Training and Enabling Villagers about Animal Rights

On Monday OTEPIC members and their friends organized a free vaccination for sheep and goats and other domestic animals. We vaccinated many animals from morning until noon. It was a great adventure.

OTEPIC believes that animals are an intrinsic part of the environment. As such, they have rights that must be respected. Animals have the right to

• live in a clean and safe environment
• express normal behavior and
• be protected from pest and diseases

OTEPIC is training farmers about animal rights. In our village, it is not uncommon for people to mistreat animals. For example, donkeys are not fitted with proper equipment for work and sustain injuries to their bodies. Commonly used methods of handling and transporting animals result in injuries to the animals, and animals are slaughtered in inhumane ways.

OTEPIC's position is that plants and animals can be combined to form an inner harmony, a symbiosis from which productivity will arise naturally while inputs are reduced. In this system ecology and economics eventually meet. Farms can become self sustaining when the manure necessary for sufficient plant growth comes from the farm and when its animals are fed exclusively from the farm's own crop production.

Animals are cool! Keep animals with dignity.

Growing plants from collected seeds

OTEPIC members are now propagating seeds in the nursery. From these plants, we will grow our gardens. The plants are healthy and growing well.

We had a "work party" and managed to build a big pile of compost today. We really enjoyed it. I wish you blessings in all of your undertakings.

Visitors from the USA Help Us Grow our Community Garden

We were recently visited by a group of students from University of Wyoming who helped in our gardens. Professor Rick Smith helped organize the visit. Students and local residents worked together planting black nightshade and other plants in our garden. We collected material to make more compost and built a new compost pile. We enjoyed our visitors and appreciate their assistance!

Communities Make Liquid Manure in Kenya's Northern Rift Valley to Avoid Using Synthetic Fertilizer

Most of our crops are doing well. But for those few that are not doing well because they were planted with less compost, we are applying Liquid Manure. So far we have trained many farmers on how to make Liquid Manure by using the Tithonium diversifolia (false sunflower) shrub and how to apply it to their crops.

Even farmers who used to buy expensive and chemical-laden synthetic fertilizer (C.A.N) for top dressing are now using Liquid Manure. It is purely organic and contains a lot of nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients and is better than synthetic for the growth of the plants.

To make Liquid Manure from Tithonium diversifolia, chop it into pieces and soak it a container of water in the shade for 7-14 days. Then mix it thoroughly and filter it through a sieve made with a gunny bag. The resulting Liquid Manure is then applied to the plants. It is full of nutrients that enrich and encourage plant growth.

Some people think the Tithonium plant is a weed but to us, it is very useful. If it is a weed, long live weeds!!!!

Weeding and Harvesting Song: Our Garden Grows

Simple Rules

Super felicitous birds, appreciative flowers,
Thick green leaves where sunlight can't reach,
Green vegetation of all comfort,
Where birds of the same feather flock together.

Every morning the queen of the garden,
Every morning the prince of the garden,
Command weeds to be wild flowers, hence no burden,
Because they are the pullers of the weeds and the planters of the seeds.

Think smart, Work smart,
Be determined, Avoid compaction violation,
Use biointensive agriculture components,
And your diet will contain all its riches.

Better to be a BIOINTENSIVE farmer,
Better to be and to train other farmers,
Digging done so well, kind of a dance,
Model so simple anyone can do it.

OTEPIC Visits the Street Children of Kitale, Kenya

Many bite the food, more than their mouth full.


Having refreshments and a good time with the street children.


Alice Nasambu with her three children. They are now living in the street.

Kitale's street children live in abandoned buildings, cardboard boxes, parks or on the street itself. They often are characters who pursue interesting and adventurous lives. They range in age from 5 to 17 years old and are deprived of family care and protection.

Twelve-year-old Alfred Yego works in the streets because his earnings are needed by his family to survive. Alice Nasambu is in the street with her three children because her husband died of HIV/AIDs 3 years ago.

OTEPIC aims to help the street children as it is an important and God-pleasing matter. On a recent visit we shared food and drinks and encouraged them to avoid abuse of drugs and other immoral activities. The children we met said they ended up on the streets because they had no choice. They were abandoned or orphaned, and some were thrown out of their homes. Some chose to live in the streets because of mistreatment or neglect or because their homes do not or cannot provide them with basic necessities.

Alice Nasambu asked OTEPIC to support her little children with food and education. We hope to involve them in our garden so that together we can grow food and share it. At OTEPIC we are trying to sustain ourselves in this way: “If we concentrate on giving, receiving will take care of itself.”

One man's rubbish is another man's goldmine: Making charcoal briquettes and saving trees in the Rift Valley

The Rift Valley produces 2400 tons of waste every day. This waste is choking rural and urban centers, and most of it is discarded at undesignated dumpsites which include rivers and roadsides, among other areas.
OTEPIC has devised a "magic dome" that transforms useless waste into a new object of function and art. Like compost, this is another way in which we apply technique to reap benefits from waste.
OTEPIC-trained men and women collect soot remains from charcoal cooking fires, carrying the stuff on their backs. These "useless" black dust charcoal fragments remain after people have used or sold their charcoal.
Then the collectors mold the fragments into balls of 250 grams each (about 1/2 pound) with corn cobs at the core of each black orb. The balls are left in the sun for few days to dry. The corn cob improves combustion of the mold which is used as a charcoal briquette. This practice encourages recycling, creates a use for solid waste and reduces deforestation.