An Approach to Life

In the first of a series of mini-films, Excellent Development explains how its approach to creating development through conservation is benefiting communities in Kenya.

In addition to exploring each individual element of the charities holistic approach to soil and water conservation, these films also offer a valuable insight into how Sand Dams, a key element of Excellent Development’s approach, represent an effective and necessary small-scale approach to strengthening communities’ long-term sustainability.

Whilst being critical to improving water supplies, food production, health and incomes for communities in semi-arid Kenya, sand dams are also a grassroots answer to fighting climate change, a benefit recently reinforced by the release of the government commissioned Stern Report.

The Stern Report has renewed attention on the impacts of climate change in Africa highlighting their uneven distribution, with the poorest countries being most affected.

Simon Maddrell, Excellent Development co-founder comments, “The development challenges in semi-arid Africa are completely different to the industrial nations. In semi-arid Africa it is conservation that can actually create sustainable development. Water and soil conservation provides farmers with the environment to create livelihoods by creating oases in semi-arid lands that can support water and food security. Arguably, the communities we are working with are doing far more to reverse the impacts of climate change than any of us in the West. They deserve our support, not just because they struggle to sustain their lives, but as global citizens concerned with the future of our planet.”

To see more, please go to http://tv.oneworld.net

These films were produced by Globell Media — www.globellmedia.com

A DVD of these films, along with the full length feature documentary is available from

http://www.excellentdevelopment.com

Duration : 0:6:51

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Tags: Africa, change, climate, Community, Dam, Development, Excellent, Kenya, Oneworld, OneworldTV, Sand, Trees

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 10:29 am and is filed under development approach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.