“My name is Stephen Ntokote. I use a walking aid because of a permanent disability on my left leg following a road accident in the past. While heading to school one morning, I was chased by an elephant just a few meters from Oloikara Primary School in Amboseli, Kajiado County, where I am the headteacher.
I had to be tactful and hide because I can not run. I knew the odds of outrunning the elephant in my condition were zero. Prior to this incident, I had come face to face with a lion one early morning while heading to school, luckily the lion did not attack me. To imagine children have to play hide and seek with death every day when in school and when they head to school and back home is heartbreaking.
Before the solar-powered elephant deterrent fence was put up by WWF-Kenya, it was a common occurrence to suspend classes when elephants stormed the school compound looking for pasture and water. When an elephant gives birth next to the school compound they become aggressive, children are forced to come to school late or miss school altogether and sometimes leave school early before they complete the lessons for the day.
They would break the plastic water tanks and uproot water pipes connecting the school with clean water from the community borehole, then pitch camp on the school playing field for hours.
With the donation of a 50, 000 cubic meters concrete water tank, the school is now a safe haven for children, teachers and we now have tree seedling nurseries as we embark on planting trees to mitigate climate change.”
Through funding from The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) we are working with communities in Southern Kenya Landscape to mitigate human-wildlife conflict through community-led interventions to protect lives and property in order to enhance coexistence of people and wildlife. Through the WWF-Kenya Southern Kenya landscape programme, we have fenced seven schools with fully fitted solar lighting systems and constructed six concrete water harvesting tanks with a capacity of 50,000m3 each, and renovated a 100,000m3 tank in one school.
