Supporting JTen Permaculture Project - Kenya

Update - January 12th - We've already exceeded the initial funding target so we're going for £1000 now to help JTen achieve ALL their current projects and meet  some pressing needs that have arisen due to Covid.

 JTen village project was established in 2016 in Kawiya village near Lake Victoria in Kenya. Established by a group of 10 people, it now supports 62 women and children who have been orphaned or widowed due to HIV and bases its activities in permaculture design and practice. 

The JTen mission is to promote community action to reduce the multiple impacts of poverty in the local community and increase social status and income to sustain the children and women they care for. Through training and practice in gardening techniques JTen promotes family life education in small-scale agricultural production, agribusiness and agriculture value chain development and environmental conservation for sustainability and regeneration.

The community is using permaculture practices to grow and raise abundant and nutritious food, teach regenerative growing and improve the prospects of the community by raising income and improving health. There are diverse fruit and vegetable areas, a fish pond, chickens, bees and one dairy cow and they have ambitious plans to improve facilities and buildings to keep improving the lives and prospects of the women and children they support. 

Their greatest challenges are reliable sources of enough clean water, poor sanitation and extremes of weather including both local flooding and drought which leads to food insecurity. They are seeking to launch a community water project for the wider community of 5000 people with a borehole and water tanks for rainwater. 

The foundations for a second water tank were created in December and funds are now needed to put the tank and pipes in place to capture precious rainwater. 

JTen Village Project has been greatly affected by Covid-19, both directly through illness and death, and indirectly through its devastating impact on local economies through the collapse of the tourism industry. This fundraiser will support JTen to achieve three key goals:

• provision of  core staple foods of rice and beans for the next 2-3 months
• equipment and supplies for the community water project
• books & uniforms to enable the children to attend school.  

We are supporting this project because, as part of the global Transition Network, we also teach and practice permaculture here in the UK and wanted to make a connection with, and a difference in the lives of, our fellow practitioners living in very different circumstances.