Leparua community

Leparua community lies on the northern boundary of Lewa. It is part of the Ndorobo community, a group in the process of acquiring legal status for their land. A baseline survey was commissioned to determine among other things population dynamics current social facilities, communication links, current economy of area and the extent the community depends on natural resources.

The community is mainly involved in pastoralist activity and currently there is a growing dependency on crop agriculture especially along the 2 permanent rivers.  The residents are mainly Maasai of the Ndorobo sub-group. The Leparua community is mainly male dominated and the women have very little participation in the decision-making process of the area. The education and literacy levels are very low and most families have barely one adult who can read and write.

Leparua is located North of Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and Northwest of Isiolo district. A  socio- economic study of Leparua conducted revealed considerable homogeneity in terms of income levels, wealth, and primary economic activity. Leparua area is part of ASAL areas of Kenya and the people therein are less often favored by both nature and state authorities leaving them exposed to varied environmental, economic, political and social disadvantages.

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy has been involved with the Leparua community for a long time and the relationship has been convivial. The conservancy has been engaging the members of the community in developing infrastructure including schools, health and security.

The community has come to share the vision of Lewa of conserving wildlife and reaping the benefits therein. They have been beneficiaries of Lewa community support especially in both Leparua Primary School and Ntalaban - the only schools in this whole area. Lewa has also been running a mobile health clinic once a week in Leparua. 

Even though there has been continued involvement by Lewa that has produced tremendous and quantifiable results, the needs are extensive and acute and barely met in all of the following areas:

• Education,
• health,
• security,
• livestock production,
• range management and
• physical infrastructure.

There are a variety of problems however that limit socio-economic development and these mainly hinge on infrastructural deficiency, sub-literate parents. Other problems include lack of markets for local produce and minimal government support to the overall development of Leparua. Communication to Leparua is mainly through radio calls and some areas are covered by an intermittent Safaricom network especially at the hilltops.