The first women's group we worked with was the Mbaaseny Group which was a part of the home parish of the Hon Bishop. His wife was part of the group and while she did not hold high office within the group, she had an aura about her that gave her the right to great respect. I found her to be a knowledgeable woman.
At this time Mch Majola was in charge of the King'ori District and was the Pastor for Mbaaseny and he had encouraged us to become involved with the group. I think his idea was for us to become will known throughout the Diocese.
We gave the group a seminar about the importance of caring for the environment and it was well received. It seemed to me unusual at the time that the women liked to have a man within the group 'to provide general guidance' and they took notice of him. Also the parish workers came - the Evangelist, secretary. It is a young woman who had the official title 'Parish Worker'. I had written a short skit (role play) that we had performed using seminar participant s actors - it went well.
The group wanted a tree nursery to raise funds for the women's group activities and we supplied them with rolls of polythene tube, a watering can, a rake, a shovel and seed. We spent a day with them setting them up and they seemed very keen.
You need to approach each group as the situation dictates and this area (by Leguruke) was not a dry, difficult area but fertile and with adequate rainfall. People generally were interested in growing trees for profit or a specific need such as hedges (mchongoma), timber (Grevillea), fruit (Avocado, Guava), aesthetics (Bougainvillea). They were not so interested in indigenous species conservation though that was included in the seminar.
After the seminar we went there for the day to work work with the group to set up the nursery. Half the day was spent eating and socializing - something we were going to have to become used to. They were a good group and took to all the tasks readily. Many of the group members took me aside to ask questions: about the nursery, about the environment, about New Zealand and if we could help with a project of some sort either personally and with another group with which they were connected.
Examples of this were: the assistant head teacher of Leguruke Primary School suggesting we work at the school and her husband was the head of the Leguruke Clinic they needed assistance, the Parish Worker wanted us to visit her home parish further up the hill from Leguruke. This is how we became so busy.
It was necessary to use judgment and offer advice without being officious and this group needed to be told that they would need to water the tree seedlings on a rota system to ensure they dry out. With nobody actually living on site, they needed to organise a daily watering as well as their meetings to carry out the necessary nursery work.
Joshia had taught me about the importance of motivation and one of the ways to motivate people/students was to bring them to the Makumira nursery where they could see haw the nursery worked. We would give them some trees and a meal. Sometimes it caused extra driving for me - the Landrover could seat twelve people so two trips to bring them and two trips to take them home. It was well worth the effort though.
The Mbaaseny nursery was a success and they sold all the trees, but they told me that they found it difficult to get all the work done and keep the watering up to day.
Even though they did not want to carry on for a second season, I felt that it was a successful outcome because it showed how co-operation can achieve good outcomes, it fostered the message of 'Tunza Mazingira' Care/protect the environment, and it gave us many more contacts to follow up.
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