Treedom & WIRIO - Kisii, Kenya

 

Conservation of the environment is something we are both very passionate about and goes hand in hand with our core beliefs. We are always looking for opportunities to care for our planet.

During our time in Africa we came across an organization in Kenya that had a large footprint working with a variety of community projects. Appropriately named Wide Rescue Initiative Outreach – WIRIO, based in Kisii, Kenya.

Some of the projects impacted by WIRIO; Agroforestry, Eco-farming, Waste Management, Women Empowerment and also a primary school within Kisii Village. Our main focus was working on their project with Italian based, internationally operated company, Treedom, who partners with WIRIO on a local agroforestry project.

Treedom + WIRIO

Treedom has partners all over the world on a mission to “green the planet”. They work with farmers to plant trees to provide a social and economic impact for the farmers, communities, and in-turn the environment. For every tree sponsored through Treedom, they provide seedlings of a variety of trees to farmers all over the world.

They plant trees specific to their region and to help with intercropping and aid farmers with agroforestry. Treedom’s local partner in Kenya, WIRIO currently works with 55 farmers throughout the community. Together they help teach the community about agroforestry and sustainable land use. The planting of a tree is followed by an incredible chain reaction impacting a communities life and wellbeing.

  • Add nitrogen to soil – does not exhaust land for future use

  • Helps grow faster/healthier crops

  • Good for environment = clean air

  • Food security

  • Control erosion

  • Fresh produce to sell = Income for families

  • Vital for livestock feed

  • Maximize use of existing land

We love this partnership and even had the opportunity to meet with Treedom at their headquarters in Florence, Italy. Sharing stories and pictures of our time spent in Kenya with the local staff allowed them to get an understanding of daily life in the village.

“If you don’t have trees, you don’t have life.”
— Dickson Omandi - WIRIO

Nursery

To support the Treedom and WIRIO project, they built a nursery in Kisii, Kenya. The nursery provides many benefits:

  • Teaches farmers the purpose of agroforestry

  • Understand how crops start growing

  • Learn beginning stages of growing seedlings

  • Learn the uses and impacts of variety of trees, fruits, plants & crops

  • Impact of sustainable land use: the combination of planting trees, crops and having livestock. 

Upon our arrival at the village, the nursery was destroyed by a hailstorm the previous night. We spent the next three weeks helping rebuild the nursery, preparing the land for new seedlings, planting trees, weeding existing seedlings and meeting the local farmers.

Waste Management

 Another project we got to work on is WIRIO’s waste management. Since 2010 with the new Kenya Constitution, government rules, regulations, environmental control, and overall progress of the Kenya people has slowly, but surely progressed. Still in many areas proper waste management is not practiced. There continues to be a lack of government funding to get the needed equipment to collect, dispose, and manage everyday waste. We spent a day with the local government waste management department of Keroka cleaning up the streets, ditches, alleys and walkways.

Working with WIRIO

Seeing the impact of everything we got to take part in was an incredible experience and in all, a great new beginning to a relationship to a project in Kenya. Feel free to get in touch with us to learn more about our project in Kenya and how you can help or get involved!