Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

Land & Life Foundation (L&L) is very pleased to announce a new partnership with the Loisaba Community Trust (LCT), supporting our mutual efforts in conservation education outreach and initiatives. Together we hope to reach more children than ever before; to instill deeper and more comprehensive understanding of and love for the natural world than ever before; to lift and support the communities in which we work, giving people and wildlife the help they need to build themselves a better life; and to maximise the impact of the funds we raise, together, and make each dollar go further.

 

Loisaba Conservation Education Centre

Loisaba Community Trust is a leader in the conservation industry, known for the great success of their conservancy model and the strides they have taken in community support and involvement alongside science and wildlife protection and natural habitat preservation. They currently support the development of high quality education in the Loisaba area by working with 10 local primary and secondary schools. They have put in place an extensive bursary programme, provided infrastructural and resource developments for the school facilities and campuses, and introduced school visits for local children to the newly completed Loisaba Conservation Centre to help embed a love for the wild world in the hearts of the local youth. These visits are accompanied by game drives within the conservancy, and they also run adult literacy programs, school competitions and wildlife club activities in partnership with San Diego Zoo Global.

Paul (LCT Community Officer), Lori Denooyer and Caroline (Land & Life Project Manager in Loisaba Conservancy

 

This partnership is yet another example of our mutual commitment to improve and enrich the lives of people living alongside wildlife and ensure that they continue to receive tangible benefits from wildlife tourism. To kick off the new year, we will start by introducing Wildlife Warrior Clubs at Ewaso and Morijo Primary Schools; we will issue the children with membership cards and the Wildlife Warrior Pledge. We also plan to deliver the first ever WWP interactive club activity on ‘Animals and the world around us’ using our brand new resource pack.

 

Later on in the year, we will roll out the Wildlife Warrior Scholarship program whereby two bright youngsters attending Ewaso Primary will be awarded with a secondary school scholarship. We will fundraise for Ewaso and Morijo Primary School’s priority needs and give guests staying at Loisaba Tented Camp an opportunity to visit the schools and see how they too can get involved. Our plans for Ewaso dispensary will be to find ways to support essential capacity building through training for the clinic staff.

Ewaso Primary School (by Ami Vitale)

This strategic partnership will ensure that we harness the expertise and experience of both entities, creating a shared vision and giving us more power to reach our goals. This new venture will help grow the Wildlife Warrior Program, benefiting communities that we would otherwise not reach.

At Land & Life we are all thrilled about this new adventure. We believe that the ‘do-it-alone’ approach is not the best strategy for growth – our desire has always been to nurture as many conservation ambassadors as possible and what better way to do it that partner with LCT! Loisaba sees this as an exciting way to increase their footprint and make a greater impact, bringing additional benefits to their community and strengthening the existing extensive activity network. Both organisations hope that this partnership will open up new doors and a whole new world of opportunities. The community will benefit by having access to more resources, fundamental in the longevity and sustainability of any community projects.

So let’s toast to the New Year and to this new wonderful journey together!

Recent guest Owen who stayed at Elewana Elephant Pepper Camp with his family in July visited our Local Primary school Ololomei and was touched by what he saw and what is still needed to help provide the children with a high quality educational facility.

 

He decided he wanted to do something himself to help the students in Kenya. His next step was to start raising funds through a bake sale and together with some friends from his high school he made it happen!

He reached out to the managers at Elephant Pepper Camp for photos and information about Ololomei School and used it to put together an information board about the school. His family and friends all help and on the day the bake sale was a huge success. Owen raised over $1000 dollars for the school!!!

 

Last year we managed to build a semi-permanent classroom for Ololomei School through generous donations from Elephant Pepper Camp guests. This year, with the help of remarkable people like Owen, we are working towards provision of a kitchen and dining area for the students.

A huge thank you from Elephant Pepper Camp, teachers and students of Ololomei Primary school and the Masai community to Owen, family and friends for making this happen!

Asante Sana ( Kiswahili) and Ashay ohleng (Masai)

 

Little Embiti Primary is located in Siana within Embiti village and lies about an hour and half from Elewana Sand River Mara. Land & Life’s relationship with the school started in the year 2016 when its population was a little under 100 students. The children are enrolled from early childhood level to grade 4 because the school lacks the infrastructural capacity to accommodate children beyond that level. Currently, it has 2 permanent and 1 semi-permanent classrooms.

We have been able to provide the school with numerous books & stationery and other in-kind donations as received from our generous donors and guests who stay at Sand River during their safari. We also hold termly conservation education sessions with the top students (grade 3 and 4) who make up the Wildlife Warrior club at the school. Last year, we were able to construct the first ever permanent toilet block, which was greatly appreciated by the school. This is a great start, but we know that a lot more remains to be done at Embiti.

Meetings with the school faculty and community representatives to determine the school’s top priority needs gave insight about their water challenge and which initiated our Water Project at the school. This entails providing the school with a new water tank, installation of a rainwater harvesting system and a pipe connection to the nearby community borehole.

We were slightly short of funds to complete this project until the Scopa family and friends (Mike, Caitlin, Shannon, Emma and Emily) visited and spent time with the Embiti children. They enjoyed their visit and on their return home they got in touch and made a donation to allow us to complete the water project.

Their generosity and support, which is so timely, doesn’t end at that. They are committed to providing funds for the construction of a new classroom at the school. Their daughter Emma and her best friend Emily are currently raising funds for the construction of a new classroom, which will enable the children to continue with their studies beyond grade 4.

An education is an opportunity to escape poverty, not only for themselves but for their families and villages. An education can be life-changing for these children and their families but only if they can continue to attend school – Emma & Emily

Read about their amazing experience at Embiti on their crowdfunding page:  A school for every kid and help support their goal by sharing their story and/or donating.

Kidogo Kidogo, hujaza kibaba! – “Little by Little, fills the cup – goes a long way”.

2018 has been a very interesting year for Kenya especially in terms of weather forecasting! While the rains brought relief to much of drought-stricken Kenya, to Land & Life it brought major delays in the execution of our construction projects. However, we can now smile as the third new classroom in Esiteti Primary School is now complete despite the multiple setbacks! This third new classroom sits 30 students comfortably, and brings  the school to up to a total of 9 classrooms. This frees up the ICT room for exclusive computer use, supporting our ongoing digital literacy drive across our school network. The construction of the new classroom successfully ended in mid-August. The students have since resumed school for the last term of the year, and everyone is delighted with the new classroom.

In addition to this, the school is also receiving a facelift in the academic block which will see 5 classroom floors completely redone, windows and doors fixed and refitted and the entire academic block repainted. This refurbishment will also see the school fitted with solar lighting to help the school run more efficiently. The refurbishment will be done in phases. We are now done with exterior works and the bulk of the work left is the redoing of floors, wiring the school and painting inside the classrooms.

For a very long time, much focus has been on the girl child and this has impacted on the boy child too. In the recent past, we have experienced declining numbers of boys in the upper Primary classes. Boy child retention in schools is becoming an issue, especially in the pastoral communities. In line with this, we received a donation to fund the construction of an 80-bed boys dormitory which will increase the retention levels for the students as well as facilitate improved performances as there is more time for the students to study as opposed to day schooling. Despite delays in this project also related to weather conditions and ongoing challenges, we finally have the detailed structural drawings for the dormitory and have engaged a reliable and well known contractor from the local community. This project will commence this month and we foresee having a dormitory by end of the year.

 

Our thanks go out to all the donors involved with these amazing developments at Esiteti this year – from Amaya Tandon, to Birgit Reimann and Constantine Panoussi of SKAl international Monaco – the de Vink family from the United States and Johann Auer from Europe –  David Hanes, Helene Hamilton, Clarke Rees, Suzanne Kent , and Joseph and Miriam Habib. Thanks to all of you, and to those many others who have also donated books, supplies and resources – without you the children of Amboseli would be considerably worse off.