Archive for the ‘ASSETS’ Category
 After many year of head scratching trying to avoid the question “what next after the student’s graduate from secondary school”, at last there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. ASSETS is now linked to a UK charity, Gift International which seeks to finance post secondary education.
Grassroots Initiative Funding and Training (GIFT International) is run by very experienced environmental education teachers attached to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in the UK. This charity seeks to facilitate education and training of communities for the purpose of environmental conservation.
Thus it has been another day on the motor bike though this time not paying bursaries. I have been busy searching for the ASSETS graduates who qualify to join University and potential beneficiaries to this new initiative. From our initial assesement, we have identified 10 graduates who qualify for this assistance. Interviews are scheduled for the next week to pick on the best four. Out of these, two are girls, and the most encouraging thing is, they are looking forward to a good future. One of the graduates I met had this to say. ‘Through the great assistance offered to me by the ASSETS project, I was able to complete my high school and sincerely speaking ASSETS project has been the backbone of my success’.
Bats
Everything is blamed on the post election violence! For employees in the hotel industry, it is a very popular reason why they cannot repay their debts while their managers have found it easy to lay off half their staff to save on wages overhead in the name of redundancy. Head teachers in private schools have fallen victims of the same whilst children have accumulated enormous fees balances; reason, post election violence has ruined tourism in Kenya. Whilst all this is perfectly true and well worthy knowing, we should also note that it is June, the poorest Month in tourism. At the Mida bird hide, this is usually the time when we can receive one visitor in a whole week. At the Gede ruins, they hardly get tourists anyway and to them this is perfectly normal for the Month of June.
Renovation of the Mida Bird hide While this is happening, we have since mid-May closed the Mida bird hide for some major renovations. A team of five has been working tirelessly on the facility and is now almost done. The fundi, Kadenge, “the bomb” promises it will be fully functional in two weeks.
My name is Stanley Baya, working as the Co-ordinator of the Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Eco-Tourism Scheme (ASSETS). I feel privileged to share with you my experience in working in community and conservation at Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Mida Creek. Perhaps the best way to do this is to share with you what drives me to take up such a challenging task as you will realise community development is indeed not easy especially when you are from that community yourself (a prophet can not be accepted by his own people); I am not suggesting that I am a prophet, that’s not the point, I only mean “familiarity breeds content” I grew up at Gede village, one and half kilometers from Arabuko-Sokoke Forest but I knew very little about it until much later during my college days. Mida Creek was more familiar to me as I had a chance to learn how to fish from my cousins as a child. My job as co-ordinator of an eco-scholarship fund would not have been as exiting without my High school experience when I had to stay out of school for a greater part of the school semester owing to the expense of school fees. One of my most exiting moments has always been when I received a bursary support from World Vision International which enabled me to complete my secondary school education. I later trained as a Primary school teacher and worked in a private school for two years until year 2001 when I joined A Rocha as the ASSETS Co-ordinator. <www.assets-kenya.org> It is while teaching in a private school where the children had more than what they needed that challenged me to think of the other children in public schools whose parents could hardly lay a meal on the table.
In ASSETS, I have realised an incredible combination of two of my greatest passions; helping needy children and environmental conservation. By the time these children graduate from secondary school, a sense of appreciation of the natural environment is often very evident. While others write to express their gratitude for the bursary support, some present themselves in person to do the same and tears are a common characteristic of their joy. This plus their parents commitment in caring for these internationally recognised habitats is indeed the encouragement to press on! |
|
