Participants from all over the country were gathered in Nairobi, Kenya for the week long training of the fourth trajectory of the Local Fundraising (LFR) Course undertaken by the Change the Game Academy (CtGA) in partnership with KCDF.

Makaror in Wajir County
Makaror location in Wajir county is home to dozens of households that settled thereafter they were displaced by a mix of calamities including clan conflicts between the Borana and Somalis in isiolo, persistent drought, the 1998 El Niño Rains and the infamous Wagalla and Budhaha Massacres.

Upon settling in Makaror, the new community had to start from scratch with not a single amenity. No schools. No dispensary. No shopping Centre. The community had to seek for solutions within if they were to not only survive but define a future for themselves. This is how Makaror Secondary was born and has contributed to the thriving Centre that Makaror is today. 

The secondary school
Makaror Secondary is a low cost mixed day public secondary school situated in Makaror location in Wajir East in Wajir County. The school was started in 2012 by a combination of several stakeholders including; Development agency Wajir Netherlands (DAWN), Wajir East Community Development Fund, Wajir County Council and the local community. The main aim of starting the school was to assist the poor inhabitants of Makaror who could not afford the fees for boarding schools.

Gaining knowledge
At the heart of Makaror is the principal, Mr Abdi Billow, whose goal is to see the school become a premier institution in the provision of affordable, accessible, and quality education in the county.

Billow believes that by attending the LFR course, he would gain knowledge that will help them mobilize resources to develop further. Makaror currently has 900 students and Billow’s main aim is to ensure 100 % transition from primary to secondary school. The main problem, however, is that the facilities in the school are over-stretched. There are a serious resource and infrastructure gaps.  This requires a serious resource mobiliser and Local fundraising drive; something that Billow is aware of and hence the reason for attending the course.



From international to national donations
“Currently there is a paradigm shift from international to local donations due to political and economic changes in the western world. Local donations are more sustainable and has ownership among the locals if carried out in a sincere and transparent way,” says Billow.

Diminishing international donations have affected many organizations including Sang Limo’s. Limo is an active listener and participant who is not shy to point out that his organization currently has only one international donor and not a single local one. He was in the training on a mission. He works with Make the Difference, a community-based organization in Kisumu County that supports orphans and vulnerable children. Their vision is to expand the scope beyond providing only food to the children. 

Mobilizing resources
From here he hopes to mobilize resources to support the lunch program, sponsor the needy children to school and construct a library and computer lab. They plan to change the story of having one donor by embarking on an elaborate strategy to mobilize local resources.

“This course has equipped me with the requisite knowledge to organize local fundraising and I look forward to applying the knowledge to our fundraising activities,” Limo says. “The vision we have for our organization is to be a well-performing school complex and a technical institution,” he continues.

Living Positive
Unlike the CBO’s that were represented in the training session, Living Positive, a community-based organization that supports women and children living with HIV was a tale of success, one that inspired the likes of Makaror secondary and Makes the Difference.

Mary Wanderi, a director from Living Positive, attended the training on the last day to share her positive story and journey of fundraising with the group as a previous learner. “Local fundraising has become interesting for us. It has become a culture in our organization. We have introduced income-generating activities like chicken rearing and have involved the community in fundraising along with us,” she says. Their beneficiaries have become their biggest fundraisers. They go out to the churches, and communities around to fundraise for the organization as a sign of ownership and gratitude. They now have a 70% local to 30% international ratio of funds. 

Endowed with resources
Undeniably, everyone is coming to a realization that communities in Africa are richly endowed with resources (ideas, leadership, money) and the local fundraising course equipped the learners with the necessary knowledge needed to go out and ‘Dare to Ask’!