DME had a vocational college just up the road from King'ori, but it had the name Leguruke rather than King'ori - I don't know why but accept that DME had their reasons.
The O/C of the school, Urio, was a Pastor but I did not realise that at the time and he welcomed us with a cup of tea and some cake because some of the female students were studying cooking. Afterward we went for a tour of the college where we saw the various work unit areas, cooking, sewing, plumbing, and carpentering/cabinet making.
I noticed the toilet doors [many bomb-box toilets are in groups of 3, 4, 5, or 6, all sharing the one pit] were off their hinges, I thought that inappropriate for a vocational college. On the other hand the sewing seemed to be of a high standard as did the cooking - we watched our lunch being prepared. The carpentry workshop was good also and we ordered a tray with two wood colours.
Lunch was rice with roast meat and vegetables and more than enough. Very well served by the students who were dressed in their uniform. There were speeches and Urio told us he needed our help to start a forest in the school farm, to set up a tree nursery and to provide environmental education.
I replied say that we would assist with the tree nursery and environmental education. As for afforestation, the student could do that but we would help start them off and perhaps provide trees.
Urio replied that he would appreciate any help and that the school was short of funds and projects like forestry would help them out financially.
I actually hadn't realised how the Meru crisis had left the whole of DME with a lack of resources - especially financial. I'm sure too that the Agency did not realise.
After lunch we toured the complex on foot seeing the student accommodation, staff quarters, cattle banda (for milking cows), the disused shelter that housed a recent DME annual conference and the farm. The farm was either undeveloped or reverted and needed considerable work to bring it into production - meaning financial resources. There was potential here for a forest project to run alongside any agricultural project(s).
We planned to return for a day's work and tuition on tree nursery production on 26th August.
Something there gave me a feeling of disquiet and I could not put my finger on it, but I had some questions that I asked myself: Why was there no fruit grown there? The student diet was 'student diet' and they would benefit from the extra vitamins. Why were they buying firewood? It is possible to easily grow short rotation trees for firewood. Why buy timber for carpentering education? Even small areas of timber producing trees, eg. Grevillea robusta, could be pit-sawn on the place at no cost, being good education.
We took with u
s wire mesh for sieving the soil, a watering can, a roll of polythene tubing and a range of useful tree seeds.
A group of young men and women had formed themselves into an 'environmental group' and they listened attentively, taking notes as we spoke to them using the new flipchart - Mazingira ni nini? - What is the Environment?
We cleared an area of land for the nursery site and I demonstrated how to cut the polythene tubing and fill the pots. Loti demonstrated the sowing of the seed and we talked about irrigation.
A woman teacher was to be in charge of the project and we went into the farm to look at proposed forestry sites. There were plenty of potential sites and I saw some areas that had been fallowed for a number of years, was actually regenerating into indigenous forest. I was excited about this and explained that by clearing the weeds around the trees and perhaps fertilizing, they had a ready-made indigenous forest.
I saw the eyes glaze over with disinterest in this because always the preference is for quicker growing exotics. It seemed to me that there was the attitude 'out with the old, in with the new'. The inference being that indigenous species were somehow inferior. Not so!
It became part of our programme to encourage indigenous species and we made sure there was always a percentage of them in each project.
The O/C of the school, Urio, was a Pastor but I did not realise that at the time and he welcomed us with a cup of tea and some cake because some of the female students were studying cooking. Afterward we went for a tour of the college where we saw the various work unit areas, cooking, sewing, plumbing, and carpentering/cabinet making.
I noticed the toilet doors [many bomb-box toilets are in groups of 3, 4, 5, or 6, all sharing the one pit] were off their hinges, I thought that inappropriate for a vocational college. On the other hand the sewing seemed to be of a high standard as did the cooking - we watched our lunch being prepared. The carpentry workshop was good also and we ordered a tray with two wood colours.
Lunch was rice with roast meat and vegetables and more than enough. Very well served by the students who were dressed in their uniform. There were speeches and Urio told us he needed our help to start a forest in the school farm, to set up a tree nursery and to provide environmental education.
I replied say that we would assist with the tree nursery and environmental education. As for afforestation, the student could do that but we would help start them off and perhaps provide trees.
Urio replied that he would appreciate any help and that the school was short of funds and projects like forestry would help them out financially.
I actually hadn't realised how the Meru crisis had left the whole of DME with a lack of resources - especially financial. I'm sure too that the Agency did not realise.
After lunch we toured the complex on foot seeing the student accommodation, staff quarters, cattle banda (for milking cows), the disused shelter that housed a recent DME annual conference and the farm. The farm was either undeveloped or reverted and needed considerable work to bring it into production - meaning financial resources. There was potential here for a forest project to run alongside any agricultural project(s).
We planned to return for a day's work and tuition on tree nursery production on 26th August.
Something there gave me a feeling of disquiet and I could not put my finger on it, but I had some questions that I asked myself: Why was there no fruit grown there? The student diet was 'student diet' and they would benefit from the extra vitamins. Why were they buying firewood? It is possible to easily grow short rotation trees for firewood. Why buy timber for carpentering education? Even small areas of timber producing trees, eg. Grevillea robusta, could be pit-sawn on the place at no cost, being good education.
We took with u
s wire mesh for sieving the soil, a watering can, a roll of polythene tubing and a range of useful tree seeds.A group of young men and women had formed themselves into an 'environmental group' and they listened attentively, taking notes as we spoke to them using the new flipchart - Mazingira ni nini? - What is the Environment?
We cleared an area of land for the nursery site and I demonstrated how to cut the polythene tubing and fill the pots. Loti demonstrated the sowing of the seed and we talked about irrigation.
A woman teacher was to be in charge of the project and we went into the farm to look at proposed forestry sites. There were plenty of potential sites and I saw some areas that had been fallowed for a number of years, was actually regenerating into indigenous forest. I was excited about this and explained that by clearing the weeds around the trees and perhaps fertilizing, they had a ready-made indigenous forest.
I saw the eyes glaze over with disinterest in this because always the preference is for quicker growing exotics. It seemed to me that there was the attitude 'out with the old, in with the new'. The inference being that indigenous species were somehow inferior. Not so!
It became part of our programme to encourage indigenous species and we made sure there was always a percentage of them in each project.
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