Now that we’ve trained community leaders, we’re well underway with our newest program. Let’s take a look at how early lessons are already resonating with our 11 Grazing Management Committees.

Community Development

When asked what communities needed from us, GMCs immediately mentioned motorcycles; they wanted to use the vehicles as a way to monitor farmers—who, consequently, hadn’t been trained in grazing management in any way. The first step we took, then, was to reinforce the idea of a community with one main goal: grass conservation to support cow health. Collectively, we decided that teaching GMCs to teach their communities’ farmers was a more important “need.”

The other difficulty we faced was trying to convince farmers that the work they were being asked to do would benefit them in the end. Individual farmers are just that—individuals—and, without knowing the plan, they were hesitant to work together. We used early meetings with these communities as a way to build a consensus for what everyone wanted to accomplish. GMCs, then, could go over their plans on how to manage the grass.

Water is Life Kenya’s (WILK) Co-Founder Joseph Larasha also brought up an important point for farmers to consider: “What are livestock for?” Often, Maasai consider cattle to be worth more than their own families, to the point where money would be used to support cows before anything else. But cows build income that will support their families, so farmers had to rethink their approach towards traditional husbandry.

We’ve managed to pass on a lot of information to many people during each meeting. Sometimes hundreds of people will show up to listen in and learn from WILK, Larasha, and the GMCs. More importantly, what tends to happen after our trainings is that what we teach is then shared with friends and families. The impact of these lessons travels far and wide, and we couldn’t be happier.

A Thousand Trained, Thousands to Go

Since donations started coming in, we’ve helped GMCs lead community trainings in Ogulului, Enkong’u Narok, Oloilalei, Loolakir, and Esiteti. In the last two weeks, we’ve trained over 1,000 farmers. We’ll train thousands more before the summer’s over.

For 11 years, WILK has been teaching livestock farmers how to run successful businesses and prevent losses when droughts come through our Livestock as a Business (LAB) program. During these community trainings, we’ve been sharing those same lessons about drought cycle management, buying and selling, and working together as a community. We’ve taken to calling this portion of the training “LAB Lite.”

People are seeing the vision, and they are jumping on board. Healthy grass means healthy livestock, stable family incomes, a robust, resilient ecosystem, strengthened wild animal herds, increased tourism, and more prosperity for the entire community.

We have so many people to thank for believing in us and our mission. We’re proud of the work we’ve done to help communities in Kajiado County, Kenya, but we’re not finished. We’ll continue to teach more communities about grass management and conservation over the rest of the summer months. And, hopefully, more Maasai will be ready when the next drought strikes—and will have the skills to keep their cows alive.

The post Planning for Pasture: Program Update appeared first on Water is Life Kenya.

Why Care About Grass?

Traditional Maasai livestock keepers are strongly conservative in terms of preserving their culture and way of doing things, including grazing habits. Pastoralists decide how and where to graze their animals in communal grazing areas, but they have never been trained about the impact of managed grazing.

85% of Maasai income comes from livestock, but livestock can only be healthy and sellable if they eat well. This means that managing pasture strategically is critical to economic stability.

While some Maasai lost everything in the recent three-year drought, they haven’t taken advantage of the abundant grass growing now that it’s raining again. And the one thing we know is that another drought will occur eventually. We need to prepare now to prevent the loss of livestock.

Illiteracy is also a major hurdle in the communities where we work, so we have found that effective, practical education is key. Investing in education on this critical topic could make a huge difference. Even if 10-20% of the nearly 12,000 livestock farmers in this region start sharing this vision, the ecosystem can be greener and more prosperous within three years.

Our Plan for Pasture

Livestock keepers participating in our LAB program managed to keep their animals alive during the recent drought. This is due to skillful pasture conservation and planning ahead.

We decided to bring this same method to the Grazing Management Committee (GMC) leaders through a new program called Planning for Pasture. First we spent time understanding their needs. Then we developed a curriculum to empower all GMCs to train community members and build cooperation between them.

We teach the committees to set goals and then develop indicators to measure success. We also teach drought cycle management and pasture conservation. Finally, we “train the trainers to train” by assigning topics to the committee members. This lets them practice teaching and designing lesson plans which prepares them to teach their communities later on.

So far, the responses from the 176 people we have trained have been extremely positive. Several members said, “We’ve never had training like this before. When are you coming back?”

Setting Maasai Up for Success

We are successful because we partner with and in communities to build lasting capacity—rather than dictate policies from a desk thousands of miles away. Together with the GMCs, we have begun promoting the vision of a “3D Free Zone”—a “No Death During Drought Zone.”

You can help us support Maasai grass managers by contributing to our Planning for Pasture Campaign. Doing so will lead to more secure household income because of stable animal body conditions and fewer fluctuations in animal values, which means less stress and more prosperity for families.

We are nearly halfway to our goal of $48,800 for this project. Your gift—at any level—will get us closer to providing the education and support that Maasai need to thrive in their challenging environment.

Grazing management is a natural extension of our work, which provides clean water and livestock business skills. This level of planning and education will go a long way in guaranteeing a healthy and prosperous future for Maasai and their ecosystem. With a shared vision and cooperation fostered by a strong community training program, the crazy ups and downs caused by the drought can finally be a thing of the past.

The post Planning for Pasture: Helping Maasai Avoid Livestock Loss During Drought appeared first on Water is Life Kenya.