This week’s blog comes from Simone and Sedona, and we’ll be talking about our experiences during the first week of the vertebrate paleontology course, which is also the field school’s first week while staying at TBI Ileret on the east side of Lake Turkana! Simone is a recent graduate from Boston University with a [...]
We’ve had an incredible first few weeks at TBI Turkwel! After our time at Mpala, we’ve hit the ground running and have been really busy visiting the incredible sites in the Turkana Basin and enjoying life at TBI! As part of the Environments, Ecosystems and Evolution course taught by Dr. Nicholas Taylor, we created toilet [...]
Meet Rashid Nafwa and Vincent Okoth, students from the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) working with the telescope at TBI Ileret. Rashid and Vincent are completing an attachment to meet their final year requirements of gaining practical experience. Vincent Okoth and Rashid Nafwa preparing for a night of observations Astronomy in general is [...]
Hi again! It’s Ava and Christine, Mechnical Engineering Undergraduate students from MIT D-Lab. After a beautiful few days spotting animals in the Masai Mara, we flew up to TBI's facility on the east side of Lake Turkana in Ileret to continue our evaporative cooling research! During our time in Ileret, we focused on understanding the [...]
We recently feted three candidates from TBI’s Ileret scholarship program that sponsored students from the Daasanach community. They are Rahma Ahmed Said, Joseph Arcoy Hirbnle and James Loki Abucha. Their faces are presently unmistakable in the village, having produced exceptional performance in KCSE 2021. Such results have not been seen at the remote location [...]
March 22nd is World Water Day and this year the international focus is on groundwater. This is a precious resource whose importance is increasing as the impacts of climate change become more significant. We feel this acutely in TBI Ileret where groundwater is critical to our operations. In 2021, we were able to decarbonize [...]
2021 was an exciting year for sustainability at TBI. We made great strides towards improving our environmental sustainability by increasing investments in clean energy. Over all, we installed over 50 kWp of solar panels, which can generate a cumulative 330 kW of power daily and we installed over 100 kWh of battery storage. This [...]
James Alkerech was a herder who spent most of his time taking care of his father’s livestock. Life in Fora, located in the remote area of Ileret Ward, has livestock keeping as the primary economic activity. This area is also characterized by frequent conflict over grazing land. In 2018, after a particularly fierce exchange, [...]
The students together with their facilitators from Ileret's hydroponics training As part of the Water Energy for Food Programme Funded Project in Ileret, we have been conducting training in Hydroponic Farming for local community members. In June this year, we conducted public participation meetings to let people know about the opportunity and [...]
TBI’s ongoing success requires the support and participation of local communities in the areas in which we work. Our extensive and long-term support in education, health and livelihoods has an immediate beneficial impact and also provides a platform through which we share information in order to build a robust understanding of TBI’s mission and [...]
Access to healthcare in northern Kenya leaves even basic requirements unmet. While there have been some advancements in recent years, a massive healthcare gap between rural and urban areas remains, especially for pastoralist communities. Geographical inaccessibility and poor resourcing are still major barriers to adequate healthcare. Since its inception, TBI has actively supported health [...]
Education is critical to empowering all members of communities to thrive in our increasingly connected world. It is vital to enabling people to pursue diverse careers, ultimately shaping and enriching the development of entire communities. However, the long term marginalization of the communities with whom we work has resulted in low literacy rates, especially [...]
As livelihood decisions are strategic and dynamic, TBI's involvement in this regard has led to the realization of increased opportunities for access to, and control over, use of local resources. It has also led to capacity strengthening and to members of the community making use of those opportunities for subsistence and/or income generating purposes. [...]