How Education for Girls Helps a Community Become Climate Smart

Stories from individuals who benefit from our funding are powerful and this one is no exception. A student from Lenana Girls High School, a boarding school in rural Kenya, speaks of the urgent need for climate change adaptation and the importance of education. The school is the brainchild of our long-time strategic partner, Common Ground, in Kiminini, Kenya. Pangea Giving members have supported Common Ground’s Biointensive Farming Programs and Lenana students over many years.

Right now humans are cutting off the branch they are sitting on. April 22, 2019 was Earth Day, a day on which we no longer have resources to support us, and whatever more we consume or exploit is at the expense of our planet. Replacing those resources will take more time than we have, since the population is continuously growing and resources are fewer each year. I have made it my mission to help reverse this trend to move the date back. I know how, because I am living proof that it all starts with girls’ education. Because I’m educated, I will have a small, healthy family, and now I am bringing the knowledge and skills my community needs to cope with resource limitations and climate change.

Student standing outside of the garden — **Ann Nyambura at the entrance of school garden.**

I was born and raised in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, the first born in a family of three. My father used to work as an electrician while my mother worked as a hair dresser. Both my parents only had basic education, but always strived for us to get more training.

I was a very good student, an over-achiever, but I had my hopes and dreams crushed when my father died.

For a time I thought I would never achieve anything, and all hope was lost. In Kenya you have to pay fees to go to secondary school — school fees and internal exam fees — and then there is the cost of a school uniform, exercise books, pens… my parents did not have the money to keep me in school.

So my siblings struggled with family resources so limited. It is “normal” for a 15-year-old to get married, and many believed that the highest achievement of a woman is marriage. I had no option, but only I knew I had a clear plan for my future. Yet when I was 12 years that future looked bleak.

A year after my father died, my mother heard of Lenana Girls High School, and she struggled to get me into this school. This was a chance for me to be educated, and I took it more seriously than ever.

Lenana not only provides for my education but they also make sure I have a safety net through the mentoring. I have a bigger vision and am committed to my dream to help the community become better. I share everything that I learn each day with people back home. So I have made a formal plan of how I will contribute to the community though empowerment and sustainable practices training. When people are well informed they make wise decisions in their lives and subsequently reduce the strain of climate change on the environment. At school we are learning GROW BIOINTENSIVE mini farming methods, techniques good for our environment.

Each day we are faced with changing weather patterns and we find ourselves with fewer and fewer harvests at the end of each farming season. The global phenomena of the El Niño and La Niña have been affecting the farmers in ways that are extremely disturbing. In the 2016/2017 farming season there were serious floods, and this year, a terrible drought affected our farmers, both resulting in lower harvests. That will change once the people are well informed and trained on the tactics to counter climate change, and how to practice agriculture that is climate smart.

I have also been very concerned about the issues of deforestation, and land contamination with plastics and all types of residues. This has led to the increase of greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the effects of climate change, when the majority can be reused as raw materials in other processes. What I am proposing will be a lifetime project that will invest in the reduction of deforestation and use of alternative energy, starting from my backyard through every corner of the country; we can improve and reduce these effects faster and more effectively.

The core of the project will focus on the use of available resources in farming, and the closing of nutrient cycles. I will emphasize good use of animal and vegetable waste on the farms. I will encourage investment in solar water pumps and other equipment to help lessen the effects of drought during dry times. The water table in many areas is not very far from the surface, hence it will be easy to irrigate with manual pumps when the need arises. The climate smart techniques such as GROW BIOINTENSIVE I want to invest in involve increasing tree cover. While the trees hold the soil together and capture the greenhouse gases, normal agricultural production takes place alongside them. I will be focusing on training more youths in these practices, since they are advocates of change who will engage their communities.

Although currently I am a student at Lenana Girls High school and I will be taking my final year of high school this year, I have not lost contact with my people back home. I still take time to send messages to my village to hopefully inspire other girls to work hard and help break the vicious cycle of poverty. I am determined to get back and give back to the community and country that is helping me get to where I am today. During my vacations I visit communities in my county and begin to motivate and share my story with other girls, so that they know and learn that it is possible to be who we want to be, even from disadvantaged and marginalized backgrounds.

All it takes is unleashing the willpower and potential in each and every one of us. Change happens when you have the skills and capacity to make it happen. I have come to an understanding that educated girls are far more clever, plan their lives in a better way, and have better chances of being happy than uneducated girls.

**“We are not growing maize for food but for soil fertility, ” says Lyra Malaba, Form I**.

I believe having access to education makes girls and women better decision makers, reduces the number of children that they have, reducing the pressure on the little resources available, and therefore reducing the effects of climate change. Having access to education also means these girls will be more open-minded to change, and will accept change faster, hence the implementation of measures on climate change will be easier and more accepted.

I do know, because I am living proof, that education is the center of all. Thank you for helping me.

By Ann Nyambura, Form IV, 2019.

Thank you to friends at Common Ground for sharing this inspiring essay with us. If you are interested in the ways small funders and grassroots organizations can partner to address climate change, consider attending our December 12 workshop.