Travelling to Peru was one of my greatest milestones. 💚
Thousands of kilometres from the Mukogodo Ecosystem, I found myself in a room with young people from Kenya, Peru and Madagascar, each carrying stories from their own communities and the work they were trying to move forward. The Changemakers Program Summit in Peru gave us the chance to meet, exchange experiences and spend time learning from one another. For ACTNOW KENYA, it was also an opportunity to step outside our usual surroundings and see conservation and community development from another landscape.
Through our work in the Mukogodo Ecosystem, Northern Kenya, we often encounter questions such as:
- How do communities benefit from the natural resources around them while protecting them?
2. How can conservation contribute to livelihoods?
3. Where does culture and local knowledge fit into the way we understand and manage our environment?
In Peru, we encountered people and initiatives exploring some of these same questions, but from very different landscapes and circumstances. We had the opportunity to visit and learn from Castana Amazon Nuts Park, K’erenda Homet Nature Reserve, Nature Explorers, and the Yine and Ese Eja communities. We saw different approaches to ecotourism, agroecology, forest landscape restoration and value chains, and how these are being connected to the people and places around them.
The Amazon is very different from the Mukogodo Ecosystem. The communities, ecosystems, cultures and livelihoods are different. But there are familiar ideas in the conversations—we saw how land rights can support restoration efforts, including at Castana Amazon Nuts Park and the Yine and Ese Eja communities; how conservation can open up livelihood opportunities through forest and land restoration (FLR) and related value chains; and how local knowledge and culture continue to shape the future of landscapes.
Changemaking Is Interconnected
I experienced diverse perspectives and realities of community development through the stories of changemakers working with communities in Kenya, Madagascar and Peru. Although our contexts were different, I found significant commonalities and connections with the work we are doing in the Mukogodo Ecosystem, Northern Kenya.
Their stories centred on different aspects of community development—ecosystem restoration, landscape-based livelihoods, community organising, food systems and the use of local resources to create opportunities. We heard about practical examples such as soap making in Madagascar, mushroom production in Kenya and cocoa production in Peru, alongside restoration efforts such as the Tambopata Solutionscape Initiative by Wyss Academy for Nature in South America and The Full Circle Initiative in Madagascar. These were not just ideas being discussed. They were approaches already being tested and developed within communities, giving us something concrete to learn from and reflect on.
These conversations have influenced the way we think about community development and, in many ways, how we continue to shape the work of ACTNOW KENYA across the Mukogodo Ecosystem. Sustainable development cannot be separated into individual issues. Restoration, livelihoods, food, culture, local knowledge and community organising are often connected within the same landscape, not only in Kenya but across different parts of the world. Spaces for linking and learning make these connections possible. They allow changemakers to share what is working, receive reflections from others, adapt ideas to their own contexts and, where appropriate, transfer and replicate approaches.
In a one-on-one conversation with Emine Iris Ertugrul-Dietz, Change Makers Program Engagement Specialist at Wyss Academy for Nature, I asked her from her own perspective whether the Changemakers Program was achieving its purpose;
“Seeing young people from different backgrounds, languages (english, french, and spanish) and cultures come together and have conversations about their work as if these barriers do not exist gives me certainty that the change makers program (CMP) is yielding huge success in transforming young people and supporting them to create change in their communities.” She said.
Listening to her gave me a stronger sense of purpose in the work we are doing at ACTNOW KENYA. It made me appreciate even more why these connections between young people and communities matter.
— This blog was developed by Gideon Pirandoni, the Founder of ACTNOW KENYA reflecting on the experiences and lessons learnt during his visit to Peru for the Changemakers Program 2025