FROM EWE, TO YOU: How wool spinning and weaving are helping to save threatened birds and unique natural habitats in Kenya

NOTA DI LUCA. Questo è un breve articolo scritto da Sammy, uno dei nostri borsisti di studio presso il National Museums of Kenya. Sammy insieme ad altri ragazzi di Kinangop gestisce un laboratorio di filatura e tessitura della lana di pecora, che aiuta a salvare un uccellino minacciato (lo Zampagrossa di Sharpe Macronyx sharpei) e crea posti di lavoro ecologici, eco-compatibili, ecopacifisti ed ecocardiografici. Sullo zampagrossa e sulla sua vita sventurata potete leggere di più in uno dei post precedenti clikkando QUI.

ALTRA NOTA (PER I LETTORI ITALIANI). Ewe in inglese vuol dire 'pecora' :-) 

NOTE FROM LUCA. This is a short article by Sammy, one of the members of the Njabini Woolspinning Workshop, a project that we have been helping since 2007. The workshop's goal is to save the habitat of Sharpe's longclaw, an endangered bird that lives only in Kenya's highland grasslands. To do this, the workshop buys wool taken from sheep grazing on the grassland, and transforms the raw wool into a variety of woven products. Thus, besides protecting biodiversity, the Njabini workshop created jobs that are sorely needed in Kenya

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FROM EWE TO YOU, by Samuel Ngang’a Bakari,

Njabini Wool-spinning Workshop, POB 254- 20319, South Kinangop, Kenya. Email: sbakari2004@yahoo.com

From Ewe, to you. Well, did you know this short chain can help conserve some globally endangered birds that only live in Kenya’s unique highland grasslands? Did you know you can contribute very much by helping complete the chain? Well, look at this.

The Kinangop Highland Grasslands of central Kenya have been identified as a globally important and highly threatened biodiversity area that requires extra environmental attention. The grasslands hold two globally threatened bird species, the Sharpe’s Longclaw and the Aberdare Cisticola as well as a suite of other rare species of flora and fauna. Now, unfortunately, the grasslands are severely threatened. Most of them are owned by small-scale farmers who steadily convert them to cultivations, where the endangered biodiversity cannot survive. Very little of Kenya’s highland grassland is protected inside Reserves or National Parks. That does not sound good, especially to those who care about the environment.

Kinangop’s highland grasslands were originally inhabited by nomadic Maasai pastoralists, but since the 1960s they have been increasingly settled by farmers and now more than 80% of all the indigenous grasslands in Kinangop Plateau has been converted to crop cultivation or plantations of eucalypts and other non-indigenous trees. The small bits of remnant natural grassland that are left are owned by farmers with big families and very low incomes. It is clear that an effective and sustainable conservation strategy for these unique grasslands must include economic benefits to the local owners.

Livestock farming was a major source of income in the Kinangop plateau for many years and up to 1990s, when market prices of milk and wool products took a nose dive. Farmers who had for long preferred dairy and sheep rearing had to turn to crop cultivation to cater for their needs. The crops were no better and the farmers were forced to convert more and more grasslands to crop cultivation. This means that nowadays the few tiny remnants of natural grassland are the last refuge for a large number of species of flora and fauna, among them the birds are the most well-known – but by no means the only ones.

But not all is lost. The Friends of Kinangop Plateau, a group of community-based conservationists, are not sitting and watching, they came up with a far-sighted strategy to protect the grasslands whilst at the same time trying to ensure that the people who live on them also benefit. FOKP run a Wool Spinning and Weaving Workshop that tries to address all these problems. The workshop is located in Njabini village, at the southern edge of Kinangop plateau, and is run by youths and women. Basically the workshop buys wool from the farmers paying a convenient price to them. This has persuaded several farmers to rear sheep in the natural grasslands, rather than cultivating them. The Njabini Workshop then adds value to the wool through spinning and weaving it into end user products like carpets, mats, bags and other knitted items. These are then sold to local people and tourists who visit the workshop. Unfortunately, this business is still limited to a very small and local scale, due to the lack of convenient outlets in large towns. Therefore, FOKP is now trying to improve the quality of their wool products and to achieve better marketing opportunities, which will allow them to expand their market to towns or to the routes used by foreign tourists. In due time, exporting to foreign markets is also considered a major future breakthrough.

The wool spinning workshop is an excellent way of motivating farmers to retain the livestock and preserve the pastures that also are the habitat to the threatened wildlife. It therefore gives the farmers a financial reason to keep the land as it is giving a win-win situation for the farmers and the conservationist.

Do you want to be part of the winners? You are not left out. Buy one of these locally hand woven products and contribute to the success. Don’t be left out!

Updates from Njabini: the Fox family visits the workshop

David handing over education books

The computer donated by David's Family

Njabini wool spinning has continued to play a very important role in the conservation of the Kinangop Highland Grasslands. This could have not been possible without help from foreign donors from Italy and the UK. Outstanding among them is Mr David Fox and his family who have made huge and frequent contributions towards addressing the challenges at our Workshop. In July this year, the Fox family visited Kinangop together with Luca. During their visit, they met with the Njabini workshop, where they donated a computer, two digital cameras and a pair of binoculars. They later visited the Kinangop Nature Reserve and the Eco-resource Center run by the Friends of Kinangop Plateau Association. Mugumo-ini Primary School was also visited as a representative of the Education programme. (Post written by  the Njabini Woolspinning Group)

 

Three-months report (Feb-Apr 2010) from Njabini

Dear everybody – Sammy Bakari just sent us this update on the activities of the Njabini woolspinning workshop, one of the projects that we are supporting.
As you know, the Njabini workshop is an eco-friendly small business that aims to save the habitat of Sharpe’s Longclaw by creating a market for the wool produced by the sheep grazing in the highland grasslands of Kenya – the only habitat where Sharpe’s Longclaw lives.
As part of our agreement with Njabini, every third month Sammy sends to us updates on the development of the activities of the workshop. This is the third update, covering the period from February to April 2010.
I hope you will enjoy reading Sammy’s report – and I also hope you will feel proud of our good results. Think that for each 100 kg of wool that the workshop buys, one hectare of grassland is preserved, and one hectare of grassland is the home to two pairs of Sharpe’s Longclaw!

All the best, Luca

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The Njabini woolspinning workshop: Three months update February to April 2010

By Samuel Bakari

INTRODUCTION
The Njabini Wool Spinning workshop has continued to grow. The growth has continued to economically empower the youths working in the workshop as well the sheep farmers.
However challenges has persistently occurred one after the other.

WORKING WITH THE FARMERS
After a long period of prolonged drought, across most of the country, for the whole of 2009, Kenya has received heavy rains as from November last year to now. This has been a blessing to all of us. However, due to the rain, shearing has not been possible. Fortunately, this did not affect our supply of wool as we had stored enough wool to take us through the hard times. Now many sheep are ready for shearing and are waiting for rains to subside. We are looking forward to that as our fleece stock is running down.

PRODUCTION
Spinning
Spinning underlines the quality and the type of product. This is dictated by the skill of the spinner, the quality of wool and to a large extent the type of spinning wheels and carders in use. Spinning and carding equipment has always been a challenge as the wheels used at the workshop are of low quality and are not very efficient as compared to professional equipment. We have continued to learn new spinning techniques and tricks from Janice who have everyday continued to come with new ideas [LUCA’S NOTE: JANICE IS THE AMERICAN FIBER ARTIST WHO HAS BEEN WORKING WITH US SINCE LAST YEAR AND IS TEACHING TO NJABINI NEW WEAVING AND SPINNING TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE THEIR PRODUCTS]. Janice has given us a lot of literature materials for reference including magazines. This has gone a long way in motivating the spinners and providing new ideas.
We have been lucky to receive two new super spinning wheels! One we received from friends through Janice and the other was Janice’s, who was with us for a period, this was very kind of she as she uses and she let us have it for more than four months. The wheels have given us another perspective and we have been able produce a wide range of fine yarns. For the first months of this year we have been able to supply wool yarn to shops in Naivasha. Unfortunately, most of the other shops have not been able to buy yarns due to the economic crisis that is hitting Kenya. This has affected our income from sale of yarns, which has continued to be one of the challenges. On the other hand end user products has improved.

Photo below: Margaret and Regina spinning using the new spinning wheels-Regina is with Janice’s wheel. Emma, in the front, is using a Kenya-made wheel.

Weaving
Rug weaving has continued to improve in design, texture and colour. Janice has relentlessly taught us new techniques and design, she has also bought us very informative books for reference. Our big loom has been repaired, thanks to Janice’s skills, and it is now operational. This has moved us to greater heights in weaving. New product has hit the market and is doing well so far, woven scarves. This has proved to be a good line and cuts across a broad class of buyers including even the local market, which is not easy with the rugs. The combination is one of our strengths that we have lately achieved.



MARKETING AND SALES
Marketing is one of the areas that we have not been to achieve to our best; due to a number of challenges that we have not been able to overcome. Although we have been able to improve the quality of our products, we realise the need to improve also on our capacity of production and accumulate working capital. We have been in many cases forced to sell yarn instead of weaving it into products such as scarves or rugs that could fetch a higher price on the market. This is because selling of rugs at current set up takes relatively long time to as compared to yarns, which are in most cases easy to sell. However, yarn processed to a final product fetches more money due to the value added and involves more people thereby creating more employment. The challenge now is to pay the labour force, as they have to wait until the product is sold, thereby affecting the production and taking of more weavers. We are building on savings to tackle this such that the weavers can be paid timely even if the products they have woven is not sold. This is taking long however.
Sales of rugs has gone up, we attracted orders from several customers. We also benefited from another sale bazaar at the US embassy where we sold seven knitted scarves and five rugs. We also introduced the woven scarves and all the woven scarves that we had sold out immediately though we had only five as we had just learned how to weave them from Janice and this was the first lot.
We have continued to make one-on-one, marketing to potential buyers. The contacts from Goodie, Cheli and Peacock and African Pro-poor Tourism Development Center (APTDC) are still followed. We are looking for a potential order from APTDC while a recent visit to Cheli and Peackock shows hope of potential purchase.
We are following a contact for sale of scarves and we are meeting the first potential long time buyer in two weeks time. We are also moving around to potential clients.
We managed to participate to Roslyn’s Spring Fling on 17th April where we were able to interact with new people and got some contacts.

APPRECIATION
A lot of thanks go to all you who have contributed and have been always concerned with the welfare of the Njabini Wool Spinning Workshop as a tool for conservation of the Kinangop Grasslands. Particularly David Fox for your generous support, Charlie Moores and Luca Borghesio for your continued devotion. We cannot fail to thank Janice Knausenberger for her motivation throughout the time we have been in contact.

Back to school!

Salve a tutti!

Due righe per informarvi sullo svolgimento del progetto "Tutti a scuola".

Dalle notizie che ricevo (frammentarie dato che il telefono lì non prende e la posta si perde nel bush), risulta che i nostri sette studenti stanno andando tutti bene. In particolare il piccolo Andrea Lentaaya (8 anni, terza elementare, il bimbo sorridente che compare nella foto in cima a questo blog) sembra sia secchionissimo e sulla base dei voti attualmente è terzo su 60 studenti della sua classe (ebbene sì, in Kenya le classi delle scuole elementari hanno 60 e talvolta anche più di 60 studenti...). Sua sorella Josephine (sei anni, prima elementare) non è da meno visto che è ottava (sempre su 60...).

Complimenti dunque ai piccoli Lentaaya, che sono nati in mezzo alla savana, ma che si stanno facendo onore anche nella giungla cittadina!

English summary: all our little school students are doing very well at school. Congrats!

Tree planting resumes in the Aberdares! Hooray!

Hello everybody - as you know our friends of the Kawama Youth Group, who are planting trees in the Aberdare mountains, had all sorts of problems in the last year due to a terrible drought that killed almost all the trees in their nursery and made all plantings impossible for many months (see the story here). Fortunately the rain has now come back to Kenya, and the Kawama people have at last been able to resume planting trees!
I pasted below a short email that I just received from Sammy, the leader of the Kawama. This is a very welcome update on their recent activities.
All the best wishes to the Kawama Group and to their dedication to this difficult enterprise! We all hope to be able to continue helping their work in the next year

Luca

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HERE IS SAMMY'S EMAIL:

Hi Luca,

How is the family, now that you are back home?

We did plant trees at last on Sat 15th May. It was quite challenging due to the heavy rains but everybody was happy. It was an achievement that we have always looked forward to.

We transported all the seedlings at the first nursery but we were not able to plant all of them on the day. We managed to plant about 2,000 seedlings and we hope to plant the remaining, also about 2,000 on June 5th.

We had difficulties in transport due to bad road conditions, we were stuck several times before we even got to the nursery to pick the seedlings, we however managed after long hours of struggle. The second batch of seedlings, which we did not plant yet, was kept in a safe place in the garden of one of the neighbours to the forest. The rangers of the Kenya Forest Service collaborate with us and are regularly visiting the home to see that the seedlings are safe.

We drained all the financial resources that we had, so we are thinking on how to go about planting the remaining lot. It wou'nt take much since the element of transport is done with now. We only need fare for the members and refreshment.

I am not able to give you a more detailed report but I will soon, and am yet to receive the photos.

Best Regards,

Sammy.

Consuntivo Economico 2009 - Expense budget (2009)

Carissimi

ecco dunque arrivato il momento tanto atteso - tiriamo le somme di quanto abbiamo fatto nel 2009!

Nel 2009 abbiamo finanziato tre progetti: (1) le sette borse di studio per gli studenti piccoli e grandi (2) il laboratorio di tessitura  e filatura della lana di Njabini (3) la riforestazione degli Aberdare mountains insieme al gruppo Kawama

In totale, nel 2009 abbiamo ricevuto 18 donazioni per un totale di 3.683 Euro, a cui si somma il residuo di cassa del 2008 (ben 80 Euro!). La cifra disponibile è stata dunque in totale pari a 3.763 Euro.

Le spese riportate nella tabella qui sotto ammontano a 3390 Euro. Rimane quindi al 31 Dicembre 2009 un residuo di cassa di ben 373 Euro. Con questo residuo possiamo (a scelta) (1) pagarci una cena in un lussuoso ristorante oppure (2) spenderli sulle iniziative del 2010 per continuare a salvare il mondo, gli uccellini minacciati e gli studenti senza scarpe. Io fra le due opzioni voterei per la numero (2), ma attendo commenti - nel caso questi non arrivino darò per scontato il silenzio-assenso e procederò come proposto (opzione 2).

Pace e bene dunque a tutti dal sempre vostro Dr Liv!


English summary: in 2009 we received 18 donations for a total of 3,763 Euros. Expenses amounted to
€3,390 according to the table below. Project "Tutti a scuola" helped 7 school girls and boys to school for one year. Project "Ripiantiamo la foresta" restored an entire forest (well, maybe not so much...:-) in the Aberdare Range. Project "Salviamo l'uccellino Zampagrossa" helped preserving Kenya's natural highland grassland and the threatened birds that live in the grassland. We still have €373 unspent on 31 Dec 2009, I propose a poll between us all to decide what we want to do with that money. Options: (1) we buy wine food and party & get drunk (2) we spend them on the 2010 projects (soon to come on this blog!)

"Tutti a Scuola!"	775
Loretta-Armida Ripiantiamo la foresta	433
Salviamo l'Uccellino Zampagrossa - Laboratorio della Lana di Njabini	2137
Commissioni bancarie	45
TOTALE SPESE IN EURO	3390

Update on the activities of the Njabini woolspinning workshop (01 November 2009 to 31 Jan 2010)

NOTE BY LUCA: WE ARE HELPING THE NJABINI WOOLSPINNING WORKSHOP AS PART OF OUR 2009 ACTIVITIES. WE WILL CONTINUE OUR SUPPORT TO NJABINI ALSO IN 2010.
TO READ MORE ABOUT NJABINI AND HOW IT HELPS PRESERVING ENDANGERED BIRDS AND HABITATS CLICK HERE (SORRY, IT'S IN ITALIAN...)
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By Sammy Bakari, one of Njabini's workers

This period marks the end of the year 2009 and the beginning of 2010. This has been a very difficult year for every one in Kenya due to the prolonged drought. This drought heavily affected the farmers and all the people of Kenya, including here in Njabini and on the Kinagop plateau, which is a traditional agricultural and pastoral area. Up to now, the rains have not yet resumed and the situation is getting very bad for everybody, even though we all hope that good rains will eventually resume in March, with the next rain season. [LUCA’S NOTE – YES THE RAIN EVENTUALLY RESUMED IN MARCH ]


But on the bright side, despite the drought, over the last three months, spinning and weaving have undergone a tremendous improvement here at our workshop in Njabini.
Our spinners – Emma, Margaret, Regina and the others - have been able to improve the speed, quality and at the same enjoy spinning. Washing the wool before working on it is one of the big tricks that the Njabini is practicing, this is after getting a wonderful training session with Janice who has been visiting us regularly in these last months, and her experience and teaching has brought much improvement to our work! Our workshop now produces an increasing amount of fine wool yarn that comes in many bright colours and that we sell as it is to other workshops, or we weave or knit it into our own products.


This period has also seen us learn a number of things regarding the market requirements, because we now produce a range of very good products, but we still are not able to sell them to our customers. In mid-November, Janice introduced us to the American community here in Nairobi, and we were allowed to display a sample of our new colourful rugs. Over a period of two weeks, more than half of them were sold. This was the first mega sale that the Njabini workshop experienced! It gave us an opportunity to understand what the market needs. We are now adjusting to the market taste.


We also continued to explore other outlets. We have advanced our contact with Goodie, a Nairobi shop where we have our products on display. This has attracted one order from the shop. Other contacts have been established and the most promising is with the African Pro-poor Tourism Development Centre. This is a recent contact and we are pursuing to see if we can make a deal with them. Our wall hangings are also displayed in the shop at the National Museums of Kenya at Nairobi.

Over the same period, our workshop enjoyed media coverage from the Kenya National Broadcast Television. These involved visiting the Nature reserve and some of the sheep farmers that we work with.

News from Njabini!

As you know, one of the activities we are involved in is funding Sammy Bakari and the Njabini woolspinning workshop on the Kinangop Plateau of Kenya.

To read why the Kinangop plateau is so important for the conservation of the disgraced Sharpe’s Longclaw bird, you can read this previous post of mine. And to understand how the Njabini woolspinning workshop is helping save the Longclaw, while as well creating workplaces and lovely eco-friendly wool products, please see here.

In November, Sammy Bakari sent me this report on the activities that he and the Njabini workshop have been carrying out in the last three months. Here is Sammy’s report – sorry for posting it so late... but life has been so hectic for me in the last months (you all know why, uh?).

By the way, happy new year's greetings from your friend - Dr Liv!

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THREE MONTHS REPORT (August-October 2009) - BY SAMMY BAKARI.

The Njabini Wool Spinning and Weaving Workshop is one of the activities carried out by the Friends of Kinangop Plateau to reduce pressure on the Kinangop Highland Grasslands, one Kenya’s most important bird areas, which is the stronghold of the Sharpe’s Longclaw, a bird highly threatened by human activities. By buying wool from local producers, our workshop encourages livestock farming that is favorable to the conservation of the grasslands, the only place where Sharpe’s Longclaw can live.

In previous years, our workshop has been mainly selling unprocessed yarns to other workshops in major towns. However, we realize that selling woven products instead of raw yarns could fetch more money and therefore help expand the size of our activity. However, product quality and marketing have been a big problem for us, and have severely limited our work. Fortunately, thanks to the support that we are receiving from you, these problems are being addressed. When we met Luca in 2007, the quality of our products was low, but thanks to the support that Luca, Charlie, David, the 10,000 birds blog and all the other donors in Italy are giving to us, we have been encouraged and we are improving at all levels!

Since September 2009, we are also very much privileged to have a renowned weaver, Janice Knausberger, who is working with us and doing all that she can to help us improve our quality through training of new tricks and designs. As a result of Janice’s training we have started washing our wool before carding which is really helping improve the fineness of the yarn, which is the major factor of good quality product. We have also learned a new edge finishing technique, which is not practiced by any other weavers in Kenya, making our products unique.

Janice has also donated a drum carder to the workshop. With that, we are now producing a stock of high quality products ready to be shown to potential customers.

During these three months, we have been able to buy wool from farmers who have big flocks of sheep and have left aside pasture for the sheep which are as well the habitat for the Sharpe’s Longclaw and other grassland birds. Due to increased motivation and people knowing about the workshop, we have also recorded the highest sales of products for several months.

In these three months, we took part in two exhibitions, the 8th AGOA exhibition at the Kenya International Conference Center, and the Nature Fair organized by Nature Kenya. We also took part in the Farmers’ Field Day organized by the Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock in the Njabini Agricultural Training Center.

I can’t fail to thank all those who have helped in cash and kind. Lots of thanks go to the 10000 birds blog team, and to the Italian donors that have been brought in by Luca. Mr. David Fox has been very generous to us and we really pass our gratitude to him. Janice Knausberger has taken her time to come to our the workshop and teach us the new tricks that are working magic to our products.

News from the Aberdares

I have just received an email from the Kawama youth group, with some updates on the tree planting in the Aberdare mountains. As you can read, things are going on - despite the total lack of cooperation from the climate which in the last year has cursed us with the worst drought that Kenya had in the last 30 years (or maybe more!). Here is the update from the Kawama Group:

"In November we saw it good to plant some of our seedlings together with the Green Belt Movement which was planting in Ragia, a forest next to Kiburu where we have our planting site. The event was very successful, and we involved 15 of our members while GBM had 10 members from the adjacent community. We also had the District Forester with us and the Division Youth Officer as the Kenya Government representatives. This was a good opportunity to make good working relationships with the GBM as well the Government representatives. At the end of the day, we planted more than 500 trees, which are now growing fine as rain has been good in the last weeks.

We are now going to expand our two tree nurseries at Mwendandu and Njabini. As you can see from the photos the nurseries are growing big, At Njabini we have now more than 5,000 seedlings of several species such as Olea africana, Prunus africana and Dombeya cordata.

The older nursery at Mwendandu has more than 8,000 of the slow-growing Juniperus which is now at an advanced stage of growth and almost ready for planting, plus other species including more Dombeya, Prunus, and Olea, all of which have survived to the drought of the last months thanks to the hard work of the members who had to carry water on their shoulders from the well that is almost one kilometre from the nursery. This good availability of seedlings will ensure that we are set with a good diversity of trees to plant in the next season. We are also working on other species such as Solanecio which are not difficult to raise and are growing very fast. This process of raising seedlings might appear to be taking long but at some point people will see what we are doing. Unfortunately the bad effects of the prolonged drought have severely affected and slowed down the growth of our small trees. Now that rains have resumed we are looking forward to the next planting season in 2010.

In the meantime, we are very greatful for your continued support. Please also pass our gratitudeto all the donors who have helped us in any way."

Updates from Ngilai

Hi friends!

since the readership of the blog is rapidly getting international, I'm gonna write this post in English.
News are that the four students from Ngilai Village that we are supporting have successfully completed their first year in the secondary school and are about to enter the second. Congrats to them!

Here is a photo of our friends Naomi, Danson, Thomas and Ndegwa from last September, when I met them in Ngilai and handled to the Village Counselor (centre in the photo, with white shirt) the money to support their second year in the school