Kenya: Climate Change | Social Change
The Problem
Land degradation and desertification - exacerbated by climate change - are causing protracted droughts that are killing the livestock on which Pastoralist Samburu People depend for their food and economic survival. As Indigenous and nomadic Peoples, these families have long been discriminated against by the State, which has expropriated much of their traditional grazing land. As water sources dry up, women’s tough and time-consuming work of gathering and hauling household water increases dramatically, forcing them to walk for as many as six hours a day for their families’ water supplies. Girls' school enrollment drops as they trek longer distances to find water. Risk of being attacked by alligators and other wild animals that congregate at the banks of fresh water rises each time the women are forced to journey further from the areas they know. The threat of cholera, typhoid and other deadly diseases caused by parasites and microbes that live in contaminated water is heightened when women pull water from new sources.
The Solution
MADRE works with the women-led Samburu village of Umoja to enable families to adapt to climate change and defend their human rights—including women’s rights and the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples. MADRE creates local economic development projects that meet urgent needs in the community, conserve natural resources, and promote long-term solutions based on human rights.
MADRE projects include:
- An initiative to bring potable water to the village, ending women’s hours-long, daily ordeal of collecting contaminated water from a crocodile-infested river.
- A plan to strengthen local capacities by providing trainings in the administration of the water system and the management of natural resources.
- Support to begin a transition from herding cattle to raising camels, which require less water.
- Expansion and development of a cooperative income-generating project. The women of Umoja make and market traditional Samburu beadwork to help support their families. Profits are invested in a communal sickness and disability fund that enables the women to protect one another through hard times.
The Results
- Eight villages have banned together to form a Water Committee – a representative group which will provide oversight of physical implementation, capacity-building, and expenditures, and report back to community members.
- The women are developing the skills and resources to survive and adapt to the effects of climate change.
- The women are mobilizing to defend Samburu rights to land, water, health and education services.
- The women’s beading project has received international attention and increased revenues coming into the villages.
