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Boosting Healthcare: The Story Behind the Renovation of Moi District Hospital Laboratory—4 Years Later
By Jane Okoth There is something exciting about the Moi District Hospital, and it is not just the jovial laboratory employees who are always there to lend a helping hand. It is actually the medical laboratory itself! The clean, air-conditioned room filled with latest generation machines whirring away producing their diagnostic results is amazing. Situated in Voi town, approximately 30km from Wildlife Work’s Rukinga Headquarters, the government referral hospital is now home to a state of the art medical and pathology laboratory. The refurbished laboratory is one of Wildlife Works largest community service projects, an investment of much time and approximately Ksh16,750,000, or about $162,000 USD. Understandably, setting up the…
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Empowering Young Boys Through MAP Training
In rural Kenya, young boys and girls are frequently held back from pursuing their ambitions due to cultural practices and beliefs as well as other vices. To counter such challenges, a series of trainings are held to assist them navigate through life. Wildlife Works has been at the forefront of supporting such community projects in our project area, which among them entail education, women’s empowerment and the rights of the girl child. Recently, supporters of Wildlife Works have facilitated a different kind of training about sexual health education held at Mkamenyi Primary School. The program dubbed MAP (Men as Partners) is specifically tailored to boys above the age of 12…
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A Day In The Life of Wildlife Works Rangers
It is a regular Thursday morning at Rukinga sanctuary. A group of nine rangers are already in a green Toyota Land Cruiser ready for their normal patrol in the bush, which starts at 7am and ends at 4pm. John Mwachofi, the team leader for camp 2.0, and his team started the day with some strategic planning at their camp. As the Media and Communication Officer at Wildlife Works, I thought it would be great to join this dedicated team with my colleague, the Executive Office Assistant just to get a glimpse of what it’s like being a ranger. The team is just a section of 120 unarmed Wildlife Works rangers…
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Injured Elephant Gets Treated
On Jan 28, 2017, Keith, our anti-poaching pilot went on a morning aerial patrol flight, after a tip off there was potentially a charcoal camp on northern Taita ranch, Kenya. At about 7:30am we spotted a lone bull in the thickets below us, it had a very large cyst on its right side, just above its back leg. Keith then messaged the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, who brought KWS vet Dr. Poghon by road from Voi. With the gyrocopter keeping visual on the injured elephants location, the ground team attempted to get close enough to the elephant to tranquilize it. The thick bush made it impossible for the ground team to…
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Baby Elephant Rescue
On November 2, 2016, our ground team received a call from a goat herdsman that a 5-year old elephant was roaming close to her farm alone for hours. Our Rangers immediately reported to the scene and called @dswt to arrange airlift transport to their Nairobi orphanage in a few hours time. Meanwhile, the rangers kept close eye on the baby girl elephant by keeping down wind and out of site as not to frighten her away. When it came time to prepare her for the transport, it took a team of 12 to secure her down as she struggled with fear of her capturers. After treating some minor wounds, we…
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Fair Trade USA Committee Uniform Donation
Last week, members of the Wildlife Works’ eco factory Fair Trade Committee had the pleasure of making a trip to two local schools within our project area. As part of the eco factory’s Fair Trade USA certification, each of our Fair Trade USA certified clients contribute a ‘premium’. This is around 5-10% of the overall production cost which is paid directly to our factory workers. Students at Itinyi Primary School holding up their new school uniforms Our Fair Trade Committee then decides how this money is spent. This time, they allocated a portion of their premium to the community for worthy causes. (Read here stories about how our employees have…
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Empowering young girls through GLOW training
Wildlife Works is committed to supporting community projects as we feel these can be the most important tools to developing self-sufficient and self-governing communities. One of our main focuses is on education, especially for women and girls. This past weekend, a sexual health and sanitation session for young girls at Kiteghe Primary School within our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project area in southeastern Kenya was funded through Wildlife Works. This program is called GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), and is run by Monica, a local Kenyan lady who volunteers her Saturdays to run this training session in local primary and secondary schools across Taita Taveta County. Monica writes essential goals for…
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Moses – Head of Data Collection for our rangers
Moses Lorewa is Head of Data Collection as part of the 85 Wildlife Works rangers that patrol our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project in southeastern Kenya. He is the eldest child in a pastoral family of seven children, from central Kenya. Upon finishing school in 2004, Moses worked in construction for a few years to make ends meet but knew this wasn’t his calling. He first came to the Tsavo ecosystem in 2007 to work as a scout for Southern Cross Eco Safaris who ran Gala Rock Camp, an old lodge within the Wildlife Works project area. Although Moses didn’t have any experience of working in the bush, he had grown…
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Teaching Climate Change in Rural Kenya
This is a gust blog from our media intern, Lucy Arndt, hailing from the U.K. Contact ask (at) wildlifeworks.com for our many internship opportunities in Kenya and the Congo. One of the most surreal things I’ve experienced since arriving in Kenya was being part of a teaching session on climate change with village elders – held entirely in Swahili. In my first week here, I accompanied the Community Relations Department of Wildlife Works on a series of community visits to the rural communities that are part of the project area. One of these was a focus group discussion with village elders (clan leaders, school leadership, etc.) to explain the project…
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Women’s Economic Empowerment Event
Wildlife Works strongly values women in the community and their autonomy to assume influential roles and set their own course. Last week, several members of Wildlife Works attended a women’s economic empowerment speech within our Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project area in Kenya. The meeting featured Rachel Chebet, the wife of Kenya’s Vice President William Ruto, and focused on ‘table banking’. Table banking is a practice that Mrs. Chebet started four years ago in the Taita Taveta region (where our project is based) to strengthen womens’ groups and promote economic stability. Table banking is a practice through which women organize into registered groups where each member contributes to a ‘group bank…
