Train Women Leaders for Wildlife Conservation!

We are approaching the one-year anniversary of the start of the training program for the first cohort of 30 women. Follow-up of the impact of this program is on-going. A field evaluator has been identified. They will interview each of the women graduates face to face to assess personal changes resulting from the training as well as any direct or indirect impact on wildlife conservation. We expect the field evaluation to be completed in early October.

Our hope had been to raise sufficient funds to train two cohorts of 30 women. It is unlikely that we will be able to raise the additional funds to train the second cohort of 30 women and so we will formally close this fundraising project. Thanks to all of you who supported this important work.

LAMP (Leadership And Management Program) equips graduates with the necessary leadership and management skills for community projects. An additional powerful benefit is that graduates feel a deep sense of empowerment. Graduates internalize a profound understanding that they are leaders or potential leaders in their communities.

Lekurruki wildlife community conservancy, from where half of the first cohort of women trainees was drawn, is currently undergoing elections for a new board—a 3-yearly event. On the outgoing board, 4 of the 11 positions were occupied by women. The women LAMP graduates are now actively vying for the new board positions and the expectation is that over half of the board positions could be won by women. This would put these women in a leadership position affecting decisions related to enhancing people’s lives, building peace and conserving the natural environment, including wildlife. 

The MSWC GlobalGiving campaign has had a catalytic effect on other donors. It has encouraged the funding of a LAMP cum Training of Trainers program for two wildlife conservation organisations as well as encouraging an international conservation organisation to fundraise for multiple additional LAMPs for northern Kenyan women. Training of trainers is essential to building leadership and management in an increasing number of community conservancies.

Links:

• MSWC Online

“I’ve never felt so empowered.”

This was the comment of one of the 30 women trainees during the third module of their LAMP training. The woman, who serves on the board of the community wildlife conservancy, went on to say that she will run for Chairperson of the board when the board elections are held later in the year. She would be the first female Chairperson. “There’s no time to waste,” she said. “We have to take our place as women in managing the affairs of our community, and LAMP is giving us the confidence and skills to do that.”

Another woman commented that she has attended many training programs, traveling even as far as Uganda and the Kenyan coast, but none of those programs compare to LAMP. At the start of the other trainings, she said, we typically say our names and where we are from, and then the educated participants take over proceedings. We have little or no further participation in the training because it is delivered in English or Swahili, which we don’t fully understand. But here at LAMP we are fully engaged in learning activities, and we understand everything because it’s delivered in Maasai.

Other women pleaded with us to run another 5 or 10 LAMPs, saying we’d make a massive impact in their communities. In our experience, the third module of LAMP is often a turning point for trainees. The realisation sinks in that they can be, and often already are, leaders and managers, and that despite their lack of education or even lack of social standing as women, they can take action and have a positive impact in their communities. Since the start of LAMP, many of the women have begun small enterprises and informal savings groups to raise money to educate their children. One woman said that she had been told that educating girl children was a pointless waste of money. “Not true!” she said. “I’ll not stop now till I educate all my children.”

The county director of our delivery partner, Northern Rangelands Trust, believes this is the most impactful LAMP training he has seen to date. To say that we at MSWC are inspired, moved, and motivated would be an understatement! Thank you from us—and the women—for so generously supporting this program.

Links:

• Leadership and Management training saves wildlife

The good news is that we have agreed a partnership to deliver the women leaders training program with the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT). NRT supports 39 community conservancies across northern and coastal Kenya. Recruitment of the women trainees will begin in October 2020, with the first training module planned for either late October or early November.

The women will be drawn from two neighboring community conservancies: Il Ngwesi and Lekuruki. These communities are predominately Maasai who sustain themselves through a pastoralist way of life. The women selected will be leaders in their respective communities, leading various women associations. Once selected, each woman will be asked to participate in a pre-training program interview to provide baseline information that will allow us to assess the impact of the training. The interviews will include questions about their current situation, their dreams and aspirations, their expectations from the training, and the challenges they face as women leaders in their communities.

Our program will contribute to the agenda of gender inclusion and empowerment, where more than 80% of the women are unschooled and illiterate. The unique training content has been developed over several years so that it provides learning on essential leadership and management concepts in a visual and practical way, thus making the learning easily accessible to those who are illiterate and unschooled.

Our women leaders training program is part of a broader NRT project to assist conservancies on their journey to a self-sufficient and sustainable future.