Making a difference at home: irrigation project results in successful crops

Karen Eveleigh, 8th June 2022

Faith Jimmy studied at Reading University for an MSc in Environmental Pollution from September 2020 to September 2021, supported by a Rotary Scholarship from our Rotary district and the Rotary Foundation. She then returned to her home in Kenya and has been very active developing community projects in her area of expertise.

A few months ago we heard that Faith had organised for a borehole to be drilled in her community. As she said at the time 

"The community residents would walk several miles to fetch dirty water that was not fit healthwise. They would queue awaiting for the water to recharge in the small handmade water points which led to time being wasted. School pupils would wake up at midnight to go to get water so that they had time to utilize their day time in the school. This meant that some of them were exhausted and could not be productive in school." 

"The intial vegetable and tomato farming started in April after a through land preparation and manure application. Animal manure has been used to make the land more fertile (cow, goat, rabbit and chicken). After two months of watering, the vegetables started being harvested and sold to the residents that are happy buying the vegetables at fair prices without also having to walk several miles to the market places. The project has been keeping me busy during while job hunting  and I'm happy to leave it under the care of my mom and some of the residents employed to till the land. Will soon introduce fruit farming."

And what next?

"I will soon assume the role of project manager in ontulili primate protection starting on July 1st. I will mostly be training farmers on vegetables farming and mitigating the human-wildlife conflict as a result of primates (baboon, sykes and colobus monkey) invading their farms and destroying their crops."

One of the many success stories from our Rotary Scholars that it is a privilege to share.