Mara Loita Community Rangers
Delivering Period Pouches for Girls in rural areas in Kenya
December 2022
December 2022
April 2022
IAFAF has a partnership with the Mara Loita Community Rangers (MLCR), assisting and supporting their noble
and altruist activities in Kenya, helping conserve and protect endangered wildlife and school children and orphans.
Our IAFAF volunteers will deliver in person much needed donations of materials to the Mara Loita Community Rangers
and their community. These donations will be in the form of educative materials and books for the community schools.
Our volunteers will buy and provide needed femenine pads, so the school girls will not lose 3 months or more of school time during their menstrual period. IAFAF will deliver all these items in person to the kids at school.
Our educational activities include: Canadian volunteers IAFAF will also contribute by buying endemic plants and trees needed to support and help these remote local communities, by encouraging to reforest endemic trees and plants that
will benefit the local villages, their domestic animals, and wild animals. These educational events will include having
talks with the children at local schools, about the importance to protect and conserve their wild fauna and flora species.
We will provide talks about how they can directly benefit economically from the protection and conservation of their wildlife, recycling, composting and much more.
IAFAF have gathered several dozens of warm and durable socks for the volunteer rangers and other much needed
gadgets and tools needed for their volunteer ranger activities. This will be delivered and distributed in person by our Canadian IAFAF volunteers in Kenya.
What is the Mara Loita Community Rangers?
Mara Loita Community Rangers assist the local community to improve their standard of living by protecting wildlife
and the forest, improving education and creating job opportunities.
The rangers receive no payment. They only depend on small support from the people we know that they can help a little.
Education for Children
Their school’s girls and boys are in a remote area of Kenya. Girls are unable to buy sanitary supplies for their
menstruation. This means that they stay home during their periods. To solve this problem, MLCR supports these girls though our very limited donations, so they can remain in school all month. We would like to include the girls in a neighboring community to this programme.
MLCR cares for more than 20 orphan children, and some kids that their parents are so poor that they can’t afford to send their kids to school. Due to this situation, many girls end up in early marriages while young boy’s look after cattle for the rest of their life.
The Forest of Loita
Loita is one of the last remaining closed-canopy forests in Kenya. The forest still supports a good number of elephants,
pangolins, cape buffalo, hippo, aardvarks, antelopes, zebras, lions, leopards, cheetah, waterbucks, cave hyraxes, yellow
baboons, bushbucks, dik-dik and bush pigs.
Threats
Loita Forest is targeted by wildlife poachers. Elephants are a particular target since the hills and canyons of the Loita
provide an attractive environment for elephants – and for the hidden activities of poachers. In addition, cutting down
trees for timber is becoming a major threat to Loita forest. Large parts of natural forest are gone. There is danger that the
forest will come to be destroyed.
Other Challenges
• Population growth
• Deforestation
• Climate change
• Drought
• Human-wildlife conflicts
• Bush-meat hunting
Rangers life in the forest
Being a ranger requires dedication and determination. He /she must cope with dangers that will naturally occur in
the wilderness. Rangers deal with dangerous reptiles like Puff adders, spitting cobras and other aggressive animals like
the cape buffalo during patrols. Carrying heavy outdoor equipment, food, water on their backpacks and walk for nine
hours long distances. The rangers sometimes also have to deal with aggressive poachers and forest destroyers.
You can learn more about MLCR work at: www.maraloitarangersassociation.org
Support this Project now!
