Our Team

John Kamanga

Co-Founder and Director

Born and raised as a Maasai pastoralist in the Southern Rift valley, John has a profound understanding of the challenges that coexistence between wildlife and people brings. He was fortunate to have had both a traditional pastoralist upbringing and also a solid grounding in formal education with degrees in both Community Development and Anthropology. Twenty years ago, he was elected as leader of his Maasai community (the people of Olkiramatian) and was able to support the development of their community conservancy, and supporting governance systems before handing over office last year. Over twelve years ago, he co-founded SORALO, in order to help many more communities facing the same issues of land security, livelihoods and living with wildlife.

Samantha Russell du Toit

Programmes Coordinator / Head of Information for Action

Samantha has worked with SORALO since its creation in 2004. She helped to establish the Lale’enok Resource Centre, coordinating long-term research activities, short-term internships and supporting our Education Outreach efforts. She has recently taken on the role of coordinating all our programmes, which has meant her work now involves fundraising, communications and general coordination. She splits her time between Nairobi, the Lale’enok Resource centre, and her husband’s toursim camp. Her two children travel with her wherever she goes.

Rahab Wandia

Administrator

Wandia has worked with SORALO for over 10 years, first coming to us as an administrative assistant. Now, she oversees the financial and administrative management systems for all of SORALO’s programmes. She mans our main office in Nairobi.

Guy Western

Head of Conserving Coexistence

Since 2010, Guy has spearheaded the establishment of Rebuilding the Pride. Recently completing his PhD, Guy combines his experience and expertise to lead our Conserving Coexistence programme, where the teams of the community Game Scouts and Rebuilding the Pride join together to help communities to coexist with wildlife across the SORALO landscape.

Parashina Lampat

Head of Protecting Open Rangelands

Parashina heads our rangelands governance programme that focuses on securing and strengthening communities rights to land through strong and effective local governance institutions. In particular, he is spearheading the development of land use plans for communally shared lands within the SORALO landscape. He has also been in charge of the cattle breeds improvement projects initiated in Loita, Naroosura and Namanga regions within the SORALO Landscape.

Joel Njonjo

Lale’enok Camp Manager / Head of Education Outreach

Joel Njonjo, born and raised in Olkiramatian, started his life with SORALO as one of the first people to habituate a local troop of baboons for research and tourism. He then developed a passion for working within the local schools, and heads SORALO’s education outreach work, under the Information for Action programme. He also runs the Lale’enok Resource centre.

The people you see here are part of a much larger team of 58 employees. We ask you to bear with us as we slowly update the website over time to eventually show everyone of our valuable team.In addition to who you see here, we have thirty-four game scouts, nine local resource assessors, one data manager, two community liaisons and six support staff who help keep the programmes running.

Our Theory of Change

SORALO believes that achieving its vision of healthy,
intact, landscapes that benefit people and wildlife
requires addressing four key areas of intervention,
expanded upon in our Theory of Change below.

  1. Improving rangelands governance by
    securing communal lands, water and natural
    resources through appropriate local tenure
    arrangements
  2. Improving natural resource management
    and conservation efforts to monitor, manage
    and protect wildlife and other resources.

  • Generating benefits and increased income through
    sustainable natural resource-based enterprises that
    improve local livelihoods and create incentives
    for conservation.
  • Promoting cultural values and practices that promote
    co-existence of people and wildlife.

These four interventions not only form SORALO’s
overall Theory of Change for achieving our vision
and mission, but also form the structure of our
programmes and thus governs how we implement
our work.

Our Strategic Goals

As defined by our Strategic Plan for for 2018-2023 we have five strategic goals

Goal 1

Secure and Strengthen
Community Rights to Land
Through Strong and Effective
Local Governance Institutions

To use a range of mapping, land use management, spatial planning and legal tools to strengthen governance of communal rangelands in Group Ranches that are not yet subdivided. We will focus on securing unsubdivided Group Ranches and maintaining communal land use and tenure. We will also work to develop new models such as group conservancies for collective land management in subdivided areas.

Goal 2

Support Natural Resource
Management Practices and
Institutions That Enable People
And Wildlife to Co-Exist Across
the South Rift Landscape

To strengthen local rangeland and wildlife management capacity by working with group ranches, conservancies, game scout networks, and other local community management institutions to strengthen their ability to manage, monitor, and conserve their natural resources, including protecting wildlife and other natural resources from illegal use.

Goal 3

Promote Cultural Values That
Foster Co-Existence of People,
Wildlife and Communal
Land Management

To recognize the importance of local indigenous cultural values in enabling continued co-existence of people and wildlife within their landscape. We will actively promote traditional knowledge, values, and culture in ways that reinforce those values and assist their perpetuation in the face of social change.

Goal 4

Support the Development of
Sustainable Resource Based
Enterprises For Improved
Livelihoods

To support the development of support the development of sustainable resource-based enterprises for improves livelihoods. SORALO will improve its own capacity to deliver on this livelihoods work, starting with a review of the existing projects, their design and impact, and develop key partnerships that enable it to improve delivery.

Goal 5

Grow and Strengthen Soralo
Into an Effective Organisation
Capable of Delivering on Its
Mission

SORALO needs to grow and strengthen as an organisation in order to effectively implement this strategy and full-fill its mandate. Through improved communication about its work, strengthened partnerships and more effective fundraising, SORALO will achieve sustainable funding and become a stronger organisation.

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