Mida Creek has rich ancient maritime and cultural heritage that is yet to be fully exploited to benefit the community, new research shows.
The research by the National Museum of Kenya revealed that the area has underwater and mainland heritage dating back many centuries, which can be used as a tourist attraction.
Authorities are using a women's group called Bidii na Kazi to promote the sites and generate income.
NMK director of antiquities, sites and monuments Purity Kiura toured Mida Creek and met the women who have undergone training on how they can benefit from the resources.
She said NMK found it necessary to work with the women because it was an ongoing women' group established 16 years ago.
The aim, she said, was to create sustainable cultural projects which can enhance tourism and livelihoods.
"We wanted to enhance specifically ocean-related or maritime-related cultural tourism and within the Coast of Kenya there are a lot of cultural sites," she said.
Kiura said they realised research had not been done within Mida Creek in terms of the cultural and tourism sites that people can visit and how they could be brought on board to form part of the tourism circuit in the country.
She said the project they developed will showcase some of the cultural and historical sites within the creek.
The director said research had discovered three sites which are of historical importance.
"These are mainly historical settlements where people lived in the past. If you compare them to Gedi Ruins, they are that kind of settlements. Some of them have even evidence of wells which were being used then and were abandoned," she said.
She said their aim is to assist the community living within Mida Creek to see the value of cultural tourism and what they do as an institution.
Kiura said the group of women they work with came up with a project of a restaurant within Mida Creek that will serve people touring the sites.
She said the women's group also established another project of using canoes to take visitors to those sites.
''Those are already two aspects of cultural history itself because the restaurant has been built in a cultural and historic manner, not a modern restaurant. It used traditional technology local materials, which is part of enhancing the cultural aspect,'' she said.
Kiura said the canoes are traditional means of transport which were used in ancient times.
The women she said will also develop culturally related sustainable projects such as developing mats using ancient technology, baskets, dressing, beads and food.
Other aspects of environmental conservation include developing nurseries from mangrove seedlings and planting them within the area threatened by erosion and human activities.
"It's quite extensive in terms of what the women are doing but they are looking more at cultural tourism and also the sustainability of the environment," she said.
She said they chose Mida Creek because it's an area that has not been explored in terms of cultural tourism as mostly what was being done was related to marine biodiversity.
"It's already an established tourism attraction area where people come because of ocean-related activities that they undertake here, so we thought it would fit very well in terms of tourism," she said.
Kiura said they got a Sh6 million funding from a UK organisation that was used for research and development of the restaurant and to help the women plant the seedlings.
"So far we are already seeing the fruits of their work. Three sites have already been discovered and will form part of the circuit that tourists will go to visit. We have also constructed four canoes that will be used for touring the sites and fishing,'' she said.
The women have made over Sh2 million from the project.
Ceaser Bita, an underwater archaeologist from the NMK who is the lead researcher in the project, said their aim is to utilise maritime cultural heritage to better or create resilience among the community in Mida Creek.
The project began in 2015 after doing underwater archaeological research that included diving from Watamu to Mida to map and identify submerged cultural heritage.
