills through the Savings and Internal Lending communities (SILC). SILC trainings enhance the groups’ capacities to ably establish a strong savings and loans system and maintain average standards for their micro economic activities and improve on their household incomes.

We aim to:-

• Train and provide women with practical income generating skills of making bead products
• Link the women with potential buyers and clients that can access the beaded products at very good prices.
• Provide employment to the young people who will help in the bead making process

Considering the culture of the pastoralists, Agro-pastoralism is the only promising solution where people will engage in agricultural initiatives in addition to keeping some livestock and that means that the families and communities will rely on two sources of livelihood as opposed to one, making them more resilient and less vulnerable. Through our demonstration farm we plan to:-

• Promote and train women and youths on climate smart agriculture,
• Capacity build the groups on the equitable management and conservation of natural resources, e.g. water cycle and irrigation management;
• Improve access to sustainable and affordable sources of energy for productive uses, such as solar pumps, money maker pumps (for irrigation);
• Train on financial inclusion, community savings and lending schemes and linking the women groups to Formal Financial Institutions.

HOW THE FUNDS WILL BE USED

The funding collected will enable smallholder farmers, in particular women and youths, to increase productivity and diversify production despite changing seasonal patterns and extreme events through management practices that promote sustainable and agro-ecological approaches. Each little contribution you make will highly boost the sustainability of the ongoing activities.

Where appropriate, beneficiaries will be encouraged to adopt external inputs such as drought tolerant seed varieties and organic fertilisers.