East Africa

We continued our help to Kenya during the first part of the year. We helped provide food for around 15,000 people together with EDFRI our partners in Kenya. A harvest was expected in March and in fact the first fruits of beans had been already harvested around Christmas. Things were looking good, but then just before the maize harvest torrential rain destroyed a great deal of the yield.

Once more the situation was desperate. We were able to help build a dam in the Mbeeri area – about 200km north of Nairobi – which is a great blessing. Women from this area had to walk 15km one way, to collect water from a lake near a power station. That is thankfully history. The other sand dams that were built were a great help but unfortunately there are not enough. People heard that “our” communities had water and walked, sometimes a long way, to take water. The sand dam reservoirs had to provide for many more people than planned. We hope to continue build more  dams.

A fishing cooperative has been launched in Turkana. They have three boats at the moment and 50 people are dependent upon each boat. This project is sustainable and helps the people to generate their own income and feed their families. The members of the cooperative have come out of a refugee camp that has been supported by EDFRI for a couple of years. Turkana is the most impoverished area of Kenya.