Touching Lives in Likoni

Talk of impacting young lives and you will be talking about co2balance CSR project in Likoni; Shikaadabu primary school. This is a public mixed primary school in the Coastal region of Kenya.

In February this year co2balance through its CSR initiatives helped the school put up a fence and agate as a way of giving back to the community with the understanding that kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.

And guess what! The results are tremendous already. While speaking to the school head teacher Madam Khadija she categorically states that the project has been so helpful as it has effectively curbed truancy thus they are able to keep pupils in school. This is so because they are able to monitor anybody getting out of school and coming in. Initially lack of a fence led to high levels of truancy thus affected performance. The school had very poor results even in national exams since truancy levels were so high. Pupils could sneak out of school any time.

The head teacher says ‘…. as a school we are very happy and we thank carbon zero so much, the community and parents are very happy and we are sure that even our performance will change since the school environment supports learning at least unlike before’.

Further she states that because of the fence we can now do some farming on the school compound something we couldn’t do previously. People would come in and steal our vegetables and other crops but now we plant our vegetables and other crops with ease. Currently we get our vegetables from the school farm. This is so good and we are happy.

She adds that ‘….co2balance helped us plant some trees around the school and this has improved the aesthetic value of our school. With this as a school we hope to plant more trees thus be part of the global campaign against climate change.’

 

Successful roll out of stoves in Likoni

Over the past couple of months our field staff in Likoni, Kenya, have been on the ground distributing our new energy efficient improved cook stoves. These stoves are much more efficient and resource-friendly than traditional stoves or three-stone-fires.

The project received a number of positive responses from several women’s groups in Likoni. The adoption and sustained use of the new stoves will lead to improved livelihoods through improved health, time savings for households and other indirectly derived economic benefits.

The stoves were purchased by the end users at a subsidized cost and the stove adoption rate was quite high. This was partly due to the scarcity of firewood and the rising cost of fuel wood in the area.

co2balance also provided training on how to use and maintain the new stove. This capacity building approach was essential for the success of the project. Money saved from using the improved cookstoves could used to cover immediate needs such as food, medicine and clothes. Time saved from not having to collect firewood and faster cooking times could be used for other household tasks, farming and other income-generating activities.