I’m here in northern Kenya to catch up with the Practical Action LIDOW (Livelihoods and Donkey Welfare) Team and witness firsthand the progress they are making to improve the lives of donkeys and their owners.  

It’s been a marathon journey to get here - a six hour flight from Nairobi, stopping at a number of remote locations on the way.  It really makes made me realise how precious the project team’s time is – if they had to come down to Nairobi to meet me that would have been two days of their time for the return journey by plane, four days by road!

Despite the journey we get straight to work, spending a couple of days reviewing progress so far and discussing plans for the future. Then, much to my relief, (I tend to get ‘cabin fever’ if stuck in an office for too long!) it was time for a field visit, to really put the progress and planning into context.  

First off was a visit to a Community Based Animal Health Worker (CBAHW), called Farey (it means ‘nine’ and describes nicely that he only has nine fingers) to hear the how the existing CBAHW system has been strengthened with the support of the government veterinary service.  As Farey owns a drug store it was also an opportunity for me to put my ‘veterinary hat’ on and peruse his products……and there really weren’t many which were specifically for donkeys – a problem in many of the areas where we work.  

However the project vet (Dr. Golicha) and Animal Health Assistant (Abdi Hamid) have been able to support CBAHWs in the area with training, mentoring  and information on recommended treatments for donkeys.  Whilst in Farey’s shop I met Saadia, the only female CBAHW here and we were able to swap stories of the difficulties women face in the ‘male dominated world’ of equine health.  She’s been a CBAHW since 2007 and is still enjoying the work, in addition to constantly learning new things.

Both Farey and Saadia were keen to tell me how they have benefited from the Practical Action trainings, in addition to some of the challenges they face such as bad debtors and difficulty getting to animals – if the owner can’t bring the animal to them, they must somehow – by foot, motorbike, or hired taxi – get to the animal, which can be up to 25km away.  Quite a sobering thought as when in practice I’d always taken it for granted that I could get to any animal, within one hour, in my practice car!

Read Tania's second blog