Projects We Support

Selected Project:  

Kalacha Women's Self Help Group Kalacha Dida, Northern Frontier District, Kenya

 
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Community development support

"Our goal is to uplift the standard of living through education in the best models of self-sufficiency."

WildiZe funding has helped the group to:

  • Build a well

  • Build a nursery school in 2003

  • Build a compound complete with curio shop, conference hall and kitchen

  • Supply early childhood learning materials and stipend for teachers

  • Implement a soft loan scheme

  • Attend workshops on health, English & Swahili, livestock and resource management

Who are they: The Kalacha Women's Self Help Group are skilled in administering their group and accomplishing goals. Their main activitie are geared toward empowerment, community improvement. They are mainly pastoralists (camels) and have shown great interest in learning more about their environment and conservation through tree planting, education and health.

What do they do: over the years the women have instituted irrigation, farming, livestock management, AIDS awareness and education and community micro-fincance and scholarships and business start up through micro-financing and construction of homes for those in need and early childhood development. They've successfully implemented a soft-loan micro-enterprise fund.

How does WildiZe help them: WildiZe provides funding on an on-going basis to accomplish set goals at site visits. Over the years the women have built a full compound in Kalacha center, including a kitchen, rest rooms, and curio shop and conference hall. We also provided funding and the group and it's members built a nursery school with the help of the parents who want their children to attend. We provide funding for early childhood development materials and supplies, stipends for teachers, and assistant to reach out to other NGO's to provide further knowledge in the form of workshops and participants toward health, sanitation and learning materials and funds to build a well. They currently seek funding for a small generator which they will use in the nursery school and share with group members.

Results: Through WildiZe funding the women re-built and enhanced their compound, built conference meeting center, constructed a well and a nursery school. They've implemente waste-pick up efforts through Kalacha center and highlight education and resource management to through their members to the community.The main activities of the Kalacha Women's Self Help Groups are geared towards self empowerment and community development.

HISTORY of ACCOMPLISHMENTS and GROWTH through WildiZe funding

2005-2006

  1. Provide teachers aids for Nursery School, and donor supplied toys for which the community has very little ability of access to or purchase these kinds of supplimental materials

  2. Followup on on-going construction of the bandas and compound improvements: new toilets, new showers, new kitchen and new well pump

  3. Request for generator and again request to build swimming pool

  4. Implementation of Nomadic school- whereby the school travels to the remote and nomadic children and adults. Request for adult teaching aids and supplies and stipend for teacher's salary

2003-2004

  1. Completion of the Kalacha Nursery School and Day Care construction and doors open to first children of both genders

  2. Request further funding for teachers aids and materials and supplies

2001-2002

  1. Fund primary & secondary school children, incorporate a system whereby nomadic girl children toward the Nomadic Girls School

  2. Literacy education and teacher for adult edcuation classes

  3. help group members in need through implementation of soft loans to be used for hospital bills, rebuild homes, provide for widows, orphans and the disabled

  4. improvments on compounds and lodging accomodations

  5. Request for funds to build wimming pool for private accomodation

  6. Enlarge garden shamba around compound to provide 'home-cooked' meals for NGO staff working in the area and tourists

  7. Performance guidelines for traditional dances to visitors to educate on Gabbra culture

2000

  1. Finish building the well

  2. Begin construction on accomodation for travelers- The women hire local fundi (construction workers) to frame the lodge, but make the thatch roof, the mud walls, the beds, and the wood inlay doors themselves

  3. School fees for children- at this time primary school was not free in Kenya, and all children in the primary and secondary schools must pay to attend. Many times the education is substandard and leaves no alternatives for further opportunities

1999 Introduction to WildiZe Foundation

  1. Funds to increase shamba and irrigation. 
This process is ongoing, the irrigation system having been developed by the chief of the village

  2. Proof of Registration with the Kenyan Ministry of Social Services- this is the first step in a relationship/accountability between WildiZe and the groups and the Kenyan Govt, and setting up a bank account for receipt of funding whether national or international.  The bank is a day's drive away in Marsabit, and requires three women to leave their homes and stay overnight, returning the next day on the back of the lorry (open cargo truck).

  3. Began construction of a well within the women's compound, funded intial purchase of concrete. The well gives the group the availability of water within their compound, convenience of not having to travel to haul water in five gallon buckets every day from the town center, approx 5km




FAST FACTS:

Extremely arid, the Turkana area may receive rainfall as seldom as once every five years. The Lake is the only permanent source of water in the area and the Gabbra and Merille tribes in the area are utterly reliant upon the lake and the camels with which they live. This is one of the few areas left in the world where one may visit a true practicing desert tribe, unaffected by the Twenty first century.

The El Molo tribe also lives in this area. This tiny tribe is the smallest in Kenya, at one point in the 1980s they were reduced to less than 200 people. The El Molo on the shores of the lake and are superb fishermen, trading the fish with the camel herders in order to survive.

A rock hounds' joy, the area is rich in geodes, meteorites and semi-precious stones such as amethysts and garnets, all of which are easily found when walking near the lake shore.