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Mara Loita Community Rangers 

Delivering period pouches for girls in rural areas in Kenya

Big thank you Queensborough New West Sewing Club, for the 200+ beautiful hand made period

December 2022

December 2022

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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.

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The Mara Loita Community Rangers in Kenya, whenever they get a donation, they use a portion to buy feminine pads for girls living in remote bomas in the Masai Mara region. They are sent to bleed freely on a shack when they get their period, so they miss one or two weeks every month of school each year. Therefore, they end up as child brides and the circle never ends. So these feminine pads will help them to have an education and have a better future.

 

Our goal is to get 500 period poaches handmade by volunteers, with items donated for this purpose at/by the Body Shop, to help them boost up their self stem along with receiving enough feminine pads to go to school during a school year. We will go to Kenya to deliver these period pouches to the school girls in person, and at the same time provide an environmental education, teach them how to avoid human-wildlife conflicts, about the importance of recycling and using recycled plastic, tin and glass to make crafts to bring some extra income to their families.

 

The people there has lost all their source of income gained by tourists buying their crafts, because of the pandemic. If they were poor before, they have been struggling much more these last years. This recycling craft project is a much better alternative to poaching and selling wild animals to get money.

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IAFAF have gathered several dozens of warm and durable socks for the volunteer rangers and other much needed gadgets and tools needed for their ranger activities. This will be delivered and distributed in person by our Canadian IAFAF volunteers in Kenya.

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What are 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.

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The rangers receive no payment. They only depend on small support from the people we know that they can help a little.

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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. 

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

 


Other Challenges

Human population growth

Deforestation
Climate change
Drought
Human-wildlife conflicts
Bush-meat hunting

Poaching

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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. 

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You can learn more about MLCR work at:  www.maraloitarangersassociation.org

Support this Project now!

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