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Marakusi
Ward
Marakusi
Ward
is located
in Lugari
constituency, Lugari District, Western Province
of Kenya.
Lugari
District
Location & Population
Lugari
constituency covers the entire Lugari district and
shares common borders with Trans-Nzoia district
on the North East, and Uasingishu District on the
South East. It also borders Kakamega District on
the South West and Bugoma District on the North
West. The District runs along the Great North Road
(Nairobi-Kampala Road). It is surrounded with up
coming towns like Eldoret, Kitale, Kakamega, and
Bugoma. The district has Kipkerren River that runs
across the district with shallow water supply. The
district is also bordering River Nzoia to the North
East. Lugari district covers approximately 9400
km square with an estimated population of about
300,000 people. Women and the Youth take the larger
portion of the population.
The constituency
was settled with squatters by the government into
small pieces of land averaging to two acres and
other settler are those who joined the settlement
scheme as early as 1962. Therefore the inhabitants
are entirely poor and living far below poverty lines.
The <
map
> shows that Lugari District
is engulfed by a triangle that lay on the North
West in the map with Kitale town Marked on
the North, Webuye on the West and Eldoret on the
South East.
Lugari
District
Climate & Administration
The
annual rainfall ranges between 500 and 900 mm and
the average temperature vary around 22 and 230C
degrees. The district is situated in the Rift
Valley highland zone and receives sufficient rain
showers during the month of March, April, July,
August, the rest of the months are very dry. The
dry periods leave the land fallow which would have
been used for the growth of beans since the crop
does not have a seasonal growth.
Administratively
the Lugari constituency is divided into eight sub-locations
composing of villages numbering to over 120. The
constituency engalves the newly created Lugari District
and has not really put in root for development.
The District Commissioner is the head of district
government administration, and the structure of
administrations get narrowed to Chiefs, Assistant
Chiefs, and village Elders. Elders are in – charge
of villages. The high number of women and Youth
Groups in the area necessitated the need to have
a combine effort in searching for funds and combining
Groups with similar objectives.
It became
easier to work with Village Elders as government
representative on grass root and as they have boundary
demarcation records and know Groups that are registered
and existed in that particular village. This fact
makes it easy to combine for example, 6 women or
Youth Groups into one centre of administration.
In this case it becomes easier to combine
administrative boundaries of two villages into one
centre of service benefit for the community.
The
administration of the project remains in the leadership
of the joint groups and the elders, while other
institutions remain overseers. The involvement
of the Village Elders has a security reason for
investment and sustainable projects. Also the Elders
have the potential to access the public for publicity
of these projects in public Rallies.
Lugari
District Development Profile
Lugari
district was established by Presidential decree
in late 1998 and therefore it is one of newly created
districts in Kenya. The district is still underdeveloped
and her inhabitants mainly practice peasant agriculture.
The infrastructure (rural roads) is not developed
and many villages lack social amenities and accessibility
to few available social services (in terms of transport
facilities, telephones etc.)
Lugari
District
Water Supply
There
is critical shortage of water quality for domestic,
livestock and economic purpose. In this district
there are few boreholes; and inadequate seasonal
rivers. There are some few shallow wells that supply
water in some season .Main sources of water supply
in the district are gravity and underground Schemes.
The water catchments have unclean water, though
never dry in all seasons but the water is never
in use. Most people, about 48% do not have access
to clean and safe water and within a reasonable
distance. In some of the sources of water,
water is not available all the year round as some
sources dry up during the dry reason hence causing
a lot of hardships especially to women and children
to travel long distances to fetch water resulting
into women not being able to attend to their children
properly and children not to attend school respectively.
There
are number of wastewater discharge from about ten
zones that due to their nature of not being dry
all year round would be of value to the community
if the water sources would be improved and controlled
in useful water quality distributaries.There is
need to develop water reserve tanks that could accommodate
water for long season and be used as a common centre
to serve a population within an area of reasonable
square kilometres.
On the other hand livestock
rearing especially with men are prompted to move
with their livestock to seek for pasture living
women and children behind hence causing more suffering
to both mothers and children. Men, who are employed,
leave behind cattle rearing in the hands of women
who lack sufficient means to provide green pasture
for animals.
The standard of personal hygiene
and sanitation is very low especially among the
Luyah people and this is partially contributed by
lack of adequate water.
Again insufficient
water exposes children to water borne diseases.
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