12 Jul 2018

The new Shamba project in Amboseli that will have a lasting impact on the Community

Esiteti Primary pupils in a classroom.jpg

Elewana Collection is continuously working with the communities in the areas we operate, striving to improve the standards of living for those who reside nearby through our charitable arm, Land & Life Foundation.

Recently, we received a donation from Birgit Reimann and Constantine Panoussi of SKÅL International Monaco, which was allocated towards a new project in Amboseli where Elewana Tortilis Camp is located and supports a local school, Esiteti Primary School. It is essential that children in our supported schools not only get the academic skills required for life but basic skills, such as growing produce for the betterment of the community. We can all agree that environmental conservation is key in achieving most of the sustainable development goals. Culture has played a major role in inhibiting the access to education for most pastoral communities but this barrier is slowly being broken down.

Providing a successful shamba (meaning ‘farm’ in swahili) for the school we support in Amboseli offers a number of other benefits; teaching the students to grow their own produce as well as supplying the school with much needed food. This project aims to achieve a sustainable solution to a number of problems.

The project will serve to educate this predominantly pastoralist community in ways of supporting themselves above and beyond their traditional means. The introduction of simple yet effective crop growing provides a way to improve community drought resilience and self-sustainability. As they are learning, the garden will also provide basic vegetables to the school for consumption and will improve food security for the school.

When staying at Elewana Tortilis Camp in Amboseli guests are welcome to visit the school and the Shamba project to see how the children are doing and get involved in the community that Elewana is a part of.