My Dream for the People of Kasipul Constituency

Content

Preface

Project one:      Education

Project two:      Health Care

Project three:   Water and Environmental Issues

Project four:    Youth Development

Project five:     Infrastructural Development

Project six:       Community Development and Women Agenda

Project seven:  Agriculture

.....................................................................................................................................................

Fellow Constituents of Kasipul,

I share with you this blueprint for creating a prosperous and equitable Kasipul. This is a testament of our cherished faith in Jo Kasipul’s ability to reclaim and transform their constituency. It is indeed a seal of my/our covenant with the people. Through these words of commitment, I affirm my resolve to end the politics of exclusion, betrayal and misappropriation of devolved resources. The majority of us have had to endure the grinding combination of poverty and inequality, regional imbalances in income, infrastructure and social provisions.

It is my great pleasure to share my pride and that of my fellow constituents over the wealth of our land which is greatly endowed with many natural resources namely; rivers (Awach Kibuon and Awach Kodera), vast agricultural land, human resources, agricultural opportunities such as livestock and cash crop production as well as mineral resources such as gold and stone (Kokoto). All these rare resources have not been exploited to benefit the people and this is the main reason why I have brought myself forward to seek an opportunity to open up them up. 

In Kasipul, where you are from, what your parents did, the school you went to, your clan, your physical ability and gender determine your chances in life, your educational attainments, your work prospects and even how long you will live. The national proposals for accountability, dispersal of political power, decentralization of public services and support for local communities will help to reduce inequality. These changes go to the heart of what is wrong in Kasipul today. As we head to the county government, the long-awaited desire of every Kenyan and Kasipul in particular has come and knocking on our doors, it shall only require a warm welcome of good leadership in order to benefit the people. 

The old regime in Kasipul’s leadership had no solutions as they are part of the problem. They must not be allowed to work for the few at the expense of the many. Only we will deliver prosperity, ensure equity and guarantee accountability. I warmly commend my team plan for the Kasipul constituency parliamentary office.

God bless you, God bless Kasipul, God bless Kenya.

 .................................................................................................................................................................

PREFACE

Kasipul (former part of Kasipul Kabondo) is a constituency blessed with vast potential. Its beautiful tapestry of village groups and majestic landscapes make us proud of the land where our unity and diversity reigns. We have some of the best agricultural lands, energetic men and women and highly potential business opportunities. However, successive leaderships have failed to fully exploit these resources, or where resource exploitation has taken place, gains and benefits have accrued to a few but not the many. All these regimes have lacked integrity and leadership. For this reason alone, about half of population in Kasipul remains poor. 

Presently, the Coalition Government’s own surveys indicate that there are about 60,000 poor people in the constituency, up from 43,000 on about ten years ago. The strength, resilience and the spirit of the poor and disadvantaged in our villages is awesome. The plight of the poor and disadvantaged deserves to be addressed. They have a voice and a stake in our constituency. We cannot just detail their problems; we need action to resolve them.

Kasipul’s level of economic inequality, reflected in the gap between the rich and the poor, is one of the highest in the nation despite recent conflicting tallies. We need not suffer this tragedy. Over forty years of independence and the last five years of a failed transition from the former members of parliament compels us to demand better economic performance at the grass-root and inclusive politics from the past regime.

People of Kasipul grow increasingly weary of the failure of old policies and spent men who have been at the helm since the establishment of the constituency. The spent political icons have locked out the fresh, dynamic and younger generations from the political process and thwarted their ascent. The younger generations of talented politicians in Kasipul have been lost to the cause and service of our constituency - wasted not because they fail to reach for the stars but because they grow up with no stars to reach for. Of all the sins committed by our current political leaders, one that transcends above all is their appetite for corruption.

The Ong’ondo Were leadership will pursue economic and social policies that aim to make all people of Kasipul winners and beneficiaries of economic growth and devolution. It is targeting policy interventions that support private sector development as part of our growth and development strategy. We will support small and medium enterprises and support informal business so thousands of youths who are currently unemployed and hustling in our villages and towns can find productive and meaningful employment. We will pursue both growth and real development for the people. The Ong’ondo Were’s economic policy would therefore be based on key fundamental values of prosperity with equity and accountability.

The main economic and political challenges that face us as a constituency fall into five main categories:

•  Aiding the county and central government in fostering high, sustainable and equitable economic growth and development.

• Aiding the county and central government in ensuring creation of productive, decent and useful employment opportunities in the area.

•  Aiding the county and central government in reducing the existing rampant, widespread poverty and inequality.

• Aiding the county and central government in fostering regional equity and development on a sustainable basis with focus on Kasipul.

• Guaranteeing accountable leadership, a new face-lift and an ethical governance agenda.

We will address these challenges to ensure all people of Kasipul live in dignity and enjoy better living standards. However, to tackle these challenges, we must clearly outline what Ong’ondo Were leadership will address and what our economic policy and strategy will target. 

To address these challenges and secure Kasipul’s long term prosperity, Ong’ondo Were’s leadership will:

• Boost infrastructural development.

• Involve the youth in development projects.

• Open up the costs of access credit and business.

• Promote private sector development, informal and medium-sized businesses.

• Implement targeted special programmes for the poor, marginalized and vulnerable groups as shall be devolved from the central and county governments.

• Put more efforts on Agriculture with keenness on Cattle farming, poultry farming, goat keeping, bee keeping, fish farming among other Agricultural opportunities.

• Further focus our energies on tourism, rural development, health and sanitation, social services, youth and sports, energy, education among other areas of development.

............................................................................................................................................................

PROJECT ONE: EDUCATION

Preamble

W

ith the quickly changing times and tides of life in our society and with myriad of dynamics in the scientific and technological world, education remains in play in offering a pivot in transforming the lives of people by boosting their adaptability and innovativeness. This therefore calls for a more quality education and education system (s) that can comfortably act as tools for empowering the vulnerable groups and persons with disabilities. Education therefore remains the pillar of the poor in world full of economic uncertainties as it does not only empower them but also place them to levels that can expose them and boost their affinity for higher levels of economic gains.

With great emphasis put on Kasipul Constituency, the introduction of free secondary and primary education has so far had remarkable improvement in the development of this very important life transforming service. However, the system as experienced in other areas of the republic is plagued with numerous plights. About 5,000 children are not enrolled in schools despite free primary education and the completion rate stands at about 69%. Many of the schools in Kasipul face several challenges such as a few classrooms which are also in very horrible conditions, understaffing to the extent that the teacher: pupil ratio is at 1 teacher to 78 pupils. Most of the pupils remain with no option except to share text books and other education resources. Cost of school uniform, the unsubsidized school fees and that of education to many families, all these lead to perennial drop-out of pupils from our schools.

The introduction of free Secondary School Education (FSE) has greatly given a light into the dark future that faced the graduates of our many primary schools. Kasipul division has about 45 secondary schools that have to a greater extent offered a landing ground to most of the pupils who graduate from our over 110 primary schools. This has greatly reduced the drop-out rate, increased literacy levels and also provided life long skills to more children within Kasipul Constituency. This has further reduced the financial burden that was a great challenge to most households in most parts of the constituency and the country at large.

Regarding the adult literacy, the national tally narrowed down to Kasipul constituency, about 10,000 people from Kasipul division/constituency are still falling in the illiteracy bracket and its very important to note that about 75% of this number is consisting of women. As indicated in the adult education survey report of 2004, this large number of illiterate Kenyans and in particular Kasipul is attributed to a lack of access of formal reduction for many groups, especially the marginalized, low retention rates by the formal reduction system and high poverty index. A struggle to enhance adult literacy in Kasipul will not only be useful in ensuring development of the people but will also be in good taste with several national and international commitments to education and human development for example, as articulate in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for all (EFA), Government of Kenya Vision 2030 and the Kenya National Policy on Education.

With regard to reduction for all commitment, the special needs education is in an appalling state both in Kasipul and Kenya at large. So far, there is only one school for the physically challenged persons at Sikri Vocational which is mostly serving the interest of a few individuals due to high costs and inadequate space. There has further been inadequate inventory for such persons with mythical aspect of the tradition taking a centre stage. This has made many people (parents and guardians) to hide such children from the public, something that hinders their ability to get any form of education hence they remain to wallow in a sea of ignorance sandwiched in the physical challenge.

In summary, the level of education has greatly improved at an excellent speed in Kasipul despite thousands of challenges. This therefore calls for a drastic step in formulating sound strategies and policies by the leadership to fuel the already crawling level of education to greater heights. This forms the basis of our policy in advancing quality education for all in Kasipul Constituency.

Our commitment:

We will increase access to education to all people within Kasipul constituency to attain the greater literacy level for all people in Kasipul. This will be done through fostering the development of our educational institutions and equipping them to ensure their relevance and availability.

We will improve the transition rate from primary to secondary schools through strengthening the performance at the early levels of education through investment in early childhood development and lower primary schools. We shall struggle together with other constituencies to attain the 80% literacy rate as outlined in the vision 2030. This will only be achieved if we all embrace the importance of literacy as we do appreciate the necessity of insane and establish the adult education centers, equip them and make  them relevant with respect to the endless changes that have taken centre stage in the education system of our Nation. We will establish adult education centers in every location with an aim of telling as many people as possible to access this very vital service.

We will all work towards achieving school enrolment level within Kasipul constituency to the nationally accepted level of 95%. This will be as a result of our efforts directed to the early childhood development through establishment of ECD centers within and next to our existing primary schools and fostering their staffing and equipping.

We will strengthen performance in our secondary schools to increase the transition rates from the secondary schools to colleges and universities. Due to high  poverty index and so inability of many parents to give parallel education to the children of Kasipul, we will focus our energies in producing students with ability to get direct Joint Admission Board (JAB) admission in our local universities, this shall be the only way to fight low level of degree attainment within Kasipul.

We will lay more emphasis on Mathematics and Science to enable us produce students with the capacity to compete for more lucrative courses when they join our public universities. Quality courses focus more on the technology oriented subjects such as physics. We can only attain this when we invest more in science learning in our schools right from primary. At the secondary level, we will need to construct laboratories and equip them with relevant instruments and chemicals or substances.

We will struggle to improve the quality of teaching and learning process. This will be done through ensuring a good teacher – student ratio through lobbing for good staffing, offering sound motivation to teachers and pupils and in general, improving the infrastructure within the school environment.

We will work towards establishing computer learning to promote computer literacy. With the transformation of the society from manual-based to technology-based, our constituency must also focus in to provide their reference. Failure of a society to technologically orient her members is the best way to make them obsolete, we must remain as relevant; and that is the aim of our new leadership in Kasipul constituency.

We will foster infrastructural development that is an appropriate tool in providing quality services. The educational infrastructure range from schools themselves, classes, laboratories, libraries and other relevant structures; they also include power and effective road networking. Our leadership will work towards putting our educational institutions up-to date with respect to infrastructural development.

We will formulate an equitable CDF budgetary allocation system that is driven by the needs of each school and location rather than uniform allocation. This is due to the realization of the fact that every location and school has its own unique needs. This will help in solving particular problem in a region once and for all.

We will reduce negative impact of poverty and inequality vis-a-vis the lack of access to quality reduction by members of the society.  This one will be attained through educational support from CDF and any other bursaries available within reach of our leadership.

We will strive towards high level investment in science and technology to transform our youths and products of our schools, to transform our commodity based economy in Kasipul to a more knowledge driven economy through education. Promotion of science and technology learning shall open up our constituency to a more knowledge than hand on, this will then prepare them to take up more quality job opportunities.

Our priority areas in education

Our new leadership in Kasipul will in:

Early child hood education

• Work towards establishment of early childhood development (ECD) centers in all our primary schools.

• Provide the relevant materials for the effective implementation of the ECD programmes in Kasipul.

• Provide relevant equipments as desks, chairs, classrooms and other infrastructure.

• Ensure effective staffing within these established centers.

• Improve the standards of the already existing ECD centers with an aim of ensuring their relevance and effective dissemination of knowledge to our children.

• Encourage all parents to enroll their children to these facilities as early as possible.

Primary Education

• Work together with the government, well wishers and other relevant agencies to foster development of infrastructure such as classrooms. This will be done through the available devolved funds such as CDF.

•  Repair the dilapidated school buildings in a bid to making the school structures appealing and promising.

• Work in collaboration with the PTA and school management committee (SMCs) to employ teachers on temporary terms to help reduce the teacher–pupil ratio.

• Work in conjunction with government agencies to promote affirmative measures to ensure an inclusiveness of our education with respect to the marginalized groups.

•  Our leadership will in collaboration with relevant agencies promote the academic and professional development among our teachers.

• Provide motivation to pupils and teachers who do well in KCPE examinations.

Secondary Education

• Promote local community participation in the running of our schools to help develop sense of ownership and responsibility.

•  Facilitate establishment of computer classes in all secondary schools and solicit for trained personnel to provide training in those classes.

• Liars with the schools boards of governors (BOGs) for more teachers in the areas of deficiency.

• Establish a more inclusive educational panel down from within the constituency to formulate and supervise the implementation, evaluation and academic monitoring and reporting.

• Work towards motivating students and teachers who perform well in KCSE examination for purposes of ensuring effective teaching and learning process in our secondary schools.

• Promote competition and sporting activities within the constituency to bring about hard work and exposure of talents and physical development among our children.

• Create a comprehensive examination structures with well established academic committee to foster a quick evolution of our education standard.

• Our leadership will in collaboration with relevant agencies promote the academic and professional development among our teachers.

Tertiary Education

• Our leadership will in collaboration with relevant agencies promote the academic and professional development among our people.

• We will support our students learning in different tertiary colleges and training institutions and universities. The CDF bursary will be structured to ensure equitable support to all students from our constituency learning in different colleges and universities.

• Our leadership will struggle to improve tertiary education within Kasipul towards skills gaining and job creation and seeking.

• We will allocate more funds to increase bursaries for students and improvement of learning resources in our secondary schools to improve the transition rate from secondary to tertiary institutions.

Adult Education

• Establish adult learning centers in all our locations and equip them to ensure their relevance and effectiveness for the sake of this our changing world.

• Encourage and invest in adult education by working together with voluntary, private sector, government agency and religious organizations to give opportunity to our people who missed education to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills in their own time as it’s done to others in different parts of the country.

• Promote staffing of these our centers to ensure proper learning in them.

Special needs education.

• Establish an inventory of those persons with special needs within Kasipul constituency and classify them depending on their unique needs.

• Establish in collaboration with development partners a special education centre to supplement the Sikri School for the physically challenged.

What we will do:

The new Charles Ong’ondo Were’s leadership will work together with all the stakeholders in education within and without Kasipul to quickly undertake the following:

1. Promotion of capacity building among teachers within Kasipul through different training agencies such as KESSI and SMASSE and any other KESSI affiliated trainings, workshops and seminars.
2. Construction, fitting and equipping strengthening science learning in our schools
3. Construction, fitting and equipping of libraries in all our schools to foster development and reading culture among our pupils.
4. Support field study, field work and field excursions in collaboration with humanity teachers. This is an area that has been left misaddressed for long.
5. Ensure complete rural electrification by

•  Putting transformers in major centers and around schools

• Facilitating looping of power to public amenities as schools. All these will ensure lighting and running of several other programmes that are power oriented in our primary and secondary schools.

6. Improving rural roads network through improvement and murraming to ensure accessibility of our schools at all times.
7. Strengthening teacher defense especially in cases that appertains to and affect their welfare at work.
8. Motivate teachers and pupils/students who do well in the national examinations, KCPE and KCSE.
9. Motivate through awarding our students who manage to graduate from our tertiary colleges and universities as well as those who graduate with commendable degrees or certificates and diplomas
10. Put in place trophies and awards for competition in education among schools in Kasipul constituency.
11. Establish computer learning in our schools to create ICT compliant society. We will construct computer laboratories and fit them with relevant machines with the advantage of availability of power. We will also ensure the availability of teachers/trainers in ICT.
12. There will be a formation of a mobile library to serve the whole constituency.
13. The already established Sir. Charles Ong’ondo Were Foundation will strive towards promotion of sporting activities within Kasipul constituency for all our schools.

...............................................................................................................................................

PREJECT TWO: HEALTH CARE

Background Information

I

n every society in the world, good health remains a basic need and the mainstay in ensuring the survival and maintenance of life and personal self confidence in a person. For this reason, there is no doubt that each and every member of such a community is entitled to an inalienable right to access basic health care services. Such a right is not only entrenched in the constitution of Kenya but also enshrined in the most of the International Human Rights instrument ratified and signed by the people of Kenya through our government.

According to the Kenya Integrated Household and Budget Survey (KIHBS, 2005/2006), the health status of Kenyans remain below the acceptable levels since childhood and maternal morbidity and mortality still remains so high and this is likely to affect the achievement of the health goal 4 and 5 outlined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by the Kenyan Government. The MDG4 focuses on the reduction of child mortality and other issues related to early childhood while the MDG5 attends to the improvement of material health. So far, there has been endless failure in the bid to curb these situations that are still posing a health disaster in the nation of Kenya.

These challenges have been accustomed by scarce human resources in the health sector, overstretched health care resource and facilities and general ignorance among the people. There has thrived a gross under finding in the health care and delivery of the universal health care. This therefore remains to be a priority in development of health care in Kenya. The key humanitarian challenges that remain to hold our health sector is the fact that despite the professional national goal of eradicating diseases, only a few ordinary people have access to good health care services. Only a special click of well endowed people has the capacity to access such a service, in particular health facilities. Our hospitals, health centers and dispensaries are poorly equipped and mull-staffed as some are in a deplorable state. In most occasions, these facilities lack relevant drugs and basic medical equipments to facilitate adequate health care provision. Further to that, unfavorable working conditions, poor remuneration and overwork have kept the healthcare professionals demoralized and thus opt for greener pastures elsewhere like Botswana and America

This already ugly state of our public health is worsened by the inefficiency and incompetence in drugs and medical equipment supplies. This plight has been so chronic to the extent that the national concern has been raised on the ways to curb it. In the rural areas, the healthcare facilities are few and far from reach of many rural dwellers. Having in mind that Kenya still remains to have the poorest pre-natal and post-natal care services in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya therefore remains a leading nation in the international tally of infant morbidity and mortality masterminded by preventable diseases such as malaria.

Poverty and poor living standards, according to the world health organization report on prevention of infectious diseases of 2008 still remains to put many Kenyans at risk of such infectious diseases. Inadequate preparedness and disaster management is still one of the players in the numerous deaths caused by calamities.

Health care in Kasipul

As evident in other parts of the rural areas, Kasipul faces challenges of poor health care services. With a population of about 250,000 people, the division of Kasipul given this new constituency, a district hospital hereby Rachuonyo South District Hospital in Oyugis, with no sub district hospital that was initially at Ramula located in the new Kabondo Kasipul constituency, the whole of Kasipul division with a total of 11 location has only five health centers notably:

1. Mirondo Health Centre – Kokech
2. Ombek Health Centre – Kodera
3. Nyabola Health Centre – Konuong’a
4. Sino Health Centre – East Kamagak
5. Kosele Health Centre – North Kamagak

With this distribution, it’s evident that the health care services provision in Kasipul is not adequate. The only option that remains before the residents of Kasipul is to look for dispensaries which are far away, poorly equipped and understaffed. There are a few of those that don’t match the rising demand with the population.

There are also a few private health facilities that provide health care services though at a very expensive cost. Matata Hospital and Sunrise clinic found in Oyugis town have played a role in providing this valuable services but this is still inadequate due to the fact that the cost in them is unmanageable to many. Otherwise, the Oyugis integrated project (OIP) supported by the Catholic Church through the brothers (CMM) has also offered and still offer cheap health care to the people. This fall under the church sponsored health care facilities together with Simbiri (Methodist sponsored) and Nyagowa (Lutheran Church). As these play a pivotal role in provision of health care services, there is still a need for more government funding in establishment of these health facilities.

The poverty index of the constituency and harsh climatic condition still play another very demoralizing role in the peoples’ quest for this very life-centered service. Growing population has also had an adverse effect and pressure on the space available in the words and spaces in our health facilities. With a few words and poor infrastructure inhibits the move of the people to get hold of medical services.

Our Dedication

As a new leadership of Kasipul constituency, we are committed to:

• Emphasize preventive and permissive health care through targeted health education. This shall be done in collaboration with other development partners.

• Ensure equitable allocation of devolved government resources to reduce disparities in health status. All the devolved funds shall be effectively and equitably distributed within the constituency

• Support government efforts in creating enabling environment for increased private sector and community involvement in health care services provision and finance.

• Play an effective role at our level to increase the cost effectiveness and cost efficiency, resource allocation and use.

• Support in the fight against HIV/AIDS to improve and increase lives of those infected and further reduce the number of those getting new infections. This will be done via educating and sensitizing people about HIV/AIDS.

• Ensure availability and access to healthcare services to all people within the constituency. We will bring the health centers and dispensaries to all corners of the constituency.

•  Refurbish the already existing healthcare facilities within the constituency to make the fit within the needs of the people.

What we will do.

With regard to healthcare services, our new leadership will work together with the people, government, development partners and well wishers to:

1.   Establish health centers in all the six divisions which are currently lacking the facility; Kowidi, Kokech, Kamagak, Kachien locations.

2.      Establish at least a dispensary in areas far from the health centers in the locations

3.      Refurbish the already existing health care facilities to make them up-to date and relevant

4.      Work in collaboration with the health service providers to provide mobile health services to people who are away from these facilities.

5.      Set up a mobile clinic to offer maternal health care services to women in homes and young children

6.      Ensure adequate staffing of those facilities to suit the growing demand

7.      Promote efficiency and effectiveness in the allocation and use of funds within the constituency by putting down strategies to fight corruption in the health sector of the constituency.

8.      Work in collaboration with KEMSA to ensure stringent measures in the distribution of drugs and other equipments to reduce losses for purposes of improving access of such items.

...................................................................................................................................................

 

 PROJECT THREE: WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Introduction

W

ater still remains an important player in a healthy living of every person. Access to water is a key to survival. According to the Ministry of water and Sanitation, only 20% of Kenya’s population has an access to clean water for drinking. And the figures projected by United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the per capital water availability will fall from 650 cubic meter per year to 235 cubic meter by 2025 due to population growth and climate change with no efforts to conserve the available sources.

Human dignity demands an access to sanitation by individuals. This is the reason why the concept of sanitation is inextricably connected to all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that cover environment, education, gender equality and child mortality and poverty reduction.

With about 2% of the whole country land being covered by water, there is need to invest more on the water sector. Most of the areas in Kenya do receive a substantial amount of rainfall whose water gets to waste via floods which on the other hand become hazardous like Kasipul, whose surplus water flow to the flood plains of Oluch and Kimira rivers in Rachuonyo North district. This one call for a more sound and focused leadership with the capacity to identify viable methods to tap, treat and store this water and finally supply it to all that need it.

The growing population of our country is still exerting piazzo (pressure) on our land and more so our water catchments areas have been encroached into. The best example is the Mau forest which is now causing rainfall shortage. The efforts by the Rt. Honorable Prime Minister to rehabilitate and also protect the Mau forests have seen a lot of success despite strong opposition.

The totality of those that surround our environment also needs a great protection. The International Community has signed several agreements that have been aimed at controlling emission of dangerous gases into the atmosphere. As a country, we also need sound policy on environmental conservation. The efforts of National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to curb this challenge of environmental pollution has failed dismally since it was changed into money making opportunity to the policy and law enforcers.

Our rivers still remain highly polluted. Lake Victoria and other lakes have been polluted, infested with hyacinth and their waters rendered unfit for human consumption. The agencies such as Lake Victoria Environmental Management Programme (LVEMP) and Lake Victoria South Water Resource Management Organization have tried but most villages still have great challenges.

Water in Kasipul

Being situated on the higher altitude, Kasipul enjoys a wide range of climatic condition such that different locations have different water characteristics. Some part of Kodera and Kamagak North Locations fall within semi arid zones. Difference in types of soil and amounts of rainfall make sources of water to vary greatly in Kasipul. The common sources of water are rainfall (roof catchment), wells, boreholes, dams and water pans, bottle water especially within the towns. Other sources of water within Kasipul are rivers, streams, springs and logged areas.

Despite these available sources, there is still very insufficient water within the area. The whole Kasipul has only one line of tapped water serving Oyugis town and its environs with Kosele getting water through private means.  These sources are either orchestrated or underexploited.

Further more, women and children of Kasipul still need to walk a long distance in order to get water from our few rivers like Awach, R. Tende and Awach Kibwon. This gives a lot of problems especially to this very vulnerable group in our society.

Due to those challenges, people in Kasipul are faced with dangers of contacting water related diseases. About 80% of patients attending Matata and Rachuonyo South District Hospital (Agoro) suffer from preventable diseases and 50% of these suffer from water, sanitation and hygiene related diseases.

Our agricultural sector has been failing a great deal due to a limited supply or complete lack of water storage facilities, and all these are attributed to high level of poverty.

With two forests; Kodera and Wire, Kasipul should be a bank of water but his has not been the case due to deforestation of Kodera and Wire Forests covers. This activity has really changed some parts of Kasipul to semi arid.

With only one piped water system, it has been too expensive to access piped water. This high cost such that some times a pale or 20 liters jerry can of water is traded at Ksh. 5/= makes it very difficult for many to access water being that they would still need to transport it to their homes. High cost of connection of water also hinders the access of water to a greater extent; the piped water is not reliable such that the taps have some times remained dry for almost a month.

Our Commitment

Under the new leadership of Sir Charles Ong’ondo Were, we shall in collaboration with the government agencies and the development partners:

• Protect the water catchment areas and our entire river riparian.

•  Promote the rehabilitation of our natural springs and underground water sources to supplement the surface sources.

• Promote the harvesting of rain water at every household to ensure clean water for all.

• Encourage the use of piped water in our household through fostering extension of water pipes.

• Increase access to safe water in schools, market centers and health facilities through promotion of the roof catchment and connecting of water pipes.

• Foster promotion of irrigation agriculture by putting up ponds and water pans to collect surface water run-off and be used for irrigation agriculture and domestic use.

• Ensure proper proposal of solid waste and further encourage the adoption of recycling technologies to reduce the weight of solid waste pollution in our environment.

•  Invest heavily on developing sanitation facilities and extend its coverage to achieve the demands of the Millennium Development Goals.

What we will do:

Under the new leadership of Sir Charles Ong’ondo Were, we shall in collaboration with the government agencies and the development partners:

• We will map the constituency to determine the regional needs and strive to introduce special measures into the development policy to give priority on water provision to dry areas of the constituency.

• We will drill bore holes, wells and dig dams and water pans to ensure access to water by people at all times.

• We shall commence rain water harvesting and storing as a twin evolution to the streaming problems of floods and drought.

•  Establish a new water pipe system to supplement the existing line

• Intensify the public education efforts concerning waste disposal, water conservation and environmental conservation.

• Provide adequate toilet and hand washing facilities in schools, market centers and health facilities to reduce incidences of sanitation, water and environmentally related diseases and teach relevant skills to maintain personal hygiene.

• Promote development of small scale irrigation project at family or community level.

.....................................................................................................................................................

PROJECT FOUR: YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

A

ccording to the constitution of Kenya, in the section 260 on interpretation, youth  is a term collectively used to refer to all individuals in the republic who have attained the age of eighteen years, but have not attained the age of thirty five years. Kenya has a very large youth population with a majority of about 60% being below the age of 20 years. The government of Kenya through leadership of His Excellency the President Mwai Kibaki established the Ministry of Youth Affairs through which the Youth Enterprise Fund (YEF) came into existence to enable young people access micro credit to establish some business.

This was a step forward. Otherwise, a lot still needs to be done in the areas of providing quality education, training, employment, preventive health and adequate sporting and recreational facilities to our youths. All these call for effective planning and fairly committed and transparent leadership both nationally and at the local levels.

Despite being the majority of both voters and general population, both our female and male youths still remain to wallow in a sea of challenges that can be forgotten very easily with proper planning. Unemployment is on non-stop increase. Around five hundred thousand youths get into the labor market annually in Kenya to compete for none existing jobs. This predicament becomes even stronger due to the fact that most of these people are school leavers at primary level. This therefore show an indication that the youth enterprise fund may not be the right alternatives, there is a need for training and a structural response at the level of providing a new economic and political opportunities for the youths of our country. This will include laid down strategies to give space to our youths in their quest for political and leadership space and economic and intellectual empowerment.

The ODM party does recognize this very noble concept and last year’s ODM grass root election gave a provision for the youths through the Young Orange Democrats, this has guaranteed a vast space for the youths participation in the party leadership and this is a clear show of how ODM intends to give chance to the youths even in the governance. Unemployment and urban malaise remain political and developmental risk that needs urgent attention; it’s a cause for insecurity both in urban and rural areas thus hampering the investment capacity as most investors tend to shy away from such areas with security threats. As a leadership, we recognize the unique social, economic, cultural and health challenge facing young people of Kasipul and Kenya as a whole. These kinds of challenges go beyond education, employment and learning, they call for a more systematic approach and systematic overhaul. Such an overhaul should thus be a bottom-to-top revolution to change leaving among the youths of Kenya. This is the reason for a call to have a more focused and sound leadership at every stage.

Youths in Kasipul

As at 2010, Kasipul had a youth population of about 84,000 with about 80% of those being unemployed, it’s otherwise important to note the misconception that has shifted the meaning of a youth from constitutional interpretation to political meaning. To most people in Kasipul and as in any part of Kenya, a youth means a person who is not employed and strong enough to take political position and in certain circumstances be able to attack or stay in defense of a political leader. This idea has made the age aspect of a youth to vanish to the extent that planning for our youths in terms of training and employment has been ruined.

With Oyugis as the main town of Kasipul, most youths are found in town especially those that do casual jobs that are generally unpredictable and residing in the villages where they don’t have any structured employment and thus remain to carry out farm duties under numerous plights.

As for any other part of the country, unemployment remains the biggest challenge sandwiched in inadequate education leading to unskilled group that lack the capacity to take any employment opportunity. Therefore, it’s important to offer training facilities to equip our youths with the relevant skills.

Currently, most of our youths take part in Boda boda industry (both bicycle and motorcycle), taxi operation, and small scale business enterprise such as vegetables, mitumba and accessories, farming, brick production, charcoal burning among others. This shows a great potentiality in our youths. They have struggled despite challenges that they face. Some of those challenges include:

1. Insecurity. Our Boda boda operators have had one of the toughest times in the past five years with the level of insecurity tipping the climax. That of motor bikes and bicycles, murder of certain riders and generally poor working condition of both environment and road infrastructure. High fuel prices in 2011 also created a great turmoil on their hustle. They have been operating amidst a lot of uncertainties that have left them to do a lot of work for very little income.

2. Limited access to credit facilities in our constituency. Our youths have not had an opportunity to establish business since they have not been able to access micro credit facilities. Many youths have formed youth organizations but the level of access to these facilities is too low. With many CBOs and NGOs in the area, about 90% of the youths have still not known not only their ability to offer such aids but also their presence.

3. Limited representation at decision making levels. It’s only the new constitution that may change the face of leadership organs as it creates an opportunity for the youths in the decision making bodies. Otherwise, there has been inadequate representation of the youths in such organs. Despite this provision by the laws of Kenya, there is still a need for focused leadership to structure the implementation of the words and letters of our constitution.

4. Misuse by politicians: As defined in this section in the political context, lack of job and energy to fight defines a youth. Most people, both young and old have been put into a pool of goons to fight in favor of politicians. This kind of duty has led to the loss of lives of our youths and even their over dependency on such politicians.

5. Drugs and substance abuse: Our youths in Kasipul are suffering a lot from drugs and substance abuse. Alcohol and bang together with cigarettes are some of the most abused drugs in our area. These range from local brews and pubs within Oyugis and other market centers.

Our commitment

Under new leadership of Sir Charles Ong’ondo Were, we shall in collaboration with development partners:

• Facilitate youth access to credit facilities that may be available from any source.

• Construct  juakali sheds  in Oyugis and other centers in our constituency.

• Facilitate adequate representation in the decision making organs within Kasipul constituencies starting from the sub LDCs, LCDs and DDC.

• Establish youth vocational training centers for the youths to be trained and equipped with relevant skills.

• Create an inventory for youths in terms of their qualifications, locations, needs and groups

•  Nominate skilled/trained/educated youths to certain positions of leadership and/or responsibility.

• Organize the already existing youth activities to make them more productive for purposes of more income generation. This will get the youths from the region through:

1. Sensitization
2. Party (ODM) framework; The Young Orange Democrats
3. Local leaders in public rallies, barazas, funerals and others

• Encourage formation of youth groups to enable them register to access the available fund such as youth enterprise funds to start and run their businesses.

• Promote sporting and recreational opportunities from sub-location level to the constituency level. This is expected to tap and nature talents among the youths. We shall establish a stadium and gymnasium and a social hall.

• Promote regular consultation with the youths.  Such a forum will lead to annual youth conference of the constituency.

• Ensure open and transparent awarding of the periodically emerging job opportunities such as mosquitoes spraying.

• Sensitize the youths on dangers of drugs and substance abuse.

• Form central cooperatives for boda boda operators, vegetable sellers and kokoto workers among others.

• Involve the youths in developing a comprehensive constituency youth policy.

• Work with private sector to create jobs for the youths in a growing economy where knowledge and skills of youth will be progressively absorbed.

• Enhance career guidance and counseling services to meet the aspirations of youth through job seekers office to be situated in Oyugis town.

• Address the literacy among our youths who never had a chance to go to school. This would address those who dropped out of school at very early stages of learning.

• Encourage great awareness among the youths on dangers of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

  .......................................................................................................................................................

PROJECT FIVE: INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

W

ith a quickly growing Kenyan population, it’s quite evident that there is or will soon be an overstretch on our infrastructure. There is expected to be numerous challenges on provision of infrastructure and services. Otherwise, these challenges are already being felt within our areas such that many Kenyans have none or limited access to clean water, food, shelter and roads, lack of adequate sanitary facilities, inadequate capacity to use ICT and lack of energy and poor communication systems. Due to these challenges, cost of access to such facilities has been so inhibitive.

Close examination of our economic trend shows that the economic slow-down over the last days is partly attributed to poor state of our roads. It’s so important to note that road transport account for over 80% of the total internal freight and traffic in the country with the other forms as rail, water and air taking just 20%.

According to the national tally, there are over 65,000 Km of classified roads (14% paved), 15,000 Km of municipal roads (17% paved) and 120,000 Km unclassified roads of which there is no inventory. Of these roads, 20% paved, 30% gravel and 60% earth roads are in worst conditions.

The roads sub sector of our economy is highly under a great back log of roads rehabilitation and maintenance work that has always called for more funding. At the national level, over 50% of total classified road networks require urgent rehabilitation to bring them to maintainable conditions at an approximate cost of Kshs. 150 billion.

Otherwise, most rural areas of our country still remain with horrible road network that has greatly hindered economic development. These areas depend fully on road since they don’t have access to other forms like air and rail except water.

Infrastructure in Kasipul

As can be experienced in any other rural part of the country, Kasipul has a few roads that are in equally ugly state. The Sondu–Ruga highway is at an ugly state that requires upgrading. The Kendu Bay–Oyugis road and Kasimba–Rodi Kopany roads are the two major roads in this constituency. There are several other unclassified roads that are all at a poor state. Despite having a grader within the constituency, our roads are still worse off. We still have the following challenges:

• Poor road networks within the constituency. The roads in Kasipul are still closed from access despite the grader brought by the out going regime. They are raged and unmurramed.

• Poor roads drainage systems. Most of the roads lack culverts and so affected by constant floods that have left them unusable especially during rainy seasons.

• Encroachment on the roads reserves. Most of our roads reserves have been encroached into leaving negligible spaces for development.

• On the other hand, Kasipul is still a dirk constituency in a sea of highly lighted constituencies. The rural electrification program has not fully succeeded in many areas. Despite having power lines, these areas can’t access electricity due to lack of transformers and political goodwill. With respect to power supply, Kasipul faces the following challenges:

1. High cost of accessing electricity.
2. In availability of power connection due to political elevations.
3. Lack of transformers to drop power to certain areas despite having lines above. 
4.  High connection cost.

On the side of information and communication technology, Kasipul constituency is facing a great challenge of lack of ICT facilities.

Our Commitment:

Under new leadership of Sir Charles Ong’ondo Were, in collaboration with the government agencies and other development partners, we shall reserve

• Proper maintenance of the already existing roads within the constituency

• Increased murraming of the rural access roads.

• Opening and construction of new feeder roads and foot paths connecting all villages in the constituency.

• Consider follow up on the construction of Oyugis–Rodi Kopany and Oyugis-Kendu Bay roads.

• Construct culverts and bridges on our already existing roads to reduce stress of drainage during rainy seasons.

• Transparently awarding tenders for the construction of roads and other infrastructural developments.

• Supervise the construction and development of roads within our area.

• Push for refurbishing of the Sondu–Ruga highway.

• Make follow-up to ensure that electricity is supplied to all parts of the constituency.

• Ensure dropping of transformers to all market canters and schools within the constituency.

• Sensitize the people to be in groups to facilitate their access to power connection and supply.

• Provide electricity in learning institutions, health facilities and water points.

• Construct ICT centers in our schools to allow access to ICT facilities. This will also be constructed in our location to enable people be ICT compliance.

• Construct youth polytechnics, social centers and public libraries. These canters shall be equipped with ICT devices.

...................................................................................................................................................

PROJECT SIX: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND WOMEN AGENDA

Introduction

T

he nation of Kenya is characterized by great gender disparities sandwiched in great level of inequity. According to the report of Kenya Population and Housing Census of 2009, the population of women is about 52.8% and yet they had not until the promulgation of the new constitution been allowed to carry authority with respect to the governance of the country. Despite being the majority, women have been left behind. The old constitution indirectly discriminated against women to the extent that they remained just weapons and ladders of grasping leadership. Naturally, women of Kenya didn’t enjoy equal citizenship rights with men such that they could not and even now they can’t obtain national identity card without the approval of their father’s or husbands.

Up to date, women don’t have a direct right to own properties and further, they have very minimal space to access credit facilities due to procedures and ignorance. This has severely affected their capacity to improve their economic situation. They bear the brunt of increasing insecurity in the country and cases of rape and defiling of young women are on the rise.

Our women are greatly under-represented in the national and local decision making institutions that have remained male dominated. They are disadvantaged politically, socially, culturally and economically. To address the fact that there is no sustainable or equitable development or even poverty eradication, unless gender-based inequality and injustices are proactively removed, the constitution that was passed by Kenyans give the way forward to our women. This is now a clear indication that the new era with the new constitutional dispensation offers an illumination into what in the past looked like the much darkened skies.

The division of the ODM party into three; Young Orange Democrats (Youths), the Orange Women Democrats (Women) and the Mainstream does indicate the commitment of the ODM party to give equal participation of women and youths in the development of our nation subject to provision of the chapter 4 sub section 27 (2),(3) of the constitution of Kenya…

(2) Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and fundamental freedoms.

(3) Women and men have the right to equal treatment, including the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres.

Being a constituency in the Luo community, Kasipul also finds her women in the same quagmire similar to that of any other constituency where there is marginalization of women to the extent that they only form the peripheral part of the decision making organs starting from the family level. The women in Kasipul have been neglected and with very minimal efforts to empower them despite influx of NGOs focusing on women and children in the areas.

Challenges facing women in Kasipul

As explained in the immediate past paragraph, women have been subjected to neglect despite the infiltration of the NGOs and CBOs focusing on the plight of women; inadequate representation in the decision making organs within the local area. Most women are either fully or partially ignorant about the affirmative action as the culture pull back those women who look focused to attain or pick up their positions in the society. The women of Kasipul still feel useless and keep themselves in the houses as they take the sounds of equality to be strings pulling them out of their marriages. Together with very harsh male counterparts, the condition remains very volatile for the women who come out in pursuit of their constitutional rights.

A great family burden due to poverty and demise of their spouses. Widows form a good percentage of women population some of whom have many children to educate and up-bring but with nothing to financially cushion them. This leaves many of them with no option except to get into hard works that pay very little and sometimes they don’t access even those jobs. This thus lead them into prostitution and eventual contraction of HIV/AIDS.

Our Commitment 

With new leadership of Sir Charles Ong’ondo Were, in collaboration with people of Kasipul, government agencies and other development partners will:

• Facilitate women access to credit facilities from banks, devolved funds such as Women Enterprise Fund (WEF) and any other source within reach.

• Sensitize women against HIV/AIDS and drug abuse to reduce stress.

• Facilitate women representation in all the decision making structures from sub location to the constituency. We will ensure the third majority at the sub LDCs, LDCs, DDCs and any other organ of planning and development as outlined in the constitution of the republic of Kenya.

• Construct market stalls in our market centers to facilitate women participation on business activities.

• Formation of cooperatives to women who trade on similar things.

• Strengthen the already existing women groups as we struggle to establish others to empower women.

• Establish an inventory for all women groups and their leadership to map them for any emerging funding.

• Promote adult education to reduce adult ignorance and illiteracy.

• Ensure dissemination of relevant information. There will be well established structure for information dissemination to the grass root with regular forums with women to plan and promote their projects.

• Foster women empowerment in line with the vision 2030, MDGs and the ODM manifesto on women empowerment through:

1.  Intensifying efforts and actions to redress the existing persistent gender disparities that hamper full integration of women into the society. 
2.  Ensuring more girls enrolment and sustenance in school and supporting the implementation of gender mainstreaming in curricula in education within Kasipul constituency. 
3.  Support the advocacy for the elimination of all forms of gender violence against women and girls within Kasipul and ensure that our District Criminal Justice System get tougher on the perpetrators of such heinous crimes. 
4.  Improve women’s access through their life cycle to appropriate, affordable and quality health care, information and service.

.......................................................................................................................................................

PROJECT SEVEN: AGRICULTURE

Introduction

A

griculture still remains to be the country’s mainstay in economic development contributing about 25% of the gross domestic product (GDP) with an estimated level of employment both directly and indirectly of about 75% of the National Labor Force. Due to the fact that agriculture is greatly done in the rural areas with about 72% of all the agricultural activities are done in the rural areas, the number of people employed in agricultural sector is contributed by the rural population. The players in this sector of our economy are mostly women, children and other vulnerable groups that have not lived to enjoy their contribution to the development of our economy.

The agricultural sector still faces great challenges as it’s predominantly rain-fed with almost negligible cropland being irrigated. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, only 2.5% of the total cropland in Kenya is under irrigation. As a result of varying rainfall patterns and inadequacies in the weather focusing, there have been great variations in crop production from one year to another and from one area to another. As a result of this unpredictability, there has been a lot of crop failure resulting into hunger and malnutrition.

Agriculture still suffers a great blow due to poverty, poor infrastructure and marketing systems. Limited diversification and value addition of agricultural production leads to low revenue from farms.

Despite its contribution to the GDP (about 10%) and all marketed agricultural out put (about 30%), livestock sector has not been enjoying adequate development assistance. The fisheries sector too remains neglected despite employing over a half a million of Kenyan working population and so contributing a lot to our economy. According to the Ministry of Fisheries, this sector contributed about 5.8 billion to the Kenyan economy in the year 2005. With regard to this therefore, transformation of agriculture, livestock and fisheries is very vital in providing adequate food and employment for all.

Agriculture in Kasipul

According to the Agricultural office in Kasipul, the constituency lies in the upland plateau with an altitude between 1,350m and 1,700m and above the sea level with temperatures ranging between 14.5^oC and 21^oC. The Constituency has two isolated hill; Wire and Kodera and other smaller hills with two major rivers that drain into L. Victoria. Despite the weather dynamics attributed to the global warming, the rather young Kasipul constituency still experiences inland equatorial climate which is well modified by effect of the altitude and it’s approximate to Lake Victoria. The area experiences heavy relief rainfall resulting from the convergence of Westerlies and South Easterlies especially in the afternoons. Further, Kasipul enjoys two rainy seasons with the long rains of between 500mm and 10,000mm starting from February and runs through to June and the short rains of between 250mm and 750mm being experienced between August and November depending on the altitude. Otherwise, the short rains are followed by a perod of dry spell between December and February.

A greater percentage of residents of Kasipul constituency carry out agricultural activities at both subsistence and cash crop farming levels. According to the Rachuonyo South District Agricultural Officer, about 321.2 Km² of land in Kasipul is arable with farming activities taking place in about 168 Km². This does indicate an inadequate use of the available land.

The area has the capacity to produce cash crops such as coffee, sweet potatoes, ground nuts and maize. Other crops that can do well in Kasipul are beans, cassava, bananas, arrowroots, millet, sorghum, fruits and other vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, kales among others.

As experienced in other parts of the country, agriculture in Kasipul is mainly rain-fed with almost no irrigation activities going on. This has already been associated with poor agricultural production hence low food. The farmers in this area also face challenges presented by pests and diseases such as maize streak virus, stalk borer, weevils, blight bacterial wilt, aphids, cut worms, rot and tuber warms. Inadequate extension services are other great concerns to both farmers and any sound leadership. Despite the contribution by various agencies such as Njaa Marufuku, IFAD, NALEP, Seed and other input programs, this sector has not seen any solemn development within Kasipul due to inadequate monitoring and other practice challenges.

Generally, Kasipul appreciates the fact that agriculture still remains her mainstay and with almost always available market in our schools, hospitals and market centers, it’s possible to make the area a food basket. Despite this very important awareness, it’s too demoralizing to realize that our constituency still depends on the neighboring Kisii District for food and other vegetables. This shows that our determination to have a self sufficient constituency shall bare no fruit if we don’t get down working in the different sectors of agriculture.

Kasipul is characterized by the following agricultural sub-sectors:

Cattle Farming

This sector consists of beef and dairy animals raring. About 90% of cattle in Kasipul are indigenous with dairy sector being underdeveloped despite its immense potential. According to the last population and housing census of 2009 and the Rachuonyo District Statistics Office) , and the food and agricultural organization, Kasipul requires about 8,680,000 liters of milk in a year with an average annual production of 7,204,240 liters to feed 167,187 people (with the current population density of 448). This is based on the requirement of 250ml milk per person per day as put by the World Health Organization (WHO). Inadequate investment in dairy farming in terms of structural development and poor investment on the exotic breed, poor management of our available cooperatives have made marketing and sale of milk to be a great challenge. Local consumption of milk has also not been adequate due to poverty that has had a great negative impact on the purchasing power of the local residence.

Beef production has thus remained to be the next dominant business in the livestock sector. It’s estimated that Kasipul constituency (Kasipul Division) has 62,388 zebus. These indigenous breeds are kept in local villages as they also take part in ploughing and other house-hold activities such as small scale transport. However, this area of farming also face challenges of marketing, grazing area, pasts and disease.

Fish Farming

Being a constituency in the higher parts of Nyanza, the survey conducted for the implementation of the economic stimulus programme in fishing industry, it was established that this area has a capacity to do fishing through establishment of fish ponds.

The economic stimulus programme did a lot in developing fish ponds. However, these efforts have not been very adequate hence calling for more efforts to produce more fish to serve the growing population. There is therefore a need to sustain the already existing ones as we work on establishing new ones.

 Poultry Farming

In Kasipul, about 98% of population takes part in poultry farming. Its mostly indigenous poultry whose population is estimated to 421,359 otherwise, people in Kasipul also keep layers for production of eggs whereby the layers population is estimated at 2,480 (in Kasipul). This kind of agriculture is almost practiced at every household and it thus needs to be encouraged and give proper advice to farmers and promote value addition, marketing system and diseases control.

Goat Farming 

It has been realized that goat farming is an important component of livestock sector. Currently, Kasipul constituency has an estimated of 32,248 local breeds of goats for both beef and milk production. Despite the potential of dairy goats, there have not been proper structures to promote the same in Kasipul constituency. Otherwise, dairy farming is being fueled by the efforts of Heifer Project International (HPI) and Nyanza dairy goat association.  This is an indication that this sector is on the course to development. It only calls for further opening up.

Bee Keeping 

Due to the endowment of Kasipul constituency with two forest areas; Wire and Kodera forests, there is a great potential for honey production that has not been fully exploited. Due to this forest resource, bee keeping is currently concentrated in Kodera location and North Kamagak (wire forest) areas. The bee keepers in these area use different types of hives such as Langstorth hives (that produces about 85% of the total honey), Kenya top bar hives (about 13% of the honey) and log hives (2%). Currently, there is almost no production of bee wax due to challenges that come with it. Bee keeping therefore needs to be improved and opened up for purposes of making it an economically viable area of economy in Kasipul.

Challenges to this sector

Despite the great potential of our agricultural sector, great achievement has not been realized due to myriad of challenges such as:

• Poor farming methods and practices among our farmers.

• Negative attitude towards agriculture within our people (especially the youths ) who opt for white color jobs

• Inadequate and mismanaged farmer’s cooperative societies for example our coffee society is faced with wrangles and theft of berries on daily basis and most of our crops don’t have cooperatives.

• High cost of farm inputs sandwiched in inaccessibility and abject poverty.

• Inadequate extension services and expensive AI services.

• Poor infrastructure such as roads that hinder access to markets and farms.

• Lack of storage facilities that forces farmers to dispose off their produce at very low cost.

• Unpredictable climatic condition that gives a challenge on choice of seeds and seedlings.

• Over dependency on maize as a staple food has caused a challenge especially when the rains are not enough to sustain its production.

• Lack of agro based industries.

• Overreliance on rain-fed agriculture.

•  Mismanagement and eventual collapse of our cattle dips.

Our Commitment:

Under the new leadership of Sir Charles Ong’ondo Were in Kasipul Constituency, we do undertake that we shall endeavor to:

• Increase food security and storage to all people of Kasipul through construction and maintenance of community cereals store.

• Increase productivity and diversity by extending great investment on agriculture, livestock and fisheries as well as bee keeping in transforming the livelihood of people in Kasipul.

• Endeavour to improve quality and quantity production, marketing and value addition the produce through shortening market chains, putting up markets and establishing and strengthening farmers’ cooperatives especially those on same line of production.

• Foster Agro-based industrial development through construction of food processing plants (for potatoes and fruits such as bananas, pineapples, mangoes etc.), construction of cold rooms within our constituency to enhance fishing and marketing in our fisheries sector.

• Facilitate quick, cheap and easy access to farm inputs such as seeds, fertilizers among others through establishment and stocking of community agrovet.

• Promote provision of extension services to all parts of the constituency.

• Promote the production of fruits by encouraging seedling production by farmers, such would enable farmers extend their capacity for production. We will also aid set up tree nurseries that will not only provide the seedlings but also employ our jobless youths.

• Establish ticks and tsetse fly control facilities within the constituency through establishment of community managed cattle dips, crushes and pans with sprays and sprayers.

• Promoting capacity building among farmers through trainings. Workshops, seminars and other forms of trainings shall be conducted in collaboration with government agencies and other development partners to equip the local farmers with prerequisite and relevant skills and knowledge to do effective farming.

• Coordinate all the development agencies within and without the constituency to bring sustainable development in our agricultural sector.

• Channel all the available devolved funds to the constituency to sustainable and relevant development.

• Establish community based fingerling ponds to promote fishing industry.

• Establish and encourage community based small-scale fish processing plant to promote value addition and marketing in the fishing industry.

• Promote tree planting in agriculture (Agro-forestry) and advocate for better farming methods and practices.

• Promote green house farming to develop our horticulture sector.

• Initiate village banks and financial facilities to facilitate the caming of the commercial banking institution to give financial support to farmers in the course of the duty.

• Advocate for cheap and quality artificial insemination (AI) services and other veterinary services to promote the productivity of our livestock

---

This is the time for the real change to come, be seen, be felt and be known to exist in Kasipul Constituency.  The masterpiece presents a skillful and careful study of the area with the sole aim of identifying the problems and the solution to the same plights.