Helping People Help People

With appreciation,

Twende!



Robert Lange

May,2026

Right here with the people

We are right here with the people, so we understand what they can use well to overcome some of the most difficult things about how they are living. 

We help with healthy air, clean water, and income opportunities for extra shillings to meet the needs of their kids,

We don’t have to wonder what to do.  Life’s difficulties are obvious, and everything we do is in great demand. The only limit is funding.  

Many project villages

There are many villages where we have done lots of work, like the one pictured above. We bring the benefits of each of our sector areas to each participant.

 If we have stoves in a village, then naturally the women know about what we have done in all the other ways too.  So solar-electric service for their settlement, women’s groups, water access--all become natural additions.

New ways to connect with opportunity

But sometimes we discover opportunities in another way. Sensitive and open-hearted visitors to Tanzania sometimes get to know one local person quite well.  It might be a helper they encounter during part of their trip.  

They share stories about how life is here in Tanzania and back home where they come from. With those conversations, they may get a strong idea that they would like to help out somehow with some of their own money. Even an amount that seems tiny in North America or Europe makes a big difference here.  

But rather than just give a gift of money, they might find out about our work. They see what we accomplish with even small funds. They might wonder if we could bring our expertise and well- suited and appropriate technology to the new area they have come to care about. 

What we would love to do

We received a message from Philip Yught. He told us that he learned of our program of bringing healthy, smoke-removing chimney-stoves to Maasai homes.

 During his stay in southern Kenya, Philip had gotten to know a Maasai man working at the hotel where he was staying, and learned of the dangerous health condition in the homes the Maasai people.  

Because he had become sensitive to many of the problems of his new friend’s village, Philip started helping by giving generous help with food and water emergencies.

However, when he found us online, he realized he could make even more of a difference by supporting a more permanent improvement. He could help to get our stove into women’s houses. 

To get from our headquarters and stove factory in Monduli requires a drive of five or six hours with time added for crossing the Namanga border between Kenya and Tanzania.

Transport and personal costs for work in such distant place are significant. We can easily use Project funds completely right in our current villages, close to home where the full demand has not yet been met.  

So, to do what we would love to do, and help people like Philip realize their humanitarian desires and instincts, we have to ask them for the funds. We can't take the funds away from the constant expansion of work in our current areas.

Going the distance

What steps were needed to accomplish this?

First, we were going to have to send a soil-cement brickmaking machine and several brick specialists to this distant area. Then, several women with expertise in stove installation would travel there. 

Kisioki and I created a budget and let the sponsor know what we would need. As soon as the funds were sent to us, Kisioki and I, along with lead staff and drivers Kone and Kelven, went into this beautiful part of Kenya, north of Mount Kilimanjaro. 

Mount Kilimanjaro is much more visible and impressive from the Kenyan side, just north of Lake Amboseli. We did not get into the Amboseli National Park, but did see some wildlife, since the animals don’t worry too much about park boundaries.

Wildlife near the Amboseli area, by Steven Bechert

Logistics

When we arrived, we assessed the conditions and identified an inn for our people to stay. We made sure there would be a good supply of sand for the women and the right clay to mix with the cement that we would be bringing for the bricks. We returned to Arusha and Monduli the same day.

Next went our brickmakers. Then, even our expert welder joined them to repair a break in our brickmaking machine, with the women installers following after that.  

All our people needed travel documents and stipends. When the Kenyan immigration people understood what my one-day trip was for, they charged me only a small amount for my Kenyan visa.   

A greater demand

We are installing 20 stoves. The village had 21 settlements, and a little over 50 homes. There is now a stove in one home in each of the settlements (except one).  

Maasai homes in Southern Kenya are unhealthy and cramped. Our stove makes a great difference in any unventilated living space. Because of the conditions there, our stove has an especially strong impact.

With installations in this new area, we are creating a great demand. When people sit for a while in their neighbor’s smoke-free indoor environment, even during cooking, they are going to be amazed and want a stove for themselves. 

We will have to see if further funding is possible. But no matter what develops in the future, we will have accomplished this for the sponsor, his friend, and the villagers. Thank you to Philip and to all those who support this work. These people benefit from the stoves themselves, while also beginning that special awareness that we are so proud to help facilitate that is the key to our work: 

Nothing has to be permanent if it causes suffering. Change is possible. Twende!

Help people to help people

For a better life for rural Africans, and a cleaner environment for all

International Collaborative for Science, Education, and the Environment

Office of Programs and Development

30531 Abington Court

Laguna Niguel, CA  92677  USA

1-508-735-9176

www.internationalcollaborative.org