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VOICES FOR WETLANDS AND WATER: CASE STUDIES ON WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & WASH IN KENYA
Isinya: Women Cooperatives for Ecologically Sustainable Livelihoods
Penina Tombo is a 65-year-old retired nurse whose home lies in the semi-arid Isinya sub- county of Kajiado, Kenya. She has been involved in community development work targeting women, orphans and people living with HIV/AIDS since 1992. Once an open landscape inhabited by the pastoralist Maasai, land use in Isinya has changed drastically in the past four decades. Middle class Kenyans who work 60 kilometres away in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi have set up homes here. The Maasai are gradually shunning nomadism and setting up permanent dwellings. There is less pasture, and the huge Maasai livestock herds of yore are on the backpedal. Large scale commercial flower farms now dot the landscape. Light industries, too, which residents blame for air pollution and dumping of effluent along River Isinya, affect the quality of water downstream. All these human, agricultural and industrial activities require huge volumes of water, a challenge in a water-scarce area serviced by one seasonal river whose catchment is exposed to sand harvesting. The recourse is underground water, but heavy abstraction by flower farms and light industries sucks up all the water in shallow wells, compromising water sanitation and hygiene in the community.
Penina got involved in water resources management in 2009 when she sunk a shallow well that soon dried up after commercial flower farms and light industry factories moved into the area. Together with eight neighbours whose wells had also gone dry, they formed Isinya WRUA where she sits as vice-chair. With funding from Water Sector Trust Fund (WSTF), the officials were trained by Watershed to develop a Sub-Catchment Management Plan (SCMP) which was registered in 2010. The WRUA deliberately sought membership from women, who now comprise 30 per cent of 100 households. “Like many others, our WRUA is not consulted when mega water projects that affect us are initiated, approved and implemented. We have also tried to reach out to the private investors, but they are disinterested,” Penina says. Through her training on leadership and governance under Watershed, Penina has organised women in her community into a 300-member cooperative for milk production. They join hands to improve the quality of their livestock and preserve pasture. They also harvest water from their roofs and channel it into tanks and water pans for use during dry seasons to mitigate climate change impacts. “Watershed training empowered women to speak up, seek leadership positions and initiate other development projects like this milk cooperative,” she says proudly.
Light industries illegally dump oils and chemical waste such as this site in Isinya
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