Week 2 of Climate Resilience Service Program
The river does not care about slogans. It only notices what you remove from it — plastic tangled in reeds, foam cups caught on stones, the sharp edge of a broken bottle half-hidden in mud. Week two of our second cleaning cohort in Climate Worx Mtaani felt like that: sleeves rolled, boots wrong for fashion but right for wading, hands learning what “clean” actually costs.
Learning and unlearning by the water
Climate Worx Mtaani is not a classroom with a blackboard. It is a strip of bank where someone finally admits they used to toss waste downstream because nobody had shown them another way. Here, unlearning is as important as learning — less lecture, more demonstration: sort here, compost there, do not burn this.
Our volunteers are not tourists. They are neighbours who returned for a second week because the first week left them restless in a good way — eyes sharper for litter, voices braver when correcting a friend. ETCO stays in the middle of it, not as heroes on a poster, but as people who bring gloves, structure, and the stubborn belief that a river can change if the community refuses to look away.
We will be back on the line next round. If you want to join a cohort — even for one morning — message us. We will trade you sweat for something rarer: the quiet satisfaction of water running a little clearer than it did yesterday.
Engaging Children through Feeding Program
Thanks to Chris and Jayne, ETCO had a warm feeding program for children at our new office—bringing joy, a good meal, and community together in Kibera.
Project Site Visit by Rotary Club of IPSWICH (USA) and Kikuyu (Kenya)
It was a great and engaging day of partnership and learning as we hosted the International Rotary Club of IPSWICH team, led by Environmental Lawyer Chris and his wife, Jane, Former President of Rotary Club of Kikuyu Hon. George Ngotho and Rotarian Yumbya for a visit to our project implementation sites. The visit provided an opportunity to review the project areas on the ground, discuss implementation priorities, and strengthen our shared commitment to sustainable environmental and community development. We also had the opportunity to visit the Nairobi Rivers Commission (NRC), where we were hosted by Commissioner Dr. Loice Kipkorir, a member of the Ngong River Committee. We explored opportunities to strengthen collaboration and align our work with the Nairobi Rivers Commission's Restoration Framework.
Community Capacity Building Training
We are currently participating in the ongoing PROVE (Public Space Governance Research, Observation, Validation and Experimentation) Pilot Programme, a four-month initiative by Public Space Networks (PSN) bringing together 11 community groups from Kamukunji and Korogocho. The programme focuses on strengthening community organizations’ capacity to manage, protect and improve public spaces as well as restoring rivers and it's ecosystems. The ongoing capacity-building training is helping CBOs and community organizations better understand the connection between public spaces, river restoration and ecosystem conservation, while exploring practical approaches and stronger collaboration among communities, government agencies, development partners and other stakeholders.