News from Kenya
Uhuru Kenyatta was recently elected as the new President of Kenya with 50.8 percent of the vote. Uhuru is the son of Kenya's first elected president, Yomo Kenyatta. In that regard, people have asked me if this will have any impact on Better Globe Forestry's work. The answer is no, for we will conduct business as usual and our customers should expect no change. What we do in Kenya provides a basis of support from all sides and will not change because of political elections. Kenya is a democratic and stable country, and is one of the reasons we chose this to be the center of our activities.
The last two months we have planted mukau trees both in Kiambere and Nyongoro and started slowly with planting of mango trees in Nyongoro. In Kiambere we have prepared planting Green grams1 between the trees. This vegetable is considered a cash crop2 and will give us additional profit besides the profit from the trees. This is called agroforestry3. The combination of planting trees with food provides food security4 for poor farmers. Such a combination provides short-term profit from food, and a long-term profit from trees that need longer time to grow.
In Nyongoro we started using a resource known as TerraCottem5, which is a form of water collection component. This makes it easier to plant in dry areas, as TerraCottem can hold large amounts of water/moisture and release this over time.
In March, our bulldozer cleared another 20 acres for planting of approximately 10,000 new trees. A lot of time has also been spent on tree maintenance, both in Kiambere and Nyongoro. In Nyongoro, the plantation has been plagued by buffalos scratching themselves on trees and damaged bark. We have taken precaution towards this and hope it will work.
Near Nyongoro, we have visited five schools where we will initiate a tree donation program. We collaborated with the Ministry of Education, whose representatives were optimistic for such an event. This has also been successfully conducted in Kiambere on a previous date.
We purchased two new 10,000 liter water tanks for Mboti school, and increased water accumulation by 50 percent. These water tanks are intended to give approximately one liter of water per day to each student, and also provide enough water for cooking and washing at school in a drought period of up to six months.
Besides this, we have employees who work to perform what is called gap analyses6 towards an ISO 14001 quality system, production of the next Miti magazine # 18, and preparation for mandatory audit of financial statements.
1 Green grams – a vegetable 2 Cash crop – A plant that gives money in the short term, usually at annual harvest 3 Agroforestry – Cultivation of food between trees 4 Food security – The ability to acquire enough food 5 TerraCottem – A substance that occupies about 10 times its own weight of moisture and water over time 6 gap analyses – The difference between what you are planning and what becomes reality
In the next newsletter from Kenya, we will explain more about Better Globe's micro-financing project, which officially started May 2, 2013.
Make it a great day!
Rino Solberg Chairman/CEO Better Globe Group P.O.Box 410 NO-1502 Moss, NORWAY Tel. +47 6925 0001 Email: rino@betterglobe.com Web: www.betterglobe.com
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