Ol Lentille Trust – supporting community education in northern Kenya

The challenge for communities and conservation in Kenya

Many challenges are facing the Maasai and Samburu communities of northern Kenya, as well as the wildlife of semi-arid lands. Water is scarce and humans and wildlife frequently come into conflict when grazing livestock degrade habitat. Services such as healthcare and education, particularly for girls, are difficult to reach for pastoralist communities.

Ol Lentille Trust’s approach

The Ol Lentille Trust works in close partnership with Maasai and Samburu communities in the northern region of Kenya to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods through increasing access to education, improving the quality of education, supporting healthcare services and improving access to clean water.

Major achievements

Ol Lentille Trust has worked in partnership with the local community since 2005.

Conservation

• – As more communities set land set aside for conservation and placed it under the Trust’s management, a total of 40,000 acres were protected. Wildlife and the ecosystem significantly regenerated with the absence of grazing, until the project was successfully handed back to community management.

Health and medical care

• – The Trust built and equipped a 24-bed hospital in the local community at Kimanjo, making healthcare accessible for thousands of local people.
• – They have successfully changed attitudes to female genital mutilation (FGM), offering alternatives and working alongside Maasai women’s groups to empower girls to make an educated choice for themselves.
• – Access to fresh clean water has been improved by drilling community boreholes, as well as building and maintaining dams.

Education

• – Through supporting education in the local communities, over 90% of children receive primary education.
• – The Trust has built two full primary schools, and built a mixed secondary boarding school, making secondary education accessible to those who live too far to walk daily. They have also built necessary structures at a further six primary schools and three nursery schools.
• – They financially support 70 secondary- and tertiary-level students to receive education each year and partially support another 130 students.
• – The Trust runs school feeding programmes to encourage school attendance.
• – They provide teacher training to local teachers and fund educational resources.