As a developing Long Run Destination, Segera enhances the livelihoods of its neighbours through provision of employment and income generating opportunities linked to conservation of the natural resource base, educational opportunities, and the support of cultural activities.
Segera is the first privately managed area in East Africa to voluntarily submit to a Fair Labor Association audit and continues to improve working conditions, social relations, and the well-being of its employees.
Segera is inextricably linked to the needs and input of its host and surrounding communities. Because of its remote location, educational opportunities for the youngest members of the local community are either scarce or costly. Segera currently supports the Uwaso Ngiro Primary School and is introducing a bursary scheme which will involve all local schools. An environmental education scheme is also being introduced into schools and opportunities to introduce technologies to ensure that the schools become carbon neutral are being explored.
Many of Segera's neighbors are from nomadic pastoral ethnic groups, including the Maasai, Samburu and Pokot. The traditional way of life of these people is coming under increasing pressure as a combination of climate change, land use changes and increasing cattle and human populations makes their traditional lifestyle increasingly precarious and unsustainable. Segera is currently developing, with these communities, various interventions aimed at alleviating the long-term structural problems that they face. These interventions include the introduction of communal grazing schemes, which provide access to grazing for neighbours’ cattle during times of drought. Similar access schemes are being developed to ensure that women have access to collect non-timber forest products in a regulated and sustainable manner. Long-term opportunities relating to secure access to land and alternative livelihood options are being explored.
A variety of projects aimed at promoting alternative income generating opportunities are currently under discussion with local neighbours and in particular women’s groups.
