IKUNDO YA MTITO WA NDEI

The Background of the Mtito Andei Development Initiative

In 1994, Intermediate Technology Development Group - East Africa (ITDG-EA) carried out a feasibility survey on Community Based Tsetse Control Project (Brightwell, R & Dransfield, R.D. 1994 - Kathekani Tsetse Survey Report). The survey established that it was possible to control tsetse along the Mtito-Andei River, which forms the boundary between Kathekani Community and the Tsavo East National Park. As a result, ITDG-EA facilitated community meetings, workshops and dramas aimed at increasing awareness about tsetse control and use of trapping technology. This helped in community mobilization and strengthening a community structure - The Mbungo committee which was formed for the purpose of implementing the tsetse control activities together with another 29 villages' committees which were further linked to one control comittee at the location level. Sixty traps were deployed in Kathekani by the end of the year 1997. Hopwever further implementation of the project activities stalled till the Kenya Trypanosomiasis Research Institute (KETRI) DFID support came in January 2002.

The availability of funds led to a planning meeting held at Kilanguni in March 2000 where all the stakeholders made plans for the year 2000. This led to a successful implementatiion period. The achievements of the year were reviewed in May 2001 and plans for the year 2001 were made. The final and third review and planning meeting at the Katekani Mbungo Project was done in January 2002 and the report submitted to KETRI and DFID. Then the Kathekani Mbungo Initiative was implemented under the food security work - the marginal farmers project of the ITDG-EA.

The Mbung'o Project was funded by DFID through KETRI to enhance capacity of the local communities for sustainable control of tsetse (Kethekani Mbung'o Project - Annual Review and planning workshop, 2002).

ITDG-EA phased out of the Kathekani community in the year 2002. Consequently the Kathekani Mbungo Project Committee (MCC) remained merely as a self-help group with an unpredictable future. Nevertheless with their enhanced capacity for sustainable control of Tsetse, the MCC decided to transform the Mbung'o Project to a CBO status and establish a long-term organisation that would help to assess and address community needs through a more diversified approach. The transformation process started in early July 2002 leading to the establishement of a CBO herein referred to as Mtito-Andei Development Initiative (MDI) which became legally registered with the minuistry of Home affairs, Heritage and Sport (certificate No. MKN/DSS/CBO 095) on 14th November 2003.

The inception of the MDI is therefore based on the desire to continue the good work, initiated by the ITDG-EA, of poverty alleviation in Mtito-Andei Division through community participation and multisectorial partnership.

Currently the Tsetse control activity has been extended to Nthongoni location along the boundaries of the national park and community partnerships with the Kiboko Tsetse control centre.