If in March I spent the most of my time in Nakuru, April has been totally opposite. I guess I’m just so used to live with people around me, that the company of my small radio didn’t keep off the feeling of walls of my small house falling on me. So I’ve been escaping the reality and work to Tanzania, Mau forest and somewhere in between for the most of the month.
But at least all the travels weren’t just for fun, especially the one to Mau. The week before the Easter Ermis organized a workshop there for five different forest dwelling communities: The Batwa from Uganda, Sengwer from Cherangani in Kabolet forest, Yaaku from Mukogodo forest and Ogieks from Eastern Mau and Mount Elgon. (The Mount Elgon Ogieks called also as Chepkitale) Mamas, bwanas and youth all present. The issue was to bring all hunter-gatherers together and for the Kenyan communities to present for Ugandans how they had used mapping as a tool in their land campaigns and community mobilization.
I had barely arrived from my first travel when I was told to pack up again and prepare myself for sleeping a week in a tent at the Nessuit primary school compound, a place for the meeting regarded as freezing cold for camping. But hamnashida. Catherine equipped me worryingly with the warmest clothes she could find and a double sleeping bag – and I couldn’t have felt better! Chilly bright mornings, full moon above high cypress trees and smooth hills surrounding the landscape reminded me a lot of the nature back home in Lapland.
Unfortunately the Lapland-like feeling faded quickly when exploring the forest outside the school compound closer. I can’t even call it exploring, so narrow was the stripe of trees in front of the devastated landscape of grey dry field growing only stamps. There’s indeed hardly anything left of Mau forest to argue on, but they won’t stop. The farmer-settlers who’s legal rights to any land is absolutely unknown, big economy-boosting and employing land owners, environmentalists willing to conserve vulnerable habitants for wildlife and wildlife only, list goes on..
No wonder why hunter-gatherers saw it so important to share their history of land campaigns thoroughly: discrimination, objection and disappointments after disappointments. It definitely took the fair share of the whole meeting, so some other previously planned activities like group discussions of youth, women and men separate, to improve participation of marginalized groups within the communities, had to be cancelled. In the end the whole wamama-issue was actually brought up shortly by Julius and not the community members themselves.
“Women’s indigenous knowledge? Nobody has studied that.” Chris, a Scottish anthropologist and the worker for the Batwa through Forest People’s Program told me: “I came here to study Indigenous knowledge, too, but it failed. There was so much more important work to do..” referring obviously to the poverty and discrimination that all Batwa are facing regardless of sex or age. But at least I was not the only one interested. Grace pointed out, too, how Batwa women seem so empowered and outgoing compared to our previous experience with the Yaaku for example. Chris told again that the most of the pygmi communities are egalitarian, non-hierarchical. People have different tasks but none of them is of higher value than the other, and people, too, are valued according to their skills in their task whatever it be.
That sounded extremely interesting and I can only hope that in future meetings also such issues could be exchanged between the communities. What matters now is that we had the meeting in the first place. The people had their chance to share the issues they themselves saw relevant as much as they wanted to. Their debate reached from different sweetness’ of honey to Ogiek holding aerial photos and what in earth is an aerial photo anyway. And it was the community members to speak, nobody else.
Of course the big 3D Model of the Ogiek, their ancestral information as a tangible, appreciable form seemed to interest and inspire the participants a lot, too. Map is a strong tool in defining the home of the nation: who does the land belong to and what in there is relevant or important..The communities know this, too, and I believe the Batwa would now like to come together to collect, discuss and present their knowledge the same way, too. At least the knowledge will not die away with the elders now when it can’t be practiced through livelihood without an access to the forest. But I do wonder would it still be valuable for urban-oriented youth, who are in final responsibility of the future of these cultures?
This was yet to be found out, and I know I could have just asked anyway. Instead I ended up using tiring work and my small Kiswahili as an excuse to pumzika during breaks. But at least the language excuse didn’t work for very long. I happily noticed how the elders came talking to me patiently long complicated Kiswahili sentences with lots of hand sings for assistance.
For once I didn’t need to worry neither for being an outsider or not understanding what was going on around me. All the organizing worked very smoothly and I was happy to sneak behind the crowd with my teacups and camera, enabling the others to come together from my own small part, meanwhile learning myself from them, too. Especially much I enjoyed my role as a mediator of their message to outside world with both photographing and filming. It was the first time for me to hold the video camera and I noticed that filming helped me to concentrate on Kiswahili speakers and their message, too. So I really felt being in the right place and right task.
According to both Julius and Francis, our workmate in Ermis who also defined himself as now-retired-professional-Ogiek-activist, these kinds of cross-community meetings are not common. I’m not surprised and it seemed very important experience for the community members, too, to see that they’re not alone with their campaigns and non-recognition. Just coming together and sharing with others of similar experiences is enough to empower anybody, and I want to believe that the people returned home much heads full of future plans for common action.
The work of the first full month with Ermis has been busy as usual. Life in Nakuru has settled into routines nicely and also new things to learn and explore seem to be coming up frequently.
The workplans of the communities arrived in the beginning of the month. After the realistic initiatives from the various suggestions of the community members were chosen, I assisted in typing them. We have also been working with the budgets together with Bancy and Julius. It seems that the communities will not only complete the eco-calendar and cyber – tracking, but they will also work with improving the sustainability of their livelihoods. Another positive progress is that the advocacy process for the Mukogodo forest has been started by another local organization. Forest Management Agreement, which I typed, too, is currently being finalized. In the future also the Yaaku – community will be involved in the planning. All the planned activities will start when the workplans and budgets are finalized.
The work with JUMP is going on, too. I have received many positive responses from Finland supporting the initiative, but commenting that nothing can be started without the final program and budget. Thus, we have been working with them for the last weeks. I am waiting for mine and Grace’s suggestions to be commented on.
Meanwhile, I have also had time to start my bachelor’s thesis project. Before leaving Finland last autumn I agreed with my supervisors in my university that I would complete my bachelor’s thesis during my stay in Tanzania and Kenya, at least to get enough studying credits for the year. However, not before now I finally found both the motivation and possibility to do it. Work with Ermis is very challenging so I feel that determined studying of the subjects I work with helps me with the projects. I will write my thesis about the ways how Indigenous knowledge and the communities have been studied and how the knowledge has been used. I will especially concentrate on the knowledge of women, although I still have to talk about the subject with my professors. So far I have just been reading but I also contacted a few professors here and hope to meet them about research material in the future.
At least I haven’t been ought to stay all the time in the office. Last Saturday I attended another project which Ermis is participating called International Climate Challenge. It was an excellent project on Education for Sustainable Development. Different schools around the country have been challenged to a competition, where the students plan and implement a practical project to mitigate the negative effects of climate change in their region.
I was very positively surprised how practical, creative and effective solutions all the schools have made up. Their projects really emphasized the everyday problems they were facing because of drought, deforestation and other related hazards. So they had really understood what is climate change about and how can their solutions reduce poverty, too, which often is one big reason behind environmental destruction. The competition included also a presentation part, where the drama, dance and other forms of performances presented by the students to illustrate the issues were just enjoyable!
Finally, I received a small task on again another project which deals with improving cooperation between stakeholders within Mau forest area. I have been browsing through all the weblinks of Mau and related issues to be catalogued into a Spatial Data Infrastructure, which Ermis is establishing.
After all these activities, there has not been much time for myself only. On Sundays I have taken a habit of going for long walks to the surroundings, sometimes on my own and sometimes with Julius’ family members, who have been very welcoming for me as a total stranger to the town. They have invited me to their home even on many evenings after work and I really appreciate their hospitality. The children are so funny you can’t stay grumpy no matter how tired you’d be after a long day! And apart from the dust Nakuru seems a very nice place and I’ve found already several nice spots to relax after the long week’s work.
All in all I have enjoyed myself a lot here in Kenya. The work which Erms is doing is very valuable and the other people in the office are just great. Even if all this has been very new to me, I know I can always ask anybody whenever I need support. It also seems that the culture here is closer to Finland than the Tanzanian one, which I experienced for half a year before coming here. I have just been very relieved to get along with kenyans so easily and feel so much like home in here.
During these first three weeks I have worked with three major events / activities:
GISEEM
During this time there has not been many activities around GISEEM because we have been waiting for Mukogodo community to finish their work plans for the coming year. The work plans arrived this weekend on the 6th of March for evaluation.
Dividing work groups in Dol Dol
We received work plans by all groups established in the previous meeting on advocacy, filming and recording, community mobilization and completing both Eco-calendar and cyber traking. Each plan included minimum information on what, when, where, by whom and on which cost will be done. Information on culturally important sites and natural resources yet to be tracked were quite well included especially in the advocacy plan, although it didn’t concentrate so much on advocacy itself. However, plans have to be made a bit more detailed and budgets have to be reconsidered. Thus Julius Muchemi, the head of ERMIS Africa is currently visiting the people responsible of completing the work plans to discuss about their editing. In the previous meeting we found out that another organization, Ilmaamusi, is already working with policies concerning the forest management plan of Mukogodo forest. Julius will also meet Ilmaamusi durinDividing work groups in Dol Dol his visit.
During the time of waiting for the work plans, Martha held a GIS training on the 8th and 9th of March for Grace shooting mamas’ comments sitting at the back of the group Peter and Simon due to another project they’re undertaking, but which I attended as well. I’m no, in case of need, able to process the spatial data collected with GPS by the communities into maps and other publications. However, according to Martha the most of the digitizing work has been done already. Only certain essential information, such as the border of the Giitune forest and narratives from Mukogodo are missing.
So now we are waiting for the communities to collect the information. From Mukogodo many sites of medicinal herbs, caves, and some other places of cultural importance have been tracked, but as the distances are long, the elders haven’t been able to join the mapping trips to include the narratives with spatial data. Also another ERMIS trainee Grace Mwaura specialized in conservation filming had visited the community in order to film their narratives. But as the elders weren’t prepared, the content was not adequate for filming.
Grace filming the mamas' comments sitting at the back of the group
Things to work with from now on include further use of collected information, bringing the information back to the communities and advocacy process of Karima and Mukogodo. These will be discussed as Julius returns from his visit.
Seminar on watershed management of lake Nakuru
On the 24th and 25th of February I attended a seminar organized by on management of Lake Nakuru wateshead together with Julius and Grace. Seminar was attended by numreous governmental and municipal stakeholders, NGOs and community representatives. On the both of the days different stakeholders presented their activities and researches concerning water- and waste management of Nakuru town and forest management of the catchment area of the lake. The seminar ended with a group discussion on the issues mentioned above, as well as on improvement of cooperation between different actors within the area.
Ermis’ role in the meeting was to present Mau SDI – project, Mau Spatial Data Infrastructure project. The aim of the project is to develop a Platform for all stakeholders within Mau to keep record of and find out about different activities and researches to ensure coherent and effective cooperation. I found the seminar extremely interesting and useful but it’s effects on better water management remain to be seen.
Debate on reforestation with eucalyptus
Where once was the Mau Forest
Another deforested area
Old Mzee and Young Trees
More varied tree species for plantation
Water from the catchment in the beginning of purification process
Pelicans on dry lake bottom
JUMP -Joint University Mentoriship Program
JUMP is a Joint University Mentoriship Program launched by ERMIS, and now organized together with several Kenyan universities. JUMP is an offshoot from 1st international Mesa conference organized by Unep on last November in Nairobi. In the conference university students addressed a need for greater career mentorship on the field of education for sustainable development, and JUMP is a response for that need.
During these weeks JUMP has been developed from an idea to a complete 3 month program, which includes participation on different ERMIS projects, mentoring by different relevant mentors such as professors and organizations, networking with students and professionals throught fields of studying and levels of career, and a three-week training on participatroy GIS, documentation and Web 2.0 technologies. My task has been to contact my university in order to include international links into JUMP. So far I have contacted professors and coordinators of international issues of the departments of Geography, forestry, ICT and the whole Unversity. ICT department is willing to send students to JUMP when interested ones appear and the other responses I’m still waiting for.
Grace editing maps
On the 3rd of March me and Grace visited three universities in Nairobi to discuss about the coming program with deans and students of the univsersities. We met the students and three professors and their responses were generally very positive. Some questions on institutionalizement of the project and financing have raised, but we’re now working with the program to response these questions. By now a thorough strategy plan and a detailed program and budget for the three week training period for coming august have been written and we’re waiting for applications from students to join the training.
Sunna talking to Kenyatta University Students
Now Ermis will start negotiations with possible funders and discussions with other universities as well as contact to already started ones will go on.
I am Sunna Kovanen, a third-year undergraduate human geography student from the university of Joensuu, Finland.
I am currently on attachment in Ermis Africa in Nakuru to complete the work experience for my studies on GISEEM project. I started my exploration of East Africa with a student exchange period in Tumaini University in Iringa, Tanzania already last semester. Here in Nakuru I will stay until the beginning of August. I have an interest in development studies and I hope that my work with Ermis is just a beginning on this path.
From now on I will start posting greetings from my activities and especially on progress of GISEEM – project on this blog. My main task here is to work with GISEEM but as you can read on, ERMIS has appointed me a few other tasks for the spring, too.
