The Last Mile

The Last Mile

Greetings!

I hope your new year is going well. Soon I'll be heading back to Tanzania to join the Leadership Team in all the good work there.

Your generosity with the recent Annual Appeal is aiding all aspects of our projects. It is also a big help in the face of the very serious and unusually intensive drought that continues.

With your help, we keep our home-improving stove and solar work going, and financially helping all our women’s groups prepare for good livestock investment once the drought has passed. But there is a lot of time and worry and effort going into getting through this drought.

Situations like this do make one think seriously about climate change.

Working and living in a rural, rain-based economy makes me impatient with the promises of cutting carbon dioxide emissions in years or decades. Dependable and sufficient funds for adaptation to the crises caused by the industrialized world are needed now.

Thank you for pitching in and helping us do what we can. It makes all the difference.

With deep appreciation,

Twende!

Robert Lange

January 2022

The Last Mile

Development project literature often mentions the need to get to "the last mile." What is that?

It refers to the desire and necessity to reach those people who live the farthest from services and benefits.

The ICSEE Leadership Team is very pleased to note that our collaboration with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is productive and exciting.

And, in fact, it is taking us that last mile.

Choosing the homes

The Adventists of Germany supplied funds to ADRA to collaborate with the ICSEE to install 100 stoves and solar systems in homes in three villages.

Of special note, the Chairmen of these villages were asked to designate which homes should be included. We did not question the criteria the Chairmen would use. Since all Maasai can benefit from the healthy ICSEE chimney stove and everyone can use light at night, for us, it was all equal.

With that said, it was exciting to find that some of the choices were in fact those “last mile” homes.

We have done lots of work in Mbuyuni village including stoves, solar systems and installing three water sanitation systems. Often, when we are going to work in a home, even though we know the village, we follow a villager on a motorcycle to make sure we find the right place. But in the ADRA supported project, we found ourselves following the cycle to parts of the village we did not even know existed.

Electric light at night

Of course, in some ways the stove is more important than solar, since it means health and less menial labor for the women.

But it is so humbling and rewarding to imagine electric light at night, far out in the bush, miles from any traveled roads, and far from other homes.

Thanks to your help and organizations like ADRA, we bring a better life to people who have barely begun to imagine the possibilities. . Thank you!

Celebrating new Widow's Groups

The ICSEE Widow's Groups, now numbering eighteen, are staying well organized and enjoying the strength coming from being together.

Seven of the groups are new and have yet to begin their collective livestock fattening businesses.

By purchasing shares themselves, the women accumulate money in their group’s collective bank

When the time comes, this will provide for part of the capital for their new collective businesses.

Public celebrations are the venue for the distribution of the allotments for capitalizing the collective businesses coming from the grant from the Global Fund for Widows. This helps spread the word and build support for this transformative work.

Riding out the drought

Fortunately, all but five of the first eleven groups had sold their cattle before the drought hit. These five are doing all they can to feed their cows,

The ICSEE is providing funds for supplementary cow fodder, and their men’s advisory committees assist them in evaluating the difficult choices in front of them.

Assessing the need

The challenge now is not only getting money to the women needing it for cow fodder, but also to make sure all the women in our groups have what they need for everyday expenses.

The ICSEE Leadership Team is assessing those needs now.

The Team is exploring how to meet the additional needs without depleting the capital that the women and the Project want to apply to the livestock businesses when rain is back and conditions allow.

Link here to donate

Thank you for making a difference during this time of drought