Ongata Rongai Sustainability
Introduction and physical description
Ongata Rongai Location is a small urban shopping center south of the Nairobi National Park in Kenya. In the past two decades it has rapidly grown into a major Nairobi neighborhood due to the availability of relatively cheap and abundant land for commercial and residential development. Two roads, the Magadi and Gataka, connect it to the city, and its wildlife tourism potential has helped to promote its rapid growth.
The Ongata Rongai area was formerly inhabited by the Maasai nomadic pastoralist community before many other rural Kenyan groups migrated into the area. Currently it is a residential and commercial center mostly comprised of households practicing subsistence farming, trade in domestic goods, and human services. In the present, most members of the Maasai tribe have sold their land and moved further south and are frequently spotted grazing their cattle during dry seasons near the shopping center. The area is classified as arid to semi-arid. Due to its high population growth, Ongata Rongai has many environmental, socio- cultural and economic problems, predominantly impacting the youth and women.
Environmental Issues
Amongst the many environmental issues lack of clean water for domestic use is critical, leading to the emergence of mostly donkey-back water peddlers who often sale unclean water at great cost. The degradation of water-catchment resources has turned the Maasai River from a reliable river into a seasonal stream.
The recent increased commercial and human settlements in the area have accelerated soil erosion. This, coupled with intensive chemical based farming, has led to high loss of soil fertility and subsequent crop failure. Overstocking and overgrazing of livestock by the Maasai community herdsmen has also exacerbated the problem
Charcoal burning and selling is the easiest way for the youth to raise money, considering that there is a high demand for charcoal to meet the domestic energy needs. This demand has led to illegal logging of forests especially along rivers leading to high biodiversity loss of indigenous forests in the area. Poor waste management and lack of proper garbage collection, especially from small-scale agricultural traders who dispose organic wastes in the open streets, are a big health problem especially for the population in Kware slum.
Given that Ongata Rongai is an arid area, human induced climate change and an increase in precipitation variability has led to high crop failure for farmers who depend on rain for agriculture production. This has not only increased monetary losses for poor local farmers but has also increased food insecurity in the area.
Socio-cultural issues
Culturally in the Ongata Rongai community women and young people are considered less equal to men. This hierarchical tradition denies women and youth an equal voice in the decision making process and resource ownership. This further impacts the ability of women and youth to own proper businesses to improve their lives.
Cultural practices such as polygamy have also increased the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases amongst women. Tradition also leads to high birth rates, and women are often left the burden of feeding large families which they can’t afford.
In this community gender roles are unevenly distributed and are overwhelming to women who are the de facto home-keepers ensuring that their families have food and who care for children in addition to other household chores. These family burdens and duties coupled with limited resources make women more vulnerable.
The youth in Ongata Rongai are often deprived of meaningful work experience and thus deemed insignificant. This social disregard for their needs and abilities has reinforced a sense of hopelessness and despair amongst many in the area. Most lack practical skills to be employed or to be self employed. Drop out rates for girls is high as many simply get married to young boys who mostly end up joining criminal gangs like “Mungiki” and get involved in crime and abusing drugs such as alcohol, and miraa.
Economic Issues
Ongata Rongai area has critical economic problems; many households have limited sources of income to meet their food, shelter, and health needs. Poverty, hunger and starvation have led to the increase in many social problems in the community. Lack of adequate safe and nutritious food has lead to serious health food related problems in the population such as Kwashiorkor and Marasmus amongst a large percentage of the children population in the area.
Small scale farming and the trade of agricultural goods, mainly horticultural crops, are the principle sources of income for most households in the area. Most of this small scale horticultural farming and trading is done by women, who grow vegetables and other crops for home consumption and for sale to the Ongata Rongai shopping center. These women agricultural traders lack the skills to produce and sell their crops in a profitable and environmentally sustainable way.
The main cause of poverty in the location is the lack of information and skills by the community to march their resources to meet their needs. The community members, especially the most socially vulnerable of them all, the youth, and women have limited access to financial education, credit, technical expertise and business opportunities to meet their basic needs, food, shelter and healthcare.
Suggested interventions
This program proposes participatory community development approaches to solve these serious socio-cultural, environmental, and economic problems that adversely face the youth and women in the area.
Environmental issues in Ongata Rongai range from high rates of deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages and water catchment degradation, poaching, and domestic waste pollution. To address these issues this program proposes to train the youth in the area in hands-on environmental restoration skills so that they will not only participate in the solving of the above mentioned problems but they will become future environmental leaders.
Traditional cultural practices in this community promote many social problems ranging from polygamy, which leads to a high birth rate causing families to have more children than they can afford to feed, to discrimination against women and youth that causes their economic disempowerment. This program proposes in its sustainable urban community farming, youth leadership and environmental restoration projects to train a portion of the youth and women population to be leaders for socio-economic and cultural change.
To combat poverty, hunger and starvation this program proposes sustainable environmental income generation activities such as intensive urban community organic farming, youth environmental restoration training; planting trees for environmental conservation, climate change impact mitigation and income generation.
Ongata Rongai Location is a small urban shopping center south of the Nairobi National Park in Kenya. In the past two decades it has rapidly grown into a major Nairobi neighborhood due to the availability of relatively cheap and abundant land for commercial and residential development. Two roads, the Magadi and Gataka, connect it to the city, and its wildlife tourism potential has helped to promote its rapid growth.
The Ongata Rongai area was formerly inhabited by the Maasai nomadic pastoralist community before many other rural Kenyan groups migrated into the area. Currently it is a residential and commercial center mostly comprised of households practicing subsistence farming, trade in domestic goods, and human services. In the present, most members of the Maasai tribe have sold their land and moved further south and are frequently spotted grazing their cattle during dry seasons near the shopping center. The area is classified as arid to semi-arid. Due to its high population growth, Ongata Rongai has many environmental, socio- cultural and economic problems, predominantly impacting the youth and women.
Environmental Issues
Amongst the many environmental issues lack of clean water for domestic use is critical, leading to the emergence of mostly donkey-back water peddlers who often sale unclean water at great cost. The degradation of water-catchment resources has turned the Maasai River from a reliable river into a seasonal stream.
The recent increased commercial and human settlements in the area have accelerated soil erosion. This, coupled with intensive chemical based farming, has led to high loss of soil fertility and subsequent crop failure. Overstocking and overgrazing of livestock by the Maasai community herdsmen has also exacerbated the problem
Charcoal burning and selling is the easiest way for the youth to raise money, considering that there is a high demand for charcoal to meet the domestic energy needs. This demand has led to illegal logging of forests especially along rivers leading to high biodiversity loss of indigenous forests in the area. Poor waste management and lack of proper garbage collection, especially from small-scale agricultural traders who dispose organic wastes in the open streets, are a big health problem especially for the population in Kware slum.
Given that Ongata Rongai is an arid area, human induced climate change and an increase in precipitation variability has led to high crop failure for farmers who depend on rain for agriculture production. This has not only increased monetary losses for poor local farmers but has also increased food insecurity in the area.
Socio-cultural issues
Culturally in the Ongata Rongai community women and young people are considered less equal to men. This hierarchical tradition denies women and youth an equal voice in the decision making process and resource ownership. This further impacts the ability of women and youth to own proper businesses to improve their lives.
Cultural practices such as polygamy have also increased the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases amongst women. Tradition also leads to high birth rates, and women are often left the burden of feeding large families which they can’t afford.
In this community gender roles are unevenly distributed and are overwhelming to women who are the de facto home-keepers ensuring that their families have food and who care for children in addition to other household chores. These family burdens and duties coupled with limited resources make women more vulnerable.
The youth in Ongata Rongai are often deprived of meaningful work experience and thus deemed insignificant. This social disregard for their needs and abilities has reinforced a sense of hopelessness and despair amongst many in the area. Most lack practical skills to be employed or to be self employed. Drop out rates for girls is high as many simply get married to young boys who mostly end up joining criminal gangs like “Mungiki” and get involved in crime and abusing drugs such as alcohol, and miraa.
Economic Issues
Ongata Rongai area has critical economic problems; many households have limited sources of income to meet their food, shelter, and health needs. Poverty, hunger and starvation have led to the increase in many social problems in the community. Lack of adequate safe and nutritious food has lead to serious health food related problems in the population such as Kwashiorkor and Marasmus amongst a large percentage of the children population in the area.
Small scale farming and the trade of agricultural goods, mainly horticultural crops, are the principle sources of income for most households in the area. Most of this small scale horticultural farming and trading is done by women, who grow vegetables and other crops for home consumption and for sale to the Ongata Rongai shopping center. These women agricultural traders lack the skills to produce and sell their crops in a profitable and environmentally sustainable way.
The main cause of poverty in the location is the lack of information and skills by the community to march their resources to meet their needs. The community members, especially the most socially vulnerable of them all, the youth, and women have limited access to financial education, credit, technical expertise and business opportunities to meet their basic needs, food, shelter and healthcare.
Suggested interventions
This program proposes participatory community development approaches to solve these serious socio-cultural, environmental, and economic problems that adversely face the youth and women in the area.
Environmental issues in Ongata Rongai range from high rates of deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages and water catchment degradation, poaching, and domestic waste pollution. To address these issues this program proposes to train the youth in the area in hands-on environmental restoration skills so that they will not only participate in the solving of the above mentioned problems but they will become future environmental leaders.
Traditional cultural practices in this community promote many social problems ranging from polygamy, which leads to a high birth rate causing families to have more children than they can afford to feed, to discrimination against women and youth that causes their economic disempowerment. This program proposes in its sustainable urban community farming, youth leadership and environmental restoration projects to train a portion of the youth and women population to be leaders for socio-economic and cultural change.
To combat poverty, hunger and starvation this program proposes sustainable environmental income generation activities such as intensive urban community organic farming, youth environmental restoration training; planting trees for environmental conservation, climate change impact mitigation and income generation.
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