Accessibility
A technical team from the World Bank Kenya office, has commended Community Roads Empowerment (CORE), for its efforts in improving livelihood opportunities and accessibility for underserved communities in Meru town, Meru County.
The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with funding from the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) through the World Bank set its foot in the County in 2022 with the sole purpose of rehabilitating 26 kilometres of roads through training of youth, and connecting the 23 kilometres of existing Eastern and Western bypasses using the Do- nou
technology.
Do- nou technology means using gunny bags with materials inside them to improve sections of roads that are in dire need of repair or have been rendered impassable. The World Bank technical team as well as that from the National Government’s Ministry of Roads and Transport visited the roads being worked on and were impressed by the work trainees under CORE were doing on specific sites.
Mr Josphat Sasia, a member of the task team said he was happy that the project which was started as a pilot project in the Country has been successful and impacted residents positively.
“I want to commend CORE for generating great skills in young women and men who can now use the same to work in any part of this country,” said Mr Sasia. He called on the Ministry of Roads and Transport, the County Government of Meru as
The same section of Chief’s Camp-Karu Road after rehabilitation. (Photos by Dickson Mwiti)
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well as Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) to make use of to use the young people productively to ensure that their capabilities do not go to waste.
“CORE has invested a lot in these young people and they can easily be demoralised if they have trained that hard but there are no work opportunities for them,” said Sasia. He added: “When we were moving around these areas, I noted that there were no idle people and this means the impact has already been felt. It means the issue of joblessness is being addressed and this is one of the ways of changing the economic status of these areas.”
National Project Coordinator, Project Management Office (PMO) at the Ministry of Roads and Transport Eng. James Theuri lauded the Do-nou technology used by CORE to rehabilitate the roads adding that it was labour intensive meaning that more people than machines were being engaged.
“Before the end of this project, we would love to see something being done by the County government to show full embracement of the technology despite the budget constraints they are going through, since the technology doesn’t require a lot of money compared to other methods,” said Engineer Theuri.
He urged them to try it out with at least some kilometers to show that they were committed to adopt the technology and more importantly make use of the skilled youth. He said there has been high level skills transfer to the young people during their on-job training, an endeavour that should be supported by KURA as well as the County government.
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