ABOUT MYSELF
I’m a sound engineer working for a private Austrian TV station. A friend of mine who had built a school in southern Kenya asked me if I could support her project by making a film about it. So in November 2015 I went to Kilifi, Kenya for three weeks to film life inside and outside the school.
HOW I MET GIDEON
I met Gideon Saruni at the Kilifi Backpackers Hostel. He’s a Maasai herder living in Kajiado county outside Tsavo West National Park.His tribe sent him to Kilifi to attend a permaculture course. (see project image) In the evenings the two of us talked a lot about sustainable farming and we soon became good friends. I decided that I would find a way to help Gideon get out of his difficult situation.
GIDEON’S PRECARIOUS SITUATION
Gideon and his family have been in a dire situation since 2009 when all 150 cows of their tribe starved to death during a severe drought. Also, a few days after he returned home from the course in Kilifi his field was badly flooded and his crops destroyed so that his family suffered from hunger as a result. Thereupon Gideon asked me for help and I sent him EUR 200. Shortly afterwards he wrote to me what he had spent the money on (food, taking his daughter to the hospital, etc). I was pleasantly surprised to get such detailed information without my asking for it and it also proved to me that Gideon had learned to interact with our European culture by giving an account of his expenses.
TOGETHER WE CAN HELP
To provide immediate help for Gideon and his family, I’d like to raise EUR 2000.
One cow costs EUR 200 (22,000 Kenyan Shillinngs).
If we all help together and every one of us gives a donation, be it small or substantial, Gideon will be able to buy ten cows to secure his livelihood.
LIVESTOCK, THE MAASAI LIFELINE
Traditionally the Maasai keep cows to drink their milk and blood and also to trade them. Gideon’s cows will be kept in a community ranch together with the other cows of the tribe.
To survive droughts, the community stocks hay and sunflower seed cakes which they buy in the nearby town of Loitokto. Furthermore they are planning to grow more maize so that they can store part of it for the cows to feed during times of drought.
As far as water is concerned, there is a spring at a distance of seven kilometres which supplies the livestock with water all year round.
KEEPING YOU UPDATED
Whether you donate EUR 10 or EUR 20 or EUR 50, your donations will be greatly appreciated by Gideon and his family. Gideon and I will send you photos to keep you updated on the progress he is making with the help of your money.
STRETCH GOAL
Gideon will also make a fresh start with growing crops in his old field. The money exceeding EUR 2000 will be used to grow maize and beans on this two-acre field to feed the family and to sell the surplus at the market. There a fence will be built to protect the crops from monkeys. Additionally he will cultivate a new field that is located closer to the spring and is not so much at risk from flooding and install a water pump there.
