Update on Permaculture in Meru Kenya January - 2024

The long rains which came in October  2023 were intense, unfortunately flooding many areas and washing away soil and seeds. After several failed rains and drought this complete reversal was unexpected and unfortunate. Despite the excess rainfall it does appear  that the community in general will have a much better crop than in the drought years, and so it seems despite the challenges of the rain the outcome will be better than drought. There have been delays to Permaculture 2 and 3 due in part to the excessive  rains, but also in part because Peter Gitonga, the Friends of Kianjai community worker who was supporting delivery of these projects was shot in a robbery mid 2023 and is only recently back to work. Concluding these activities swiftly is a priority for him.
PERMACULTURE 2
Plan: For Mituntu Polytechnic to develop their 15 acre site as a permaculture demonstration farm, to include orchard, pig, diary and chicken units.
Progress: Pig unit is installed  with the first group of pigs having produced a successful litter. The orchard is established and has benefited from the recent rains as the area where they are planted is protected by swales ( long trenches) which were part of the permaculture design. The cow shed and the chicken coop are also completed. The animals for both will be purchased when the Poly students return on Jan 10^th. There is a very good grass harvest for the cows which will be good initial feed.The poly manager and the farm caretaker are working well together and expecting a good harvest from the farm.
 With the County government drilling a borehole at the polytechnic in summer 2023, and with the plan to solarise  this as part of the Water is Life project, the outcome for the polytechnic is looking very positive. The Board of Governors and the staff are very enthusiastic. Student enrolment in Jan 24 is higher than previous years which reflects growing community confidence in the institution. 
PERMACULTURE 3
Plan: To install 8 water tanks and drip irrigation systems into school farms to maximise the schools potential to feed the children, and to demonstrate best practice farming methods to the wider school community.
Progress: All tanks are installed and 5 drip installations are in place. These schools have reported good results from having access to the water even in this season with unusual rainfall. Many have used the drip system for early planting ahead of the rainfall which has helped reduce pests, and also enabled them to market produce at a good price when little was in the market place. 
Unfortunately the rains had started before the remaining 3 drip systems were installed. These are scheduled after the rains stop which should be imminent.
PERMACULTURE 4
Plan: To work with Mituntu Polytechnic and the County Agricultural Dept to support the schools and develop a broader based support network for the schools based on techniques developed by SCOPE.  Plus seedlings for 8 schools.
Progress: Activities under this grant are complete. There is however continued support from the County Agricultural office who make 6 visits a year to each school farm working with the school to set targets for the farm and supporting the farm work with their expertise.  Building relationships between the school farms and the wider community is ongoing, and is supported by other activities one being the proposed Water is Life solarisation project.

ROTARY CLUB OF LINDUM LINCOLN KENYA PROJECTS AS AT AUGUST 2022

Over the last 3 to 4 years Lindum Rotary has been involved in the Meru area of Kenya. It is a tribute to the Rotarians in Meru and the charity Friends of Kianjai Kenya that so much has been achieved at a time of Covid 19, inflation and drought. Alongside Grantham Kesteven Rotary Club, an investment in the order of £152000 (say$180,000) is being made, across 12 projects. Lindum Rotary contribution amounts to over £41,000, found by the fund raising of Rotarian Shanti Shah, personal donations and club fund raising.
Currently there are four projects being implemented, with another in planning. These are:        

1. CHANGING LIVES

Finance: Total £55,000 – incl. Lindum’s £14,000
Achieved: Two tailoring workshops and a retail outlet
To complete: Supporting community health services
Completion Date: November 2023

2. PERMACULTURE 2

Permaculture blends western agriculture with traditional practice.
Finance: Total £9000 (Lindum £1380, Other Clubs £4620, District Grants £3000)
Plan: Provision for Mituntu Polytechnic to develop their 15 acre site as a permaculture demonstration farm, to include an orchard, and pig, dairy and chicken units.
To complete: Chicken coop, and purchase dairy cattle
Completion Date: autumn 2023

3. PERMACULTURE 3

Finance: Total £5488 (Lindum £3288, RC Northampton Becket £200, District Grant £2000)
Plan: 8 water tanks and 8 drip irrigation systems in schools. Including training of teachers, Polytechnic students and the involvement of the wider community.
To complete: 3 school drip systems are still to complete.
Completion Date: These will be installed by mid September 2023. All other aspects of the grant funding are complete.

4. PERMACUTURE 4

Finance: Total £5000 (Lindum £4000, FKK £1000)
Plan: FKK working with Mituntu Polytechnic and the County Agricultural Dept to support the school farms using techniques developed by Scope Kenya  for permaculture farm development in 14 schools, plus seedlings for 8 schools. 
To complete: Activities under this grant are complete (please note that training beyond the remit of the grant will be ongoing).
Completion Date: Complete

5. WATER IS LIFE

This is a planned Rotary global grant project. Grantham Kesteven Rotary will lead as the International Partner. The Rotary Club of Laikipia Highlanders is considering the request to be the Host Partner and will advise by mid September.
Finance: Total £31,000 (Lindum £3550, Other Clubs £4500, District Grant £12750, World Fund £10,200)
Scope:  Solarising 4 existing boreholes ; connecting piping to schools to enable access for sanitation and to support agriculture.
There is considerable political interest in Meru, with a borehole already dug funded by the local authority.

Mike Robinson
5 September 2023 

Following successful completion of electrical completion on Monday, yesterday Rotary club of Meru delivered 15 straight sewing machines, 2 button hole sewing machines and 2 over lock sewing machines and they were all assembled and tested by two technicians from Nairobi by 9:30 pm last night. This project is slowly coming together and we hope to realize the objective of empowering the ladies that have patiently walked with us on this journey soon by the Grace of God. I sincerely continue to most sincerely thank you for making this initiative a reality. And by the way it was interesting to learn from these technicians that a ceiling is not need in a tailoring workshop to ease challenges with emissions/fumes/dust/ support in aeration from the clothes that are being worked on by the tailors. 

Education project:

I also had an opportunity to visit Lairangi day & Mituntu day to delivery uniform and it is very inspiring to note the change that this uniform fund contributes to the beneficiary students. At Mituntu day the principal promised to buy a pair of shoes to the Brenda who is currently being hosted by a school neighbour while at Lairangi John informed  me that the shirt the beneficiary boy student has been wearing is part of the previous cloths donation that we gave the school during Caroline & Sally’s visit back in 2020.

Progress From Lairangi Community Water pans

I also had the opportunity to visit Charles who was part of the 5 water pans that FKK and Rotary Invicta originally supported Lairangi community with on my way back from Lairangi day and it was so encouraging to note our objective of contributing towards food security and sustainability still lives on as expressed through the above pictures with an elated Charles telling that he has previously harvested onions and beans while his fruit trees like avocado and mangoes were doing very well.

John is also working to plant bananas with water from the borehole that’s now fully operational and I networked him with one of my friends at Nkubu to help him with banana suckers while Boniface from the County Agric Dept, will continue to guide him along the process.

Dear Steve, Mike and Simon
I wanted to share with you that the £1000 your club sent, together with a very
generous personal donation from one of your members has been sent to Kenya and
the food has been distributed. You will see some pictures above, and below is an
email I received from Nkanata last week, since then as you will see above the food
has been bought and distributed. The timing was extremely helpful. I hadn’t realised
that the schools were breaking up for their long summer holiday now. These children
were only being fed at school via the feeding program we operate there. They would
have been going home to households who had absolutely nothing to feed them. Very
thankfully your kind donation has meant that they will have food in the house for some
of this time which is a huge blessing. Please pass on our huge thanks to all your club
members.
Good morning Caroline. Hope you had a good weekend. On Saturday we shared the
good news of your food donation to Susan ,Ntere, and Raibuni. The three are the
representatives of SNE teachers in the district. They suggested we buy maize and
pease instead of beans which are too expensive. Maize is selling at 85 per kg. Pease
are selling at 130/kg compared with beans @ 180. We agreed on Pease because they
are also a good source of protein. When giving out the food we said we consider the
hard hit families so that each family can at least get 15 to 20 kg of food. The schools
are closing on Friday this week. We expect the families will get their food ratio before
Saturday. Many thanks to you. God bless you all.
Many Kind Regards
Caroline