The community Impact of Lewa Safari Marathon
![The community Impact of Lewa Safari Marathon The community Impact of Lewa Safari Marathon](https://citizentv.obs.af-south-1.myhuaweicloud.com/99137/conversions/Lewa-Conservancy-Education-Programme-manager-Purity-Kinoti-og_image.webp)
The Lewa Conservancy Education Programme manager Purity Kinoti. (PHOTO/Geoffrey Mwamburi)
The Lewa
Safari Marathon is one of the world’s most iconic running events, held over two
20.1-kilometer loops of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy game reserve in Isiolo
County.
Since its
inception in 2000, Lewa Marathon has continued to raise raised funds for wildlife
conservation and community projects around Samburu, Isiolo, Laikipia and Meru
areas.
The annual race
returns this Saturday and will be a welcome sight for local communities who are
the immediate beneficiaries of its conservancy efforts.
Through its
education programme, the Lewa Conservancy has built and developed 27 schools
which are well equipped and sufficiently staffed.
The Lewa
Conservancy Education Programme manager Purity Kinoti told Citizen Digital that
through the initiative, they have managed to uplift the lives of more than
10,000 students who went through the system to become important members of the
society.
“Our
education programme here in Lewa was established in the year 2000 to support
the communities’ living around the conservancy to improve their education level
because we believe if we support them they will become great motivation and
leaders of society as well and become conservational ambassadors.
“We have
scholarship programmers whereby we offer full scholarship to students and I’m
happy to report that at least in every community we have supported has a good
number of graduates. I’m also the beneficiary of the Lewa Education programme.
“We have
total number of 27 schools whereby 19 are primary schools and we normally
support top boy and girls students in each school (primary level) whereby we
offer them full sponsorship,” Kinoti said.
One of the
27 schools which have benefited from the Programme is Laparua Primary school,
situated in Isiolo North Constituency, Isiolo County where modern classrooms have
been built including the junior secondary in the new curriculum.
The major
challenge in the Leparua village is its low network coverage and lack of electricity
but the conservancy has managed to install solar systems for power supply.
“I want to
thank Lewa for the great initiative which has benefited the live of different
community living around. North Eastern part of the country has been seen as
areas of low living but through the system the students feels the same as
others in Nairobi and other parts of the country.
“Our only
major challenge here is communication whereby we have to look for high attitude
places where we can access the internet at least to communicate with the
conservancy educating progamme as well as the parents,” the acting deputy head
of the school, Kelly Gitonga said.
Pauline
Lemarito, a parent in the school has also praised the initiative, saying it has
come the right time students and parents are suffering.
“We have
been suffering a lot for many year but since the introduction this initiative,
we parents now we can smile because we know where to take our children who will
learn under modern facilities. Despite the internet challenge we are facing, at
least parents can get the reports of how their students are performing by
visiting the schools or teachers sent the reports through the students.
Since its
inception in 2000 the Lewa marathon has raised over $8 million dollars in
support of conservation and community initiatives throughout Kenya. Nearly $4
million dollars have been invested in the direct protection of endangered
species, other wildlife and their habitats.
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