Stanley is Back from Leave

It has been quite an eventful one month of leave. Characterized by major highs and lows, my one month of leave has in general been a great family time. The first weekend was indeed the best of all. The children had a big time swimming with their favorite uncle and wished every day was Saturday afternoon.

Soon after, Jordan fell sick. I spent seven sleepless nights trying to control Junior's body temperature which in many occasions defied the power of Calpol and wet towels. It ended up being a very stressful week. Nevertheless, this was a great time for bonding with my son and from it I got to understand him more and even love him better. What a joy it has been.

Junior was hardly back in school when a major tragedy struck; the passing on of a close cousin from Leukemia. For another week I was juggling between taking part in preparation for the funeral and looking after Jordan.  This was one of my worst experiences in my life. Still in between all this madness, I managed to find time to go ahead with supervising the construction of A Rocha Kenya's community office at Gede.

The following week was another great family time where I spent a good amount of time working in the farm and even had rare opportunities to drop Junior at school. I also had time to take part in assessing potential ASSETS beneficiaries from three schools. Despite the long hours driving around the forest, this was quite a fulfilling and enjoyable exercise.  It always great to deliver the great message of hope to these otherwise desperate families around the forest.

The most frightful happening came on the night of 28th; a Thursday. I was woken up by a uniquely disturbing cough from Jordan. That evening, I had given him some pain-killer after noticing a slight rise in temperature. I had hoped that within a short time the temperature would drop back to normal but instead it went on to cause terrible fits of convulsions. It was very reassuring to here the doctor say he was alright on reaching the hospital at 1 a.m.

The climax has been the general election from which we are still waiting for the outcome. By 5 a.m. on the 4th of March, my whole family was already in the queue at Gede Polytechnic ready to participate in this historic event. I still wonder what difference this is going to make. Nonetheless we are very pleased to have participated in the exercise despite that most of the candidates we voted for lost the election. We have no regrets but only hope that one day Kenyans will be able to vote candidates because of their credibility and not their ethnic affiliation.

ASSETS Schools Receive A Special Visitor.

A while ago, six of ten ASSETS schools received a special visitor. This was Sarah French, the director of operations at A Rocha international.She together with Stanley, Festus, Jonathan and Furaha did a tour of the schools that benefit from the ASSETS Eco bursary scheme.

They hoped to give Sarah  French a first hand experience of the schools and get a feel of reality on the ground. Though they would have loved to take her to all the ten schools,it was not as possible as the schools are tens of kilometers apart with very bumpy sandy roads that make it impossible to do it in a day.

Among the schools visited were Kahingoni primary school, which is Furaha's  (an ASSETS graduate who is currently volunteering at A Rocha Kenya) former primary school and Nyari Primary school,Jonathan's former primary school.

Jonathan is  also a former ASSETS beneficiary that joined A Rocha Kenya recently as a conservation assistant.

In one of the schools, Malanga primary school, they met Mwaboza. Mwaboza is now a teacher at the school after he was able to make it through high school, thanks to the ASSETS Eco tourism scheme .A generous sponsor paid for his college education fulfilling his dream of becoming a teacher.

The ASSETS program is not about just a general community project in the name of conservation.It is about individually tangible benefits that transform the lives of the local people and can directly be attributed to the environment.

At Last ASSETS Finds one of its own

Finding the appropriate person to employ can sometimes be a tough task bearing in mind how many applications you always expect for any job advert you put up. This time round however the same task was made a lot easier by an application we noticed from an ASSETS graduate. Jonathan Charo graduated from Sokoke Secondary school in 2008, having received support from the ASSETS Eco-bursary scheme and came to volunteer at Mwamba Field Study Centre for seven months in 2009. It is at Mwamba Field Study Centre that he met a couple who were willing to sponsor his college education.

Jonathan has recently graduated from The Mombasa Polytechnic University College with a diploma in Environmental Community Health. Mr. Charo has now been employed by A Rocha Kenya as a Community Assistant, taking over from Patrick Kaunda who moved jobs in December 2012.

When he was in college, Jonathan was once attached to the Kenya Medical Research Institute as a field assistant where he gained good experience in community mobilization.

We welcome Jonathan back to the ASSETS programme; not as a student needing support but as a colleague. We all wish him well as he begins his career.

SCHOOLS REOPEN,RESULTS AWAITED,MORE BURSARIES NEEDED.

Schools reopened after the December holidays early this month.January marks the beginning of a new academic year for primary and secondary schools. This is always characterized by promotion to the next class and announcement of results  for those who sat for Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (K.C.P.E) exams. This year,however, the results will be late as the examination time was greatly affected by the teachers' strike last year, that saw the candidates sit for their exams in December instead of January.Consequently, there will be a delay in the in take of form one students.

Back to school for ASSETS means,a rush to get the report forms of all beneficiaries and assess their performance,collection of bursaries and identification of new needy children.

A total of ksh. 2.4 million is needed for this year's bursaries. ASSETS hopes to add 66 more needy children into the scheme and more funds are needed for this to happen, therefore any donations will be of great help.

You can help a needy child get education this year by either making a donation on

https://my.give.net/arochakenya_assets  for those in UK. In Kenya is through M-pesa number 0707688999

ASSETS GRADUATE INTERNS WITH A ROCHA KENYA

Grace Rehema Kahindi , who is an ASSETS graduate just joined A Rocha as an intern in the accounts department.Grace is the second child out of eight in her family. Her parents are jobless and have a small piece of land on which they grow cassavas to feed the family and barely have surplus to sell  for cash for their children's school fees.

Thanks to the ASSETS bursary scheme,however, Rehema became the first child to get a complete secondary school education in her family. In Kenya, secondary school is the most expensive to afford  unlike university or college where there are many different organisations that give grants,scholarships and loans.

Rehema, through a loan by higher education loans board(HELB) is currently in her second year of study at Bondo university college where she is pursuing a degree in international tourism management.

She hopes to support her family upon completion of her studies and that some of her siblings will also benefit from the ASSETS scheme. It is through donations and support from local and international well wishers that this program is able to give people like Rehema, the audacity to dream of and hope for a better future.

The African Billfish Foundation And Sala Terrena Support of ASSETS

Last year was a great year for ASSETS. Ayoti joined the team as a Liaison officer for the program. This was thanks to Ms Christina Harris of Sala Terrena Creative Construction and African Billfish Foundation.

In September 2012, Ayoti joined the team after Ms. Harris,who was her line manager then approved her move from Sala Terrena to A Rocha Kenya. She herself is a conservationist and works through African Billfish Foundation, a foundation that seeks to create awareness and promote the conservation of billfish along the East African coast.

Ms. Harris, through Sala Terrena  Creative Construction, a company that she manages and is owned by Andrew Melesi  gave a donation to ASSETS. This donation was to facilitate for Ayoti to work for the program for six months, in fundraising, till end of February 2013.

It has been four months since she joined the program and we are glad to say that a lot has been accomplished in the short time she has been with ASSETS.

She has revived communication with different stakeholders, taking care of the database and other related tasks that had stalled. Ayoti has successfully organized ASSETS first ever fund raiser walk that aimed at raising funds for the 2013 bursaries. She has also represented ASSETS in different meetings and initiated communication with potential donor.

Ayoti has indeed made a major contribution to the program and we are very grateful to have her as part of our team. We do hope that we will be able to keep her way beyond the six month period.

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Ms. Christina Harris and Mr. Andrew Melesi for recognizing the work that is being done by ASSETS and supporting it.

Beneficiary meetings

Over the last couple weeks,The Assets team has been going all round the forest to have beneficiary meetings.The meetings was to remind the students benefiting from the scheme of the conditions for their bursary to continue. Along with that,parents were also in the meeting to hear and also have a meeting about the CFA structure and how they will slightly change the way they do things.

All the beneficiaries had been visited after six days and on 18th the meetings, ended with Bogamachuko being the last one.

It was quite interesting to see how passionate the parents received the CFA news and how it would make a positive difference in their activities.

The meetings brought alot of debates and discussions especially about students    discipline. MrSuleman Bakari gave alot of inspiring examples of how the parents and the students can work together and how both can improve .

PWEE FOUNDATION donates to ASSETS fund raising walk

<Hoi Wen Au Yong> from Singapore has been a great supporter of the ASSETS program and represented THE PWEE FOUNDATION in this ASSETS fundraiser walk where the foundation donated to this cause. Hoi Wen herself is personally supporting two students who through the ASSETS program was able to make it through high school. She is now helping them pay for their university education at Pwani university in environmental science and the other in nursing.

We would like to express our gratitude to the PWEE foundation in Singapore and Hoiwen for your constant support.

THE WALK FOR NATURE AND CHILDREN HAPPENS

Finally!!!!!!!! the long awaited walk happened. The ASSETS fundraising walk took place last Saturday the 8th of December. The main aim of the walk was not only to raise funds for local needy children's high school bursaries but also to promote conservation of Arabuko Sokoke forest and Mida creek through creating of awareness on the importance of the two Eco systems to the local community and tourists. It started at exactly 6.05 am with a team of 16 and a brief introductory session by Stanley Baya, who is the ASSETS adviser and the environmental education officer in A Rocha Kenya.Then a prayer for safety by Andrew Kinzer.

The walk started from A Rocha Kenya head quarters to Turtle bay where the walkers took the junction from the main road to Dabaso road.Being 6am the sun had not gone up yet so the temperatures  were still low and pleasant though slightly humid.T he first half of the walk was to be done by the sixteen walkers before joining later with a group that was waiting for them 15km ahead.

For participants who were visiting from abroad for the first time,it was just amazing since they got the real feel of Africa  and experience nature one on one as opposed to when they have to use tourist buses to do the tours.

After three hours of walking, chatting , jumping over muddy water and snails, they finally made it to Arabuko Sokoke forest's Mida gate where a group of twenty one more people was waiting.

This was followed by a brief wait for clearance with the forest station as it was important that we have security with them because of elephant and buffalo. The participants did not hesitate to in taking advantage of the delay to show off their different talents that varied from balancing a bottle on the head to imitating the monkeys though the walk was definitely NO MONKEY BUSINESS.

After a while the now large team was ready to do the rest of the walk.Andrew and Benjo opted to run the rest of the way instead.

After another brief talk by Stanley, the team crossed over into the forest and embarked on the remaining 15km. They went past the three different forest vegetation.

It was amazing how the different vegetation was noticeable with brachystegia  being characterized by tall trees  and more open as opposed to the other vegetation. Soil color change was also conspicuous with the changes in vegetation as different parts had red soil while others had white.

It was a pleasant walk with colorful butterflies flying off fresh elephant dung and a bit fearful as the walkers encountered fresh buffalo tracks.

Three hours later, all the walkers made it to Nyari viewpoint which was the intended destination.After a shared lunch, the team was ready to head back.Having accomplished their mission.

ASSETS Plot Beginning to Develop!

The Gede ASSETS plot has been full of activity as we near the end of the year. In addition to building materials being dropped off for the new ASSETS offices, and eventually a conference center, we have also hired a permanent team member, Jimmy, to live on the plot and help manage the land, as well as look after our conservation agriculture demonstration fields.  Last week a team from Mwamba spent the better part of the morning marking out the permanent fiels for our demonstration fields. Jimmy had done  a wonderful job of clearing a massive mango tree stump which was in the middle of one of our fields, as well as leveling the terrain. For the first time, we have six 6x6 meter fields marked out, side by side, ready to be prepared for planting when the long rains come in April/May. In addition to marking out the fields, a permanent composting station was also measure and marked out for construction, hopefully to be completely set up this week. If all goes according to plan, we should have enough compost to plant a whole acre of maize, which is more what we will need in one season of planting. We will have plenty of excess to store for future planting seasons. Plans are also in place to put a rainwater harvesting tank on the house Jimmy is living in to provide water for irrigation, enabeling us to maintain our demostration shamba's year round.

We are hoping to grow a number of different local and more traditional crops this year, in addition to maize to introduce crop rotations as well as cover crops and fodder crops. It is a huge blessing to have Jimmy living on-site to watch after the place, and hopefully this year we will have a plentiful harvest.