World Wildlife Fund

40 year-old Mwanaisha Mzee and her two youngest sons (the older boy is wearing a bracelet made from flip-flops).
© WWF

WWF offered improved access to family planning and education to the communities living in and around the Kiunga Marine National Reserve, whose well-being is vital to the conservation of local marine resources. WWF also created an eco-friendly livelihood project to generate income and ensure clean nesting beaches for endangered marine turtles.

With support from USAID, Johnson & Johnson, and other public and private sponsors, the WWF Kiunga Marine National Reserve (KMNR) Conservation and Development Project collaborates with the Kenyan Ministry of Health (MoH) and community groups to improve the health and quality of life of the local Bajuni community. The community’s well-being directly contributes to the conservation of the KMNR’s marine resources. One such endeavor has been to improve access to and informed use of family planning.

The project facilitates the expansion of MoH outreach services to communities living far from the limited health facilities within and adjacent to the KMNR. The project has worked with health partners to train community-based distribution (CBD) agents of contraceptives and MoH nurses in modern family planning methods and health promotion. Through mobile clinics and CBDs, the project provides access to contraceptive pills, DepoProvera, and male condoms, while also delivering information about reproductive, maternal, and child health, and environmental conservation.

WWF has also initiated a livelihood project for a local women’s group – an eco-friendly handicraft project where women make art from flip-flops washed ashore. During the months of February and March 2007, this group earned K.Sh 45,000 (US $642) from their flip-flop art. Apart from earning cash for their community, the project also ensures clean nesting beaches for the endangered marine turtles.

Flip-flops hamper the movement of emergent hatchlings as they make their way to the sea thus increasing threats from predation. If there is too much debris on the beach, female adult turtles are discouraged from coming to nest in marine areas. Such obstacles are leading to the rapid decline of marine turtle species in the Indian Ocean and globally. However, the WWF-KMNR Conservation and Development Project has noted positive trends in turtle nesting on the KMNR beaches since the project's inception.

WWF is working with fishermen in Kiunga, Kenya, to promote more sustainable fishing techniques.
© WWF / Kiunga Project

Due to increased information about and access to family planning and livelihood training, the project has led to significant improvements for women living in the KMNR, and particularly those living far from health facilities.

Khadija Mohammed, the CBD in Chandani, is 25 years old and is a mother of two children. She has had three miscarriages. “I would be pregnant again after my last miscarriage four months ago. I need a break because I suspect they were because my body was very weak to carry baby to term. I had miscarried five months before my last pregnancy. Flip-flop work is hard and tires the back and shoulders. This can be very difficult for women weakened from many deliveries,” she says.

Improving community health has increased community participation in conservation activities, Kiunga, Kenya.
© WWF / Judy Oglethorpe

Zahra Mohammed, a 23-year-old mother of a 5-month old baby and also a resident of Chandani, says she has already started taking contraceptive pills because she wants to regain her health before she becomes pregnant again. “I am happy I am able to choose when to get my next child. I will wait until my baby is big enough and not in need of my constant care.”

Mwanaisha Mzee is a 40-year-old woman living in Chandani, a village within the KMNR, is a mother of ten children. Her last child is 4-years old. She says that her children were very closely spaced, making her tired and weak. “It is very difficult to take care of the 11 of us." She first learned about family planning during an outreach clinic and since then her life has been transformed. “I would wait for the doctors 

WWF provides family planning and HIV/AIDS education to local communities and migrants in Kiunga, Kenya.
© WWF / Cara Honzak

from Kiunga Health Centre to come and give me an injection and sometimes I took pills. If they didn’t come and my return date is due, I would walk to Kiwaiyu Dispensary, one hour away for the service. I am now happy that WWF helped train my neighbour, Khadija Mohammed, who now supplies the pills to us from her home. Khadija visits us at home to remind us our return dates when we forget."