Building Community Relationships
GDC believes in giving back to those communities in which we work. We care about and work to ensure the health and safety of our employees, to protect the environment and members of our host communities, and to conduct business with integrity and accountability.
Providing A Better Life For The African People
- We minimise any impact our processes, facilities and services may have on the environment, and operate according to the highest possible levels of safety.
The GDC Vision Of Hope For All Africans
- Our group channels our corporate social development commitments, focusing on two key areas:
Kenyan Conservation Project
- The project will focus on addressing environmental issues in the focus area, mainly on agro-forestry and reforestation, rain and surface run-off water harvesting and waste water bio-purification. The other area of focus will be on agricultural-based projects which will be hinged on agro-forestry. Identified projects in agriculture will be stimulation and development of sunflower production and enterprises adding value to the crop (oil extraction), and honey production and processing. The aim of the project is Protection/Conservation of the environment and for the targeted communities to generate income from executing environmental conservation activities.
- Focal Area
The focal area of the project will be the former greater Makueni, Machakos, Kitui in Eastern province and Taita-Taveta district in Coast province of the Republic of Kenya, East Africa.- Agro-forestry and Reforestation
The above mentioned areas are classified as arid and semi-arid lands characterized by two rainy seasons with annual rainfall averaging 450 – 900mm per year. Most of the rivers in the area are seasonal, i.e. dry for the better part of the year. In the recent past, the areas have witnessed large-scale environmental degradation caused by misuse and mismanagement of natural resources mainly felling of trees for energy use and in building and construction. This has had the effect of destroying water catchment areas and in causing wide-spread soil erosion.
To mitigate this, one of the project’s focus areas will be promoting agro-forestry activities. The proposed approach is to use identified primary and secondary schools in the catchment areas to develop tree nurseries. The local community will then access tree seedlings from the schools and practice agro-forestry and reforest deforested areas. Some of the trees planted, such as castor and croton, amongst other will stimulate oil production (processing) for cooking and bio-diesel, hence earning communities income. Agro-forestry will enhance water percolation in to the soil and prevent soil erosion.- Rain and Surface Run-off Water Harvesting
When it rains in these areas, large amounts of water are left to run off in to streams and rivers. Within a short period after the rain season is over, communities in the area begin to travel farther is search of water. To address this situation, another focus of the project will be to educate communities to employ appropriate technologies in water harvesting. Proposed technologies herein include building of dams and placing of thick polythene sheets after digging the dams so as to prevent water from becoming muddy after it rains. Inlet areas will be developed in areas of the dam to prevent entry of silt in to the dams.- Waste Water Bio-Purification
Water scarcity is a major issue in the identified project area. The communities in the area do not know how to manage water resources hence the scarcity and do not know how to recycle waste water. In addressing this situation, it is proposed that in those communities that use large volumes of water (especially boarding schools) should be developed to use simple technologies for water recycling such as bio-purification where microorganisms are used to purify waste water (similar to but not the same as septic tanks), and building of water purification systems using locally available materials such as sand, pebbles and gravel.
This water can be used by the schools in watering the tree nurseries and in irrigation, among other uses.- Sunflower Production
The catchment area, as mentioned earlier is characterized by semi-arid conditions. Communities living in these areas have always depended on subsistence farming, whereby they produce food for domestic consumption. Crops grown for food are mainly maize and beans, which do not do well because of the perennial scarce rainfall. The only crop which has proven to be drought resistant is sunflower, which is also a cash crop.
As such, another area of focus for the project will be to promote sunflower production by the local community and development of entrepreneurs to process and market oil from sunflower. A by-product of sunflower processing is the seed cake, which is used as poultry and dairy cow feed. Sunflower production will also stimulate honey production in the targeted areas.- Honey Production
The catchment area is known for production of some of the best honey in the country, but unfortunately, this potential has not been harnessed by the communities living in the target areas. Development of honey production will be pegged on agro-forestry and sunflower production since most of the trees promoted for agro-forestry and sunflower produce nectar. This will hopefully bring about a shift in the communities’ regard of trees as a way of generating income from charcoal burning, a rampant practice in the target areas, to income generation from honey, which will conserve the environment.
In honey production, the identified communities/entrepreneurs/enterprises will be developed to undertake honey processing and marketing, hence developing a strong market chain linkages for honey and enabling the target communities to sustain themselves from honey production.
