Setback of lack of knowledge

By Catherine Susan 
Ukambani is one area in our country-Kenya which has been faced with a lot of problems compared to other Areas. People are going through a lot of challenges like unemployment; the youth are all over looking for job opportunities. The youth are involved in activities like charcoal burning to meet their daily needs with less knowledge on its effect to the environment.

Cutting down trees has caused problems such as reduction in annual rainfall  and soil erosion, this problem has became major in ukambani due to lack of knowledge, majority of people in this Area are less concern about the knowledge shared by the extension officers. 

This redundancy in information and knowledge sharing has also been extended to young children who are pursuing their education. The school dropout has also increased i.e. 2.4% girls and 2.0% Boys out of the 1634 and 1726 respectively;  Girls are getting marriage at a very tender age, not because they want it but due to lack of knowledge on the effects.   

 

Poor farming methods is also another problem caused by enough knowledge on farming, people tend cultivate on the hill tops, hill sides and river banks, shift cultivation and slash-and-burn agriculture. Unsustainable sand harvesting/mining in most rivers in most rivers in Kyuso consequently interfere with water table in the river beds. This has resulted into destruction of the main water catchment in the district. 

With every efforts made by the NGO and government extension of advising people to dig terraces, use of farm manures, and also building of gabions  has not been taken by most residents in Kitui county.

The resident here relied with relief food until too late when they started thinking about the issue of food security. Most of the food security activities rely on water but people from this area walk for long distance to search for water approximately 10 Kilometers. Due to this most farmers fail to take modern farm technology.

The climate of the district is generally hot and dry for greater part of the year. The maximum mean temperature ranges from 26⁰c and 34⁰c making it hard for water in water bodies in the area to retain water.