Making a garden of Eden wherever you live – The Utooni Self-Help Group in Kenya

During a Workshop by the Lutheran World Federation in which one of the leaders of Utooni Self-Help Community Group was participating, the Moderator invited the participants to volunteer a song. Esther, the leader from Utooni, rose and taught a song. The words are very moving:

Rather than dream of going to Heaven’,

Wake up and make a Garden of Eden,

Make wherever you are a Heaven

God will bless you as you do!

Utooni Self-help Community Group in Eastern Kenya was formed in 1978 and registered with the Ministry of Culture and Social Services in 1982. It was made up of 135 families, with a total population of about 1000 persons of varying ages. Not all members of the administrative division became members. The registered Group consisted of only the families whose leaders were convinced that they need to cooperate to improve their economy and their environment. Their leader and facilitator was, and continues to be Joshua Mukusya, a committed Christian who worked in the Rural Development Department of the National Council of Churches of Kenya and with several agricultural companies before he quit and went home to help his mother and the rest of the community. Since 1978 he lives with them, plans with them, and implements with them the plans they agree upon.

The Utooni Self-Help Community Group operates about thirty km south of Machakos, and about ninety km south east of Nairobi. Their local market is at Kola. Thirty years ago this area was almost completely bare, having been stripped of trees by carvers who cut them for making curios for the tourist industry. The area has no permanent river, but has many valleys covered with plenty of sand and rough stones. The area is semi-arid, with very little rainfall per year. The Group formed nine committees to deal with the various challenges they faced: water-harvesting; food; schooling; health; investment; security; culture; afforestation; soil conservation. Each committee would plan for activities and share the plans with the rest of members for approval and implementation. Women are the majority in the committees and in daily operations of the Group. Even the artisans leading construction work are mainly women. The men participate, but they acknowledge the leadership of the women who have been elected because of competence and leadership qualities.

Every Monday each member-family sends a representative to work together with the others on a project earlier agreed upon. they work on each others farms and homes in turn once every week. This has been done since 1982. In monetary terms, the cost of this labour is worth millions of dollars. The result of this investment is there for any visitor to see. There are beautiful terraces, which conserve the soil and retain moisture on the slopes, which have now been rehabilitated into fertile farms. In addition, forty-two kilometres of terraces have been made. More than 200 sand dams have been built, serving as reservoirs for millions of litres of rain-harvested water. More than 8,500 domestic water tanks have been constructed, so that every member family has at least one tank. Some of the tanks have been built for schools and other institutions. The Group has been invited by other communities to extend its expertise to them, and now many more dams are being constructed in other areas.

Friday is the market day at Kola, when the community members meet to exchange the fruits of their labour. Sellers and buyers come from elsewhere to trade, bringing goods, which are not locally produced. It is interesting to observe the growing commerce that is evolving at Kola as the economic output continues to expand and becomes more and more sophisticated. Water consumption per family has continued to rise as the community harvests more rainwater. Thus the standard of living continues to rise. There is more brickmaking, both for local use and for sale. This is possible because of the trees, which have been planted to provide timber and fuel and for other uses.

The Community has also hosted several groups who visit them to learn. Normally, visitors are encouraged to join the Group members as they work, and to contribute some of the materials (such as cement and reinforcement steel) in appreciation of the hospitality. The local market at Kola has become a little neat town, whose main investors are the members of this Group. They have a housing scheme  at the town, where they have constructed rental houses for civil servants and other tenants. There is a Post Office, which also serves as their bank. Recently, an all-weather road has been built passing though the town. This road brings more customers and visitors to Kola.

These paragraphs describe a very interesting lesson about the process of social reconstruction and economic development. The community is in control of its own present and future. Other actors have to meet the community on its own terms - including politicians, NGO, administrators and religious leaders. In the long term, this is a sustainable community, because it has set its own priorities, which it  implements using its own labour and resources. If some help comes from outside, the members appreciate, but they do not wait for help in order to implement their plans. They go on as if there is no one to rely upon except God and themselves. Their Motto is: ‘Without Vision We Perish.’ Their investments are built to last, and when the Group members work, they know they are doing it not only for themselves, but for posterity.

Hopefully, this approach will eventually become normative among those of us who are persuaded that economic development can best be achieved by the people themselves at local levels, not by impersonal institutions imposing themselves from the top. E.F. Schumacher’s dictum seems to have been proved right by the Utooni Self-help Community Group. His insights are contained in his book titled ‘Small is Beautiful - Economics as if People Mattered’ (London: Abacus, 1973). Macro-economic indicators of growth are misleading, if the gap between the affluent and the destitute continues to widen. As Professor Charles Birch used to say in the 1970s, the gap can be reduced ‘only if the rich can live more simply, so that the poor may simply live.’ The problem of poverty and affluence is primarily a question of Ethics and Spirituality, rather than Politics and Economics.

The leaders of this world, who are now obsessed with ‘globalization’ should rather heed the wisdom of the people of Kola: ‘Without Vision We Perish’. 

(text provided by Prof. Dr Jesse Mugambi. The Ecumenical Water Network held its Inaugural Conference on 6-13 November 2005 at Machakos, Kenya. The participants had the opportunity to be guest co-workers with the Utooni Self-Help Community Group.)