Written by Alison | 11 May 2011

"Farmers are struggling after one of the hottest and driest months recorded have left entire crops parched and failed".

This is NORTH YORKSHIRE, near Wetherby.

Thousands of miles away in Enkito, Amboseli, SW Kenya, the ground is always parched. When the rains finally do arrive the ground soaks up as much as it can and then surface water washes away most of the remaining fertile topsoil, leaving only rock and sand. But its been like this for hundreds of years. The maasai have learnt to cope - but not to the extent that global warming has now reduced even the glacial cover on Kilimanjaro. Since 2000, the plateau's three remaining ice fields have shrunk by 26 percent. Scientists found that both the Northern and Southern ice fields atop Kilimanjaro have thinned dramatically in recent years, while the smaller Furtwangler Glacier shrank as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2009. These glaciers feed the only rivers in the area, rivers that are running dry.

This is Ulla. She died recently after 2009's most severe drought yet in the area.

The maasai community of Enkito is one we are personally involved with. Volunteer interaction with the group have found that there is a tap outside the village which works for one day a week, flitering a private supply of water, which must be paid for but it is sporadic, unreliable and spared among many other communities.  The women tend to walk the long distance to the river to ensure adequate water is maintained in the community. Having a well similar to one recently put in at the Mercy Home in Maseno will ease the lives of these women and the community greatly and ensure that their reliance on the river itself does not cause hardship in years to come.

Recently Justgiving has started a FREE TextGiving service and we'd like to ask you to help us bring water to this community, by simply texting ENKI20 £xx (where xx is the amount you wish to give) to 70070; a donation allowing us to sink a borehole well which the community will own and maintain. Full training will be given alongside the communities involvement in drilling.

Anything you can give will help. "Ashi oleng" <thank you very much>

Written by Alison | 26 April 2011

Written by Alison | 14 April 2011

Written by Alison | 26 March 2011

I just got news via Facebook from Justin Sekiguchi of Up with Hope of the successful negotiations they've made with the Staken Recycling Company in Nairobi. Staken, a kenyan company, are actually collecting Justin's teams' hard-laboured collections of discarded plastics and turning them into coat hangers.

This is particularly brilliant for us because we're trying to complete a business plan along with Leo, ex-head girl of the Mercy Home in Maseno, soon-to-be graduate of MMUST (Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology). The Business in Development Network has been running the Women in Business Challenge for many years now and we know this is a viable opportunity both for success in the Challenge but also as a business; environmentally and economically.

As Justin states in his blog, their success with Staken "proves that people with money to invest are finding Recycling to be a worthwhile endeavor." Here's a brilliant video by Staken explaining the process :

If you'd like to get involved with this project in the west of Kenya please get in touch; helping online, from the comfort of your home is all we need. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it