Four years ago, an executive at Paramount Pictures fulfilled the dream she had as a little girl of helping women in Africa.
In 2005, Kristen Kosinski flew to Kenya and began her work organizing the Samburu Project, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Monica.
“It was the realization of a lifelong dream,” said Kosinski, founder and executive director of the Samburu Project, about her experiences working with African women to achieve empowerment and sustainability in the region.
The original goal of the organization was to provide needed resources, especially water, to communities in Kenya, allowing them to maintain these resources and focus on self-sustainability.
The Samburu Project focuses on working with communities in the Samburu region of Northern Kenya to provide clean water to the people by building wells that the Samburu communities can maintain themselves.
“Women were walking 12 miles a day to get water. They had no economic empowerment to make their own decisions in terms of making their own money, or even choosing their own mate,” said Kate Lyness, fifth-year anthropology student and volunteer coordinator and president of the Samburu Project student group at UCLA, which is awaiting approval.
By providing water to the communities of Samburu, women had more time and energy to take part in income generating activities, Lyness said.
The project director, Lucas Lekwale, begins the well building process by speaking to the community elders who then make the decision on behalf of the community members, to apply for a well, Kosinski said.
Then, the project hires a hydrogeologist from Nairobi to build the well in an environmentally efficient site that will be maintained by the communities themselves.
The wells are usually 50 to 70 meters deep, ensuring that they will be easy to use by way of a small hand pump. The final step is to provide workshops to community elders on hygiene, sanitation, and repairs, Lyness said.
“The initial assumption was that water is the foundation, but that there would be a natural progression in development. Once people have water they start doing things like building community gardens, and building an income. … Where water is easily accessible, children go to school,” Kosinski said.
As a result of the Samburu Project’s effort in the region, the number of girls attending schools increased from 1,275 to 3,841, now that they no longer have to spend most of their days bringing water into their communities, Kosinski said.
In order to involve students in the process of aiding the Samburu people, Lyness started a program called THIRST, primarily focused on getting UCLA students hands on experience in Kenya. Students may apply to the program, which entails going to the Samburu region and speaking with the communities as well as other non-governmental organizations on the ground and also give them a glance into the everyday lives of the Samburu people.
“It’s going to allow students to go into Kenya and get into contact with the community to help people out. Hopefully they’ll develop a passion for it like I did,” said Victoria McBride, former intern at TSP and UCLA alumna.
The main goal of the THIRST program is to provide a cultural experience for students and to give perspective on how dealing with global issues and concerns can help them become conscientious global citizens.
By going on the ground and attaining hands-on experience, the students accepted to the program will be able to specialize their work to their own interest and exchange ideas and knowledge with their peers, Kosinski said.
“It will impact the rest of their lives, how they look at the world, and what they choose to spend the rest of their lives doing,” said Lyness.