The SAFI Project

SAFI: Open for Business

Ryan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:56:13 +0000

This week SAFI opened up its first public office in downtown Nanyuki. It was something of a transition for an organization more familiar with tents and four-wheelers, but the space proved invaluable in grant work and field work preparation. Before long donations from friends and sister organizations served to furnish the office with a very respectable set of 3 desks and (mis)matching chairs. Here we have a shot of the boys admiring Richard’s curtainwork.

In other news, on June 25th SAFI will begin the next round of field surveys. This lighting-paced iteration, spreading all 36 villagers over 11-13 days, will focus on determining the validity of previously recorded data and devising new methods of collection. Expect more on the subject as this intern learns the charms and difficulties of field work in the Rift Valley.

-Miguel

The Nanyuki Recycling Center

Ryan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:26:35 +0000

These past few weeks have seen a flurry of activity as the further steps are taken to make the SAFI recycling center a concrete reality in Nanyuki. The various fact-finding efforts have led to a deluge of technical and logistical information, but they have also led to various conversations with land brokers, government officials, businessmen and everyday locals. Even before we discuss poverty reduction or reinvestment, there is almost instantaneous agreement that towns like Nanyuki would benefit from the cleaner streets and steady employment. We hope that the endorsement we’ve received can be converted into continued support throughout the life of the center.

The recycling center calls for a place to house the machinery, and finding such a venue has proved the most entertaining part of the process. Our options so far include a plot of land adjacent to the city dump (how fitting), an abandoned bakery, and a colonial era industrial park with it’s own railroad tracks. At least one has a poltergeist, and some can only be described as fixer-uppers, yet each has its respective charm. Personally I think it’d be thematically proper to re(cycle)use an abandoned factory or something similar, but all decisions are subject to the ever-important budget and revenue estimations.

Speaking of which, our next fundraising initiatives are the Monsanto and Food and Health Foundation grants due July 1st. The Food and Health Foundation combines an interest in improving environmental conditions in the developing world with an interest on preventive health projects. Monsanto is a large, open-ended grant we hope will fill some of the integral yet hard-to-fund aspects of the recycling center.

-Miguel

June 2009- Quick Updates

Ryan — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:13:12 +0000

The SAFI Project just completed an application to UN-HABITAT’s Youth-Led Development Grant Program to support the construction of the Nanyuki Community Recycling Center and related community consultation, mobilization, and training. Completing this application was a great experience as it led us to focus on two of the SAFI Project’s central thematic areas that have been peripheral in our activities to date- the relationship between urban and rural poverty reduction efforts and the role of empowering Youth to design, implement, and manage community development Projects.

To date, the SAFI project’s efforts have been focused on small rural centers across Laikipia, but public waste is also a major problem in larger towns and cities throughout the region, including Nanyuki, Timau, Nyahururu, and Rumuruti. As a result, one of the priorities of the SAFI urban-rural recycling project will be to examine the factors that drive sanitation problems in urban areas and to assess the extent to which the SAFI project’s various programs are effective in this new context. In addition, these centers will serve as the headquarters for our regional recycling centers (with Nanyuki being the first), both because they have the infrastructure necessary to run a plastics recycling plant and also because these larger towns will provide a large amount of the trash inputs for the recycling processes.

On the social end of things, it is important to focus on both urban and rural areas because the tremendous amount of movement between the both types of localities, expecially by unemployed youth. Many youth from the Laikipia area move from rural areas to Nanyuki after completing schooling, and yet are unable to find steady employment. The SAFI Project’s Urban-Rural Recycling Project seeks to address this by incorporating local youth in the management and operation of the recycling factory, which will provide both employment, which will increase short term incomes, as well as job training and entrepreneurial skills, which will help to ensure sustainable paths out of poverty.

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I’m also happy to announce the arrival of Miguel Lavalle, the new SAFI intern, to our field site in Laikipia. Miguel just finished his Sophomore year at Columbia University in New York City and is majoring in Economics. He is picking up where Elsie and Ian left off, both helping with the completion of various grant applications, as well as helping on the research end of the project by developing new data collection methods and brainstorming opportunities for working randomized evaluations into the project’s next wave of program evaluations. We’re excited to have him joining the team and once again want to extend our deepest thanks to Elsie and Ian for the time that they spent with us.

-Ryan

SAFIProject.org (Re)launch- May 2009

Ryan — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:44:51 +0000

It is hard to believe that almost a year has passed since we created this website, and over two years since the SAFI Project team first started working to address the problem of public waste in Laikipia. This has been an eventful year for the Project. We’ve continued to collect data on waste management and littering behavior outcomes in 36 villages throughout Laikipia. We’ve also been busy completing the third phase of the project, which has entailed working with local stakeholders and technical experts to develop a plan for the expansion of the public waste program and the creation of a regional community recycling center in Nanyuki. On the organizational front, we have registered the SAFI Project as a Charitable Trust in Kenya and are in the process of assisting our affiliated community waste management committees as CBOs. Expect more in-depth updates on all of these fronts in the coming weeks.

Finally, I am proud to welcome two new members to the SAFI team– Elsie and Ian, our very first Interns. They will be in the field for the next month, helping Richard with a variety of activities related to expanding our trash collection project and starting our recycling initiatives. Expect to see some reports from them in this section of the website, detailing a bit about their experiences on the ground and sharing updates about the progress of the Project’s various activities.

SAFIProject.org Launch

Ryan — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:56:50 +0000

We are pleased to unveil the beta version of the SAFI Project’s official website. The purpose of safiproject.org is to connect the ongoing work of the SAFI Project in the Laikipia region of Kenya to partners and friends in Kenya and around the world. The current version of the website presents an overview of the work the project has completed to date and outlines our plans and needs for the next phases of work.

This section will operate as the official SAFI Project blog, where we will provide regular updates about the what we are up to, in addition to broader thoughts and snippets concerning waste management and sustainable development in Kenya and beyond.

Thanks for Reading, and Keep Coming Back!