The LVIA presence in Kenya

The first presence of the LVIA in the country goes back to 1967 when technicians and volunteers were sent to the region of Meru. The work carried out at the health centre of the Tigana mission was preparatory for the start, in the following years, of two integrated development projects.

The first project was approved by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1973 and ended in 1978. It carried out interventions in the health sector (construction of hospital wards, courses of preventive medicine), in the water sector (building of aqueducts, water vessels, water tanks, wells) and in the agricultural sector (improvement and diversification of cultivation, introduction of draught animals, support for commercialization and for microcredit). The second project which began in 1985 and ended only in 1992 intended to consolidate the results obtained with the first intervention. Between the first and the second, however, LVIA maintained a strong presence in the area, continuing to support the health centre with the provision of diagnostic equipment and contributing to the building of a new wing for administrative services and out-patients departments.

A water point

Parallel to the actions started in 1973 at the health centre of the Tigana mission, in Mikinduri LVIA promoted an intervention in the agricultural sector with the construction of an animal husbandry centre intended for the training of young people, equipped with lecture theatre, laboratory, storage and related materials, dormitory and refectory.

In the subsequent year LVIA started a new three-year project in the Lake Turkana region on the invitation of the local bishop and the government authorities. The actions concern the fishing sector (training in the use of fishing techniques compatible with the available fish resources, arrangement of structures for the conservation and commercialization of fishing) and the tourism sector (training of staff with regard to local traditions and culture).

From 1996 the water activities carried out by LVIA in Meru, started as far back as 1973 and never interrupted, received a new impulse through two projects financed by the EU and the MFA. With the first, supply installations and wells were constructed in the settlements not served by aqueducts. With the second, begun in 2000 and at present continuing, LVIA proposes to increase the sustainability of the water operations, reinforcing the capacities of the local committees responsible for managing the works completed and of the staff of the Water Department (body created by the Diocese of Meru to coordinate all the interventions in the water sector completed in the region).

It is calculated that from ’73 to today in the Meru region more than 570km of aqueducts have been completed that provide water to about 170 000 people. In the last few years, LVIA had enhanced its presence in Kenya opening a headquarters in the capital to respond to the problems afflicting Kenyan society (social breakdown and deterioration of the environment in the outskirts) and to make more profitable the collaboration and coordination with all the actors working for the development of the country.

With the Combonian Fathers a pilot project has recently been concluded in Nairobi for the collection and sorting of rubbish with which it is wished to check the efficiency of the cooperatives of young people as response to the environmental and occupational problem.