From Godwin Kilele
May 2011
Crops prior to elephant raid
Elephant footprints amongst crops
Toilet destroyed by Elephant
Casavas uprooted by elephants
House in Mwakoma Village
House in Mwakoma Village
Posted in Animals, Food and Crops
From Purity Barisa
Kileva Eastfield Promary School
Mwakoma, Kenya
Kileva Eastfield School pupils in full uniform
Class1 awards ceremony
Posted in School & Education
I’m delighted to say that the Kileva Theatre Evening at The Mill in Sonning last Friday (20th May) raised £415.30 which will go towards the cost of putting the roof on Classroom #5 at the Kileva Eastfield Primary School in Mwakoma. Thank you so much to everyone for their support including the staff at The Mill who helped to make the evening so enjoyable for all involved.
Below are ‘photos of some of the Kileva guests that attended.
Best wishes
Cliff
Posted in Events
From Margaret Samba
Kileva Eastfield Primary School, Mwakoma
10th May 2011
Hi cliff.
I have attached the certificates for the scouts which we waited them for long, now they arrived. One is for the school warrant, certificates of participation, registration certificate,s couts leaders and pupils identity cards which you had paid for them.
Kileva Eastfield Registration Certificate
Kileva Eastfield Warrant Certificate
i have just decided to scan just afew because they are many,so i have decided to give you the a copy of each certificate we have. i hope you understand what i mean.
Scout Leader Card - Margaret
Scout Membership Card - Patrick
Next week on thursday, the scouts need to go to ikanga primary where they are going for 4days camping. the leaders have sent me their requisition to ask you wheather you are going to assist in providing them with food and transport. if you sit and agree, keep me informed of what you have decided and let me know.
Kileva Eastfield Participation Certificate - Cheetah Troop (Girls)
Kileva Eastfield Participation Certificate - Ostrich Troop (Boys)
Love.
Margy
Posted in School & Education
From: Stephen M Mwambua
Kileva Eastfield Headteacher
Eastfield school kids
Eastfield school kids
Eastfield kids on way home from school
Posted in Health, School & Education, Weather
Agnes Mwapulu - Class 1 Teacher
Purity (Class 4) Ben (Class 2) Mwambua (Head) outside Kileva Eastfield Staff House
Margaret (Class 3 Teacher)
Purity, Lydia, Margaret
Posted in School & Education
The case Study extract below has been taken from Lucy King’s PhD thesis entitled
“The interaction between the African elephant (Loxodonta africana africana) and the African honey bee (Apis mellifera scutellata) and its potential application as an elephant deterrent.”
The complete thesis can be found by clicking here, and the Kileva blog posts giving the history of the our involvement in the case study can be found in the following links:
A thesis submitted to the University of Oxford for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology by Lucy E. King of Balliol College Oxford.
Background
The Sagalla community is located on, and around the foot of, the Sagalla Mountain on the outskirts of the Tsavo East plateau, just two hours inland from Mombasa. The people of Sagalla are a sub-tribe of the Taita tribe originating from the migration of the Bantus from the Congo Forest. During this movement towards the coast of Kenya, a small group decided to stay and commence agricultural activities when they reached this mountain. The word Sagalla means “to sit” or “to stay” in the Mijikenda language and to this day the community speak a dialect closer to Mijikenda than to their parent tribal language of Taita.
Problem
Sagalla is sandwiched between Tsavo West and Tsavo East National Parks, the largest protected area in Kenya (21,000 km2) and home to 11,696 elephants (data from 2008 KWS survey). The park’s boundary fences around Voi and the Sagalla community are presently in a poor condition, not electrified and provide no barrier at all between wildlife and the surrounding communities.
Preliminary Survey
Members of an NGO promoting better education and schooling facilities in the area, The Kileva Foundation, introduced me to Sagalla highlighting the problems the farmers were having with elephants. In August 2009 I conducted a small questionnaire survey with 10 farmers representing members from two sub-villages in Sagalla (Kirumbi and Mwukoma), which confirmed that crop-raiding by elephants in Sagalla was a problem and consequently attitudes towards elephants, the neighbouring National Parks and KWS in general were negative. 100% of our 10 participant farmers listed elephants as the worst problem animals with baboons (90%) and lions (30%) listed as second and third worst respectively. Other problem animals were buffalo, squirrels, birds, warthogs and monkeys.
The community is not known for its beekeeping activities and the farmers we interviewed confirmed that status, as only two farmers owned beehives (5 hives in total) and no farmers had ever sold honey. However, 100% of the farmers were interested in learning more about beekeeping and they all enjoyed eating honey, using it for medicine, making local brew and using it to sweeten tea. Most income was generated from working in their fields and selling maize, beans, goats and chickens in the local town of Voi. Not one farmer in Sagalla listed charcoal making first for either time or income rankings which compared sharply to Ngare Mara (refer back to Chapter 7). Additionally, mean livestock numbers were also low and half of what we recorded in our Ngare Mara community (Sagalla mean 15.7 ± SE 2.84 compared to 33.5 ± SE 4.75 in Ngare Mara) illustrating further that this community relies heavily on agriculture as the main income generating activity.
Beehive Fence
With assistance and guidance from the community leaders we trained six carpenters to construct 36 Kenyan Top Bar beehives and 10 women were trained in constructing flat-thatched roofs. We then constructed two beehive fences around two of the ‘front-line’ farms known to suffer from frequent crop-raiding. Each farm was large (>3 acres) and so a complementary control area was established on the same farm, and with the same farmer, to enable us to compare anticipated crop-raiding events between protected vs. unprotected farm areas. Farmer A had an acre encircled by a 21 strong beehive fence and Farmer B had just under an acre encircled by 15 beehives. Additionally Farmer B had a wide opening left in one corner of the beehive fence which kept open the path he used to and from his house to the field. Each farmer was trained in how to fill out a simple data sheet enabling him to draw any elephant movements in and around the beehive fence and control areas. Additionally he was trained in simple beekeeping techniques and supplied with a beekeeping book written in KiSwahili, smoker, veil, coat, gloves and buckets.
Outcomes
In June 2010 we summarised all elephant raids and activities in the two farms encompassing 10 months of farming activity but only one core harvest season. In total there were 13 attempted raids recorded on the two farms during the study period comprising 52 elephants. Only 1 bull elephant managed to break through Farmer A’s beehive fence entering from one side of the field and breaking out through a different section of the beehive fence opposite to his entry point. The remaining 51 elephants walked around the beehive fences with at least 15 of those elephants passing through, or crop raiding, within the control areas. The farmers observed elephant walking directly towards their farm and when confronted with the beehive fence often turned 90º and either walked along the fence for a short distance or simply turned away. Both farmers were able to harvest successfully from their protected farm and although they noted some damage in the control areas we were unable to measure this quantifiably within the scope of the trial.
Summary
Although small in scale, this field trial of introducing beehive fences to a different community and tribe in southern Kenya was successful. The farmers have maintained the fences correctly and, despite a problem of wasp invasions in the hives, we hope they will soon harvest honey. Additionally, elephants in Tsavo appear to be reacting to the beehive fences with similar avoidance behaviour as shown by the Samburu elephants, which should further encourage farmers and managers tempted to try out this new deterrent in other parts of Africa.
Posted in Food and Crops
Hi cliff,
I have attached some photos of last term kids whom perfomed well.
Class five is now complete to its lental level. i have attached the photo of the classroom. what i was suggesting is roofing should be done as quick as possible because of the unpredictable rains. flooring/plastering can be done later in the year but i think roofing is vital and urgent
The school jkitchen was blown off by wind and thus we are appealing to the Board of Trustees or wellwishers for urgent help in putting up the roofing of the temporary kitchen.
Posted in School & Education
As a special incentive we’re reducing the ticket price (which includes a 2 course meal) by over £10 to just £39 per head!
Surely that’s a bargain to see a great play and enjoy a 2 course meal? Besides which you will be helping to put the roof on classroom #5 at the Kileva Eastfield Primary School in Mwakoma, Kenya.
Book online here or email cliff@kilevafoundation.com for theatre tickets and/or to buy raffle tickets to be entered into the draw to win one of the following prizes:
Thanks for your support. It really means a lot to the kids at the school.
Cliff and the Kileva Volunteers.
Posted in Events
From Margaret Kiriro
Kileva Eastfield Primary School
Mwakoma, Kenya
Sat, 30 April, 2011
Hi cliff.
I have just arrived in voi,from college.things were just good only that we had alot of work to cover within the three weeks which we had.we did the exams too but the resuls are not out.as soon as they are out i will keep you informed.
Margaret at College
The college is good,we eat well balanced meals,we were provided with matresses the day we reported,and we slept comfortable,only that the area is a malaria breeding zone and we got alot of mosquito bites,especially during preps time.We were given college identity cards the day we reported.
We used to attend classes from monday to sat,as the period of learning was very short.the classes started at 7.00am morning and ended 5.30pm.thereafter we went for supper at 6.00pm.immidiately after supper we go back to classes again until 9.00pm,the break for sleep until morning again.
This term we coverd only 5 units which are;philosophical sociological and methodology in ECDE Kenya,Child Development,General Methods of teaching,Mathematics and scince.in these units we were required to buy the modules which covers these units.next term we are going to cover another 5 different units.generally we are supposed to cover 21 units,meaning that we are going to remain with 11 units to be covered in Dec and next year learning seasons.
I have attached my college identity card plus Anges’ which we were given in college.
Below is a photo of me with madam Agnes and a friend of mine called Penina in Taita-Taveta Dicece Teachers Training College.
Penina, Margy, Agnes
Thanks very much.i wish you a happy day
Margaret
Posted in School & Education
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