Our Programs
Our Programs
Empowering women and encouraging sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. Our multi-faceted programs champion gender equality while enhancing natural resources and restoring the environment. To promote enduring changes, we strategically work to integrate the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (see right) and bolster the resilience of the communities we work with.
Learn about our programming here:
Our Objectives
1. Advance women’s social and economic status
The Problem: The women we work with have not historically been given equal opportunities to pursue an education or the chance to obtain careers and engage in business as compared to men. Women are systematically perceived as inferior, taken for granted, and often abused by men in their communities. Additionally, women are often entirely responsible for child rearing, food procurement, and domestic chores, including walking up to 4 hours everyday to retrieve firewood and water.
Our Solution: Planting trees and cultivating sustainable vegetable beds create easily attainable sources of food and firewood, while revitalizing the local ecosystem. By having such resources directly on their properties, women have more time to invest in individual and communal growth. Through access to microloans, women can start profitable ventures and grow their business skills and ensure income stability.
2. Revitalize natural resources and ecosystems
The Problem: Lendikinya and the surrounding regions face high rates of environmental degradation, heightened natural disasters, and intense consequences of climate change. Trees and grasslands are unsustainably managed, removed for firewood, and used for livestock grazing. Biodiversity is decreasing, the soil is quickly eroding and becoming compacted, leading to high run off rates. Water has historically been a limited resource and the frequency of rains has significantly decreased, making agricultural production increasingly difficult.
Our Solution: Women grow and maintain fast growing trees on their homesteads to reduce soil erosion, increase biodiversity, and create groundwater stores in their local region. This prevents further deforestation and protects wildlife in endangered areas.
3. Increase educational opportunities to foster sustainable and equitable development
The Problem: Many individuals in Masaai communities do not have the knowledge or tools necessary to improve their economic status. This is partially due to low literacy rates in both women and children. Additionally, many are unaware of how certain actions and practices impact the environment. Poverty and environmental degradation is prevalent in these communities, yet without educational resources, it is difficult to overcome these problems.
Our Solution: WAEV’s staff and volunteers hold educational sessions to improve literacy rates of both the women we work with and children in local primary schools. We hold trainings with our women’s groups on sustainable gardening and forestry, business management, nutrition, numeracy and more. Women also receive individualized training and have the opportunity to attend educational exhibitions. We also established The Enkisoma Project to enhance literacy rates in local primary schools, as we work to create a generation that holds the tools to escape poverty and better their communities.
4. Improve nutrition, food security, and societal health
The Problem: The diets of individuals in the community primarily consist of corn and beans, with little vegetable and fruit consumption. Many individuals face inadequate intake of important macro and micronutrients, and difficult weather conditions further limit production and consumption of these foods.
Our Solution: WAEV’s sustainable gardening project has enabled community members to sustainably produce vegetables, like leafy greens and root varieties, as well as fruit trees. These foods can be consumed by women and their families, leading to increased intake of Vitamin A, C, and K, in addition to other essential nutrients. We are working with our women to develop food preservation methods to increase food security, which is especially important during droughts .
5. Increase individual and communal environmental, economic, and social resilience
The Problem: Climate change has intensified the unpredictability of the dry and wet seasons, leading to more frequent and extreme climatic events, like droughts and intense rains. This threatens the success of current agricultural practices, and, at present, the communities we work with lack the infrastructure to adapt to such problems.
Our Solution: Our holistic programming supports sustainable economic, social, and environmental development that prepares communities for the unexpected. We implement practices that combat climate change and restore natural resources to better stabilize the local ecosystem.