Perception of unpredictable weather patterns will change, thanks to the new climate change adaptation hub, the first of its kind.
The centre, in the heart of the perennially drought-prone Midwest Karachuonyo, Homa Bay county, is key to mindset transformation. The launch of the centre is an exploratory journey of the possible.
Villagers will no longer stand there, waiting for rain, or to continue destroying forests and trees for firewood. Or for children to miss lunch or supper because there is no firewood.
The peasantry will understand that every load of firewood, or bag of charcoal, represents destroyed trees. The destruction of the environment exposes the land to the vagaries of climate change.
The earth is naked. It's vulnerable to whirlwinds, storms, and floods. This is no longer the virgin land - the biblical Garden of Eden. The earth has been desecrated through exploitative human activities.
We cut trees without replacing them. We destroy ecosystems without a thought for posterity. We invade water towers without considering they are filters of the atmosphere.
Residents of Ndhole village, Kanjira location, will soon begin to understand it's destructive to do nothing, but hope nature will replenish itself.
There must be a new thinking: intelligent birds have adapted to changing circumstances. When men learnt to shoot without missing, intelligent birds learnt to fly without perching. That's how birds survive greed-driven human actions.
Alternative ways of getting water, cooking, and farming will be key to coping with unpredictable rainfall patterns. Harvesting and storing rainwater, using this water for irrigation and exploiting solar energy for lighting and cooking will be the norm in the age of climate change.
Ndhole Primary School, which was declared the first climate change adaptation hub in North Karachuonyo ward, hosts four key local actions that are essential to responding to the challenges of climate change.
Investment in water harvesting and storage, greening the school, irrigation and solar energy for lighting and cooking, among others, are adaptive pathways.
Ndhole is the only, or perhaps one of the few public schools in Kenya that uses solar power for cooking.
It is also one of the few schools that have installed tanks to harvest and store 110,000 litres of water for school and community use. The water also irrigates greenhouses, through solar-pumping.
Indigenous vegetables are thriving in the school greenhouses five weeks after a submersible climate-smart solar pump was installed.
These facilities will boost the school feeding programme. The surplus produce from the greenhouses will find ready market in the community. The project will enhance food security, while improving community nutrition.
The Green Energy Project – clean energy, water harvesting and storage, and smart agriculture – represent local actions that facilitate adaptation to climate change.
These practical examples persuaded Governor Gladys Wanga to declare the school the official Climate Change Adaptation Centre, the first of its kind in the county.
The next phrase is for the school and community to maintain and sustain the project. It is their project. It supports the learning of their children.
Interested groups will be coming to Ndhole Primary School for benchmarking. The project is worth replicating in other schools in the county and beyond.
These local adaptive actions were possible through the networking of a former journalist, Jeannette Veninga. She visited the village for the first time in 1996.
Veninga was a sensation in the village then when she walked alongside village women, carrying cans of water, for 14km, with donkeys, to fetch water. The Dutch, who was on her third visit to the village, joined Governor Wanga, last week, during the commissioning of the Climate Change Adaptation Centre.
