Meet the Villagers
I am Micheal M. Japal, an administrator who works in a cosmopolitan village on Rusinga Island. The total population of my people is 3711 (March 2007). As an administrator there are a few things that affect my community. One of these problems is being sorted out now. The community is grateful to have good toilets, thanks to the Kolunga Village Foundation.
Another problem is clean water for the community. The people use untreated water from Lake Victoria, which in turn causes many water borne diseases, such as typhoid, amoeba, and cholera.
Micro loaning, especially for the women and the youths, is yet another thing that the community can benefit from. Women are good managers and when they are trained, they can help the HIV/AIDS orphaned families. HIV/AIDS is quite common in this small village. Children are orphaned and left with their grandmothers. Empowering both women and the youth would be beneficial to our people, especially in horticultural farming. If seminars and exchange programs were available to them, they would be able to learn a few tricks of how they can get their daily bread.
Examples of things we could focus on are goat rearing, rearing chickens for eggs, and even broilers for cooking meat. With these programs implemented, the villagers will be able to provide a sustainable livelyhood for their families and the children will be able to attend school. In this aspect, small generators would also help, the community will be able to use Lake Victoria to irrigate their small gardens. Disease education would help in curbing malaria, which is equally a killer disease on Rusinga.
It is therefore my wish that Kolunga Village become solely dependent in the next 5 to 10 years. I am yearning to see a community in which everybody is rich, a society in which there is electricity, infrastructure is put in place and the level of literacy is high, both to the young and the old. Sanitation and health facilities are working and a community that can be admired by the whole world. A place in which, when you are there, you will love being there. It is indeed my prayer as an administrator to see all these happening.
Thanks a lot, and I will be ready to share more with you given the opportunity.
Micheal Mirambo Japala
unclejaps@yahoo.com