Makinika and karibu sana, welcome to DESECE!

DESECE - development education services for community empowerment - works since 1993 in Western Kenya in the areas of peace building, human rights, civic education, gender, health, organic agriculture and environment and ecology. We want to thank you for visiting us "on the air" and would like to take you with us on a journey through our last year in pictures:

Dear Christine Baur and Matthias Danninger - and at home in Austria - dear Ursula Scheiber, Fritz Staudigl, Wolfgang Heindl and Franz Hainzl!

After enjoying your company for the last days it is time for us to say thank you: Your assistance - from the Tyrolean Government, Brother & Sister in Need and the Aktion "SEI SO FREI" from Austria - enables DESECE to build a guesthouse with 18 rooms and 36 beds. Since 3 years we are dreaming of this building to become self-sustainable, and your confidence, efforts and generosity made it possible. This was the step which we couldn't await and we cannot tell you how happy you made us. Travel safely for the next weeks and kindly come back soon - that you can enjoy what you have created.

God bless you!

Welcome Dr. Christine Baur, Minister for Children, Youth, Women and Refugees of the Provincial Government of Tyrol!

Traditional dancers from Western Kenya

Group picture from the study group - with Christine and Matthias

Thank you Sebastian Müller for the beautiful pictures!

Chasako Self Help Group and Tambulukha Women Group were the first groups to benefit from DESECE MPF´s which was founded in 2015 through the generosity of a private donor from Austria. The main advantage of this project is that the beneficiaries can receive interest free loans thus enabling to reduce the risks of their business activities, as common banks take interest rates of up to 22 %. The evaluation has shown that the groups lack information about the profitability of different enterprises, but also that the groups need more guidance from DESECE. As a result the groups were not able to pay back the loans in time. We will try to improve that in future more MPF's can be rolled out to our beneficiaries, and we would like to thank our private donor for the confidence and patience!

Mr. Mengo was for more than 7 years our program officer but in the last months he got the feeling that it is time to change his professional direction and is now vying for a political seat. Dear Mr. Mengo: We would like to thank you for everything what you have done for our organisation, we will be happy to see you again and we wish you and your family all the best for your future. Asante sana and take care!

Mr. Kay Quentin Mengo - former program officer of DESECE with his family and DESECE director and team

In the beginning of June something special happened - DESECE started it's first vocational training. It was our long awaited dream to offer especially young people the chance to get trainings for their future profession. We are happy that our chef Benedict Lusambili is willing to give his experience and skills in the next 4 months to 14 young girls and boys. Dear participants: We hope one day you will cook some nice food for us!

On 30th April the Austrian Broadcasting station ORF showed at 12.30 pm a documentation about DESECE: "Poverty is a crime" - Sophie Kibuywa wants to change Kenya. TV magazine "Orientation" shows a TV portage about DESECE, a partner organization of the action "SEI SO FREI" of the Catholic Men's Movement, Brother and Sister in Need and Horizont3000 from Austria.

At the end of March we had the pleasure to welcome Aktion Regen for the 4th time. Dr. Jutta Reisinger and Margaret Bachlechner visited us and trained the advanced rain workers from November 2016 as well as beginners, now DESECE has 36 rain workers who teach in health centres, communities and schools about sexual and reproductive health. We are grateful to have found such an interesting partner which helped us to form a new "health program". And we also want to thank Annelies Innerkofler to accompany the ladies, for taking many of the attached pictures and for her generous support for DESECE! We hope to see you again this year!

We are very grateful that more and more institutions, organisations and companies are visiting us and support us in our aim to become self-sufficient from international donors in future. Amongst our visitors were:

• IEBC voter registration training on 13th January with 47 people
• Community library parents planning meeting on 29th January with 31 people
• Civil registration training on 7th February with 41 people
• Library use on 26th February by 55 pupils
• Politicians meeting on 2nd March with 106 people
• Library use on 5th March by 82 pupils
• Agriculture training on 7th March with 32 people
• Teachers meeting on 11th March with 57 people
• Politicians meeting on 11th March with 111 people
• Library use on 12th March by 83 pupils
• Teachers and student leaders meeting on 15th March with 294 people
• Teachers Service Commission, principals and teachers on 23rd March with 30 people

Thank you very much for your support and we hope to see you again!

In order to improve the knowledge and skills of our local farmers, 45 leaders of farmer groups were invited to DESECE premises for an introduction to sustainable organic agriculture practices and marketing which was facilitated by DESECE field officers and the technical advisor. This will be followed up by group mobilization and in-depth trainings in the field.

Brothers and Sisters in Need from Innsbruck, the capital city of Tyrol, Austria is our oldest partner. Since 1998 they support our organisation in funding our development programs as well as our facilities like the office, restaurant and conference centre but also means of transport. To monitor the current implementation of our program as well as to share DESECE's future prospects Matthias Danninger - project desk officer East Africa - visited us. Dear Matthias, we sincerely appreciate your continuous support for the growth and self-sustainability of the organisation!

Horizont3000, SOS and Red Cross Austria together with the East African local partners held a 3 days event discussing on the achievements and challenges  of the pilot Policy Dialogue project that was implemented in 2015 - 2016 and future plans for 2017 - 2018. Thank you very much Petra Herout, Kristina Kroyer and Elisabeth Moder from Horizont3000 Vienna for organizing this event!

The contracts of DESECE staff members are renewed annually after the staff appraisal and individual interviews with the board members, which happened at the beginning of February. This is the chance for all staff members to share their achievements and challenges individually with the board. Thank you board chair and members for listening to us!

With a hope of collaboration on a cross-border project focusing on natural resource management 3 universities from Kenya, Uganda and Austria initiated the "Nexus Project". The aim of this project is to improve water quality and quantity in the catchment area of Malakisi and Sio river in the Mount Elgon area bordering Kenya and Uganda. We had the pleasure to discuss this project with Mr. Mathew Hernegger from BOKU and Mr. Jakob Lederer from TU Vienna, Austria. DESECE might be a partner in collecting data for this project. Thank you for involving DESECE in this critical issue, Mathew and Jakob!

At the beginning of the year DESECE had the privilege to be trained on financial management by Mr. Kelvin Kogo from Horizont3000 Kampala, Uganda. We believe the knowledge will help the organisation improve on its financial planning, reviewing and reporting tools. Thank you Mr. Kogo for your continuous support!

At the end of every year the team of DESECE sits together and talks about the challenges and achievements of the past year and the plans and improvements for the next year. The other thing is to thank all our donors, partners and friends for their support, as our work would not be possible without them. In this sense we wish you all a very peaceful time - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - we hope to see you all healthy and happy again in 2017, asante sana!

From left to right: Elizabeth, Isaac, Kay, Catherine, Irene, Godfrey, Benedict, Sophie Elizabeth, Patrick, Robert, Millicent, Emmanuel, Gladys, Martin, Paul, Lynnet, Priscilla and Emmanuel

DESECE established it's own M&E department in 2013. Now - thanks to a funding from Knowhow3000 through Horizont3000 - the organization got the chance to further improve on it's M&E system. We would like to thank also Daniela Petrasova, Technical Advisor from Horizont3000 and Mr. Andrew Wekunda, Senior M&E Manager from "One Acre Fund" Kenya for facilitating in the workshop. The main objective of the workshop was to improve DESECE's evaluation tools on the levels of outcome and impact. Thank you Daniela, Andrew and Horizont3000 for enabling us to improve our M&E system!

Beginning of November we welcomed very special guests: The ORF visited DESECE to create a documentary about the work of our organisation. Mr. Marcus Marschalek from the broadcasting station was accompanied by our friends Mr. Franz Hainzl, former director of Brothers and Sisters in Need, Austria, Mr. Wolfgang Heindl from Aktion "SEI SO FREI", Austria and by Mr. Luis Cordero from the press department of the Catholic Men's Movement, Austria. We are excited and can hardly await to see the movie!

Thank you Mr. Marschalek (ORF), Mr. Heindl and Mr. Cordero (Aktion "SEI SO FREI") for providing us pictures!

Now - after staying in Mukuyuni for over 3 years - we thought it is time to have our first "Field Day". Our gratitude to all visitors and especially to all stakeholders who exhibited on our land: The Ministry of Agriculture with the Fishery department, Kenya Seed Company, Seedco, Biovision Trust, Kenya Organic Agricultural Network (KOAN), Ministry of Health, Community Health Workers (CHW), Catholic Church Mukuyuni, Bilibili special group, Wema self-help group, Hequeendo support group and M-Kopa solar system. The whole event was under the patronage of ACC Mr. Ivan Opakas, thank you very much! We hope that all participants and visitors enjoyed the coming together and we are looking forward to another Field Day in Mukuyuni!

Thank you Mr. Marschalek (ORF), Mr. Heindl and Mr. Cordero (Aktion "SEI SO FREI") for providing us pictures!

In 2016 DESECE held its annual peace tournament in Webuye. We would like to thank Mr. Caleb Okenye - ACC of Bungoma East - and Panpaper for hosting the event and all the participants in the various events: dancing competition, volleyball, sack-race, football, eating competition and hundred-meter race as well as our artists - guitar player Daniel, Melody for her inspiring poem and lady Rose and the theatre group for their funny contributions. Last we want to thank our donors and all the visitors for supporting the actors to make the peace tournament one of a kind.

"Although the living conditions are very different, yet some parallels can be drawn," notes Ms. Landesrätin Christine Baur after meeting Ms. Sophie Elisabeth Kibuywa from the Western Kenyan district of Bungoma. At the meeting Kibuywa reported on the development project that DESECE organization undertakes, which she heads as a director. The NGO is supported by “Brother and sister in need” of the Diocese of Innsbruck. DESECE puts a special focus on women who bear the brunt of the workload in Kibuywa’s home area, especially in agriculture.

(Parts of the original media information from 20th of April by the office of the provincial government of Tyrol; translated; full version on download under point "donor").

Ms. Sophie Elizabeth Kibuywa, Director DESECE and Landesrätin Christine Baur, Tyrolean Government