Education
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Miasenyi Secondary School Gets Conservation Education Tour and Safari
Part of Wildlife Works community empowerment strategy includes ensuring that underprivileged students get the chance to view their beautiful ecosystem and see wildlife in its natural habitat. Since March 2015, the Wildlife Works Community Relations Department at our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project in Kenya has been running an education program for local students to tour the Wildlife Works diverse operations, learn about conservation at our Tsavo Discovery Center and experience wildlife firsthand. Since the program started just over a year ago, over 25 schools have participated, bringing over 750 students through our curriculum. The aim is to eventually reach 80 schools in the area. On 20th May 2016, Wildlife Works…
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ASOS Foundation Continues to Fund Wildlife Work’s Community
Wildlife Works partners with ASOS, a large online retailer in Europe that produces with our affiliate factory SOKO, to implement ASOS Foundation funded initiatives in Kenya. Two local development projects that have recently been completed by this partnership are the construction of a water pipeline and the making of lockers and chairs for Buguta Secondary School in Taita Taveta County, Kenya. The ASOS Foundation has funded the construction of 5.7 km of pipeline to supply clean drinking water for domestic and human consumption to 150 households in the town of Mackinnon Road. The water originates from Mzima Springs in Tsavo National Park West, Kenya. The water pipeline project is managed by…
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Vision Impaired Scholarship Student Thrives Against All Odds
Since 2005, Wildlife Works’ Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project has awarded over $260,000 in scholarship money to more than 3,200 top performing students in our project area. One student’s perseverance exemplifies how dedicated our beneficiaries are to meeting their goals. Martin was born in 1981 to Emmanuel Mwarigha and Fridah Mshai. His family lives in a small village called Itinyi Village in Voi Sub-county, Taita Taveta County. In his teenage years, he developed an illness that diminished his eyesight. But the toughest time in his life came when his father died in 2008. Martin was 27 at the time. “I was thrown into health-threatening stress. I felt that I had lost…
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Environmental Education For the Youth Through Sports
The highest percentage of environment destruction through poaching bush meat and charcoal burning involves mostly youths. Wildlife Works has developed many programs to educate young community members about eco-friendly alternatives such as eco-charcoal, growing trees seedlings and other environmental initiatives. These education and training programs, which are proposed by the community, are funded by carbon sales within our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project as well as by donations from our partners and customers. In early September 2014, Wildlife Works launched a football tournament among six county locations within the Kasigau Corridor region, with the objective to educate the youth on protecting the environment and nurturing their talents. Before kick off and…
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Wildlife Works Sponsors Conservation Education and Safari for Kasigau Corridor School Kids
This is a shocking fact: most rural communities that live their entire lives bordering Tsavo National Park (adjacent to Wildlife Works’ Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project) have never seen an elephant before. More likely than not, they have a contentious relationship with large wildlife, who destroy their farms and eat their livestock. Meanwhile, thousands or tourists come from all around the world and pay a lot of money each year to gaze at wildlife that share the same territory as these local communities. Most rural schools in Kenya cannot afford to take their students on educational field trips due to harsh conditions in the area. Most families are subsistence farmers who don’t…
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Meet Rehema, a Student Who Never Gave Up On Her Education
Born in 1990 in Kale village in the Marungu area, Rehema never knew what her future held. At the very best, she was certain that she would end up growing old in her rural village. Rehema Mwaka is the second born in a family of four. Her parents are both subsistence farmers in Kale village. She joined Kale primary school in 1997 but because of the extreme poverty in her family, she was forced to dropped out for 2 terms due to of lack of school uniforms and tuition funds. However, she went back to school in the 3rd term and managed to maintain top position in her class and…
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Improving on Education along Kasigau Corridor by Wildlife Works
Education! The key to success in life. The dream begins with the teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes to lead you to the next plateau. But for many rural Kenyan children who are fortunate enough to attend school, poor classroom environments threaten the foundation for learning at a basic level. Teachers and students face overcrowding. Many schools have classrooms with over 100 students per session with leaking roofs or poor ventilation. Wildlife Works, through the funds of our REDD+ Project, is trying to change this for as many schools as we can in our project area. Since we founded in 1997, we have been building, renovating classrooms,…
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Wildlife Works Marks World Environmental Day With Town Clean Up and Climate Change Education
At this year’s World Environment Day, some of our employees at the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project put down their tools and left the offices to commemorate the day with the community at Kamtonga, a small village located in Mwatate about 50 kilometers from our station. Those who attended the event included the head community Relations Officer, Mr. Laurian Lenjo, Mrs. Emily Mwawasi and Joseph Mwakima (both working in community relations), and the agribusiness manager, Mr. George Maina. From the moment we arrived in Kamtonga, it was very clear that we could not have chosen a better place to commemorate the 2014 World Environment Day. The Mwatate community has…
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Marasi Primary School Renovations
Many people in the Kasigau Corridor view Marasi Primary School as the symbolic center of Maungu, which is the town nearest to our Wildlife Works REDD+ Kasigau Headquarters. Many of our employees, including the Human Resources Manager, Laurian Lenjo, completed their primary education there. Unfortunately, a visit to this school, started by parents in 1974, revealed crumbling roofs, peeling paint and door-less classrooms. Students who are fortunate enough to obtain a seat during class must sit at unstable desks that are shared with at least four others, while the remaining children sit on the dusty floor. Several months ago, the school received critical funding through the sale of carbon credits…
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Empowering School Girls in Kasigau Corridor to Remain in School
Lack of sanitary pads is a common concern for girls and women living in poverty-stricken backgrounds in developing nations. In dire circumstances, they are forced to improvise by using rags, tissue, leaves and other unhygienic materials. This humiliating practice can also lead to serious infections. Studies and research have also attributed the lack of sanitary towels as the main cause of school absenteeism for countless teenage girls in rural and poverty-stricken areas in Kenya. A recent collaborative study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), The Girl Child Network (GCN) and Human Relations Trust (HRT) shows that one in every ten girls in Africa misses school and eventually drops out…