Sewer Toursim

On behalf of Tufahamike, I would like to share my deepest gratitude to the World Summit Youth Award 2009 for all your support  and for having recognised our shared ambitions and efforts towards environmental conservation through the Sewer Tourism project. After a successful initiation and rollout of the project, with the support of our local community and three of my college mates, we decided to start Tufahamike (a Swahili word for "Let's be Enlightened"), a youth based initiative whose main objective is to educate and involve the youth towards achieving the MDGs. After the recognition that the WSYA gave the sewer tourism project, we managed to draw a lot of interest from the community thus getting more members and growth in the impact of our activities. Our vision is to open a detailed resource centre with the aim of using ICT as a bridge for the youth to access information and get enlightened. We believe knowledge is power and providing the uninformed an access to information will enable us make better choices and improve lives.We are currently running the Sewer Tourism project where we have been able to educate the community on health and environmental issues and getting more volunteers to work on our seedbeds, maintaining the trees and toilets and also garbage collection. The challenge is lack of funds to run the program to its full potential. With more trees been planted we still work towards reducing the rate of pollution into the Nairobi river. Our greatest achievement was having the community appreciate and recognise the project as one of their own. Lack or little knowledge of the MDGs here in Kenya has hindered the realization of the goals, but by educating the community (youth in particular), a platform for exchange of ideas and establishment of community based solutions will be created.Once again I would like to thank WSA recognition and promotion of our project and for their role as a global contest for best practice to support a better world.