Restoring more than forests

In the dry, rugged landscapes of northern Kenya the Pokot community faces deep-rooted challenges of gender inequality and environmental degradation. But Caroline Menach is leading a movement to change landscapes and lives.

A teacher by training and a passionate advocate for gender equity, Caroline has spent more than 20 years working to uplift women and young girls in a community facing immense social and environmental challenges.

“I’m a teacher by profession. I trained in agriculture and agricultural education and extension.” The only girl in her community to attend university, she told the ITF team, on a call to share about the impact of her work.

The women in Pokot face significant challenges – forced early marriage, female genital mutilation, and deep-rooted gender inequality. “Girls come to school bruised,” Caroline says, “just because they refused to be married off at 10 years old.”

These injustices spurred her to act – not only through education but through restoring the landscapes on which her community depends. Caroline founded Perur Rays Of Hope, a local organisation which is reshaping the relationship between people and land.

For years their landscape has been abused and stripped of trees, leading to landslides, dwindling harvests and drought. The women have little rights or say over the land and yet they often carry the burden of tending to it and they suffer most when natural disasters hit.

Through her organisation, Rays of Hope, Caroline has partnered with ITF to restore a 100-hectare site in Pokot. “So far, we’ve restored 20 hectares,” she says. And there’s so much more they want to do.

“There's been encroachment into an area that they once considered to be a sacred mountain which is on Telo. So we are reaching out to the community requesting that it should stop.”

And now the community wants to protect these places again. “Communities are now calling us. They say, ‘Come. We are ready to support. Come help us. We want to raise our seedlings.’”

Women tending to seedlings in the local tree nursery

But Caroline’s work goes beyond planting trees. It’s about restoring balance – between people and nature, between generations and between genders. In Pokot, men own the land, the cattle, the education. “Women have no right to even sell an animal,” she says. “So if we empower the women, at least an empowered woman will support her child. And there will be a better generation.”

“Women play a key role in environment. They're the ones who get firewood and therefore we need to teach them on how to use firewood so that they do not also increase the desertification by cutting trees.”

So Perur Rays Of Hope are teaching women to protect the ecosystem and reduce the amount of firewood needed as well as sustainable harvesting techniques, like coppicing, which allows a tree to keep growing.

Women also play a key role in food security, so Caroline and her team are keen to educate on agriculture and agroforesty as well as climate friendly planting techniques. “So that the women can, as a mother, have that skill to ensure that today's food is on the table for the children. And have food security in their homes.”

Caroline’s vison is big, restore the devastated landscape, boost food security and create jobs for women, all while teaching the local community about the importance of environmental stewardship and gender equity. But the thousands of newly planted seedlings, grown by local women, is a testament to the impact of this vision becoming reality.

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You can support Caroline as she equips women to restore their landscapes, take on sustainable jobs and create opportunities for their daughters.