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Under the trees, the wind rustles the leaves as Esther Musyimi reflects on 25 years involvement with the Utooni Development Project. She is one of the early members of this self-help group, joining in 1980. Since 2002 her husband Mutiso has begun replicating the approach with the nearby community.

For years Esther travelled 4 hours a day to participate in the project - she’d start her day at 4.30am, thinking first of breakfast for the children and the animals before walking for 2 hours to put in a full day at Utooni. She would then walk home at 4pm arriving home a little before dark to take care of her family and animals, single-handedly as her husband was away working in Nairobi. This would be once per week for most of the year - but during bigger projects like dam building it would be 6 or 7 days a week for up to a month!

Nevertheless it has all been worth it, she says, as she looks around her and sees the changes that have, through her hard work these last 20 years, considerably improved their lives. Her aim when she joined was to learn about conserving water, keeping better breeds of animals and planting trees.

“I didn’t know how to produce enough food for my family and how to produce enough also to sell.” says Esther. When she first joined Utooni she got water from up to 10km away and the wood was being brought from a forest high on the hillside across the valley.

Now it is no longer than a kilometre walk for water as she dug a well at the bottom of the shamba. She proudly demonstrates how much she has learned about managing her compound. The dam has allowed her to experiment with many new varieties of crops and vegetables such as, finger millet, tomatoes, cabbages and sweet pepper.

“I feed the family and I also sell to others who come to buy from here. People like a lot of green vegetables so at whatever time they need it – they come here and buy it here rather than go to market.” Participating in the project has also taught her skills like planning her workload; zero-grazing the animals to reduce soil erosion and enable her to better manage their health and diets. She has also learnt to wake up early, which she seems to think is a good idea!

Esther has also been enthusiastic about planting trees, some of which are now mature.

“I am still thinking I will be old and that will be my bank – if people come in need of roofing material I will sell it to them. I think of them as savings for my grandchildren”.

She points to the first tree she planted with triumph and announces that it should fetch a cool 2,000 Shillings now, without argument. She is now self-sufficient in fire wood and is also experimenting with fruit trees such as Avocado, Mango, Papaya and Orange and keeps some Calliandra to feed her cows to increase milk production.

Neighbours were inspired by the results of Esther’s determination. Despite her warnings that it only comes by hard work and cannot be achieved overnight, they enthusiastically joined together to form a new group called Nzaaya Muisyo. So, just as Esther originally heard about the Utooni project from neighbours at the Katanga Primary School now she is passing the knowledge on to other neighbours.

Esther has noticed improvements already, “They used not to take care of the land, now people are working seriously on their land. They are preserving food for the animals; you can see a lot of maize stock balances being stocked for the animals to eat when there is no food.”

And it doesn’t stop here. Esther says, “I still have 20 years work in me and I can still do and learn a lot more.”