Machakos, several communities

A local NGO in Machakos, Green Households Initiatives (GHI),

contacted Elise to ask for some youth in her community in Machakos to be trained. Two young men came to Isinya (see project page on Isinya-Kajiado) to attend a training that took place in Ngito Primary School and they went home to apply it. After this there were two kinds of follow-up:1. Elise remained in contact to ensure

technical backstopping

(initially Vetiver was planted incorrectly,

and more advise and materials were sent

to support rectification)

2. Paul Kombo was sent from Voi to supply

4000 slips and train the community, this

was funded with 10,000 KSh from

Tubbergen Rotary.

The community is also advised to contact Inades (present in Machakos) to share their experience with Vetiver System. This will certainly need some further backstopping from PLUS-Kenya to be sure this is done well.

There is recently also PAFID in Machakos promoting conservation agriculture: their technicians have been trained on Vetiver.

In a separate development, PLUS-Kenya has been approached for technical backstopping in a small donor-funded project that had assisted communities with dams for fish farming; the excessive rains have destroyed the dams and with the rebuilding of these dams Vetiver System will be used to ensure protection of the embankment, the inlet, and the dam walls and sides, and the larger catchment.