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NWP Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists - Nakuru National Park, Kenya

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Nakuru National Park, Kenya
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pkg87



Registered: December 2007
City/Town/Province: milledgeville
Posts: 1
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If only I was a rich girl…..


It took an appealing and greatly persuasive Al Gore in An inconvenient Truth to take me back to the good old days when all I wanted to do was to save the world. I come from a rapidly developing town in Kenya known as Nakuru. It is one of the major tourist havens and has agriculture as its economical backbone.
Growing up, before the boarding schools and serious studies, I remember being in a very relaxed and hard working community. Maybe it was my naiveté or my childhood innocence bursting through but to me life was so simple. Everything seemed attainable only if we had the strength to chase after it.
Life was generally a fairy tale except that I had no time to enjoy it fully because I was super involved in my studies. That all came to an end after my high school. That is when I started to be keenly aware of my environment and the problems that were beginning to plague it.
I had visited the lake Nakuru National Park and I was very shocked with what I saw. The grand Makalia falls that I remembered being in the park had completely dried up and all that was left of it was a small trickling stream!!!!! At first, I thought that I was seeing a scene from a horror movie, then it started to make sense. The global warming, the lake’s increasing salinity due to pollution, the dying flamingos, the drought in Kenya and even the Nobel prize laureate’s aggressive “A green Nakuru starts with me” campaign. They were all related and it was time for me to do something to save the situation…If not the planet, at least my small quickly disintegrating town.
I tried to research on the internet what I could do about the whole situation as a concerned individual and the results were disappointing. There were big industries involved in the pollution that were hard to regulate, water catchment forest areas that were being destroyed by poor squatters that were burning charcoal to make a living and high global temperatures that only God could fix. What was I to do?????
I decided that I, for the time being, would be involved in fighting waste pollution whenever I can around the slums, city centre and even residential areas. On a solo trek, I picked litter and risked the uncomfortable stares from the spectators who thought that I was crazy and when I was lucky, some felt inspired to continue with the trend that I had set.
That following fall, I got my acceptance letter from GCSU and swore that I would go to college, get a good job and make enough money to make changes that would count for my environment. I hope that I can now come a step closer to that dream with your help.
Date: December 23, 2007 Views: 7914 File size: 17.5kb, 76.5kb : 604 x 453
Hours Volunteered: 2
Volunteers: 1
Authors Age & Age Range of Volunteers: 20
Area Restored for Native Wildlife (hectares): 2
Trash Removed/Recycled from Environment (kg): 10
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