TEDxEburru was an event in rural Kenya in Eburru High School. The idea was to expose the students to incredible talks completely out of their environmental context yet relating to the global problem of climate change and the need for green sustainable solutions in the future. In addition to this there was a live talk that demonstrated possible solutions right there in the Eburru context. The 65 students who attended the event had most probably never seen snow nor felt ice, so were totally aghast when watching Lewis Pugh swim across the Arctic.

On arriving at the school we realised that the room for the event was too bright, and had to quickly improvise by making make shift curtains to block out the blazing morning sunlight. When this was done the sudents then assisted us reduce the room to half its size to further maximise on blocking out the light. Finally an hour behind schedule we started the first talk. The mini projector and phone of the TED in a box system worked perfectly! After the first talk by John Kasaona there was a juice and biscuit tea break managed by the students, before the second talk by Lewis Pugh.
Eburru sits on the shoulder of the Mau escarpment, the ridge of the Great Rift Valley. This particular little town looks down over two of the lakes nestled in the rift, Lake Naivasha and Lake Elementaita, yet , there is no water in the town location, no rivers, and no Govt tap water. What there is in plenty is geo thermal steam. The people of Eburru have learnt to tap this steam transforming it into the only water available. It is hard to imagine the thoughts that must have been going through the young minds watching Lewis swim in such a vast expanse of icy cold water when compared to the reality of the water situation in their town.

The final live Talk was not only educational as well as inspirational, but also life changing as one of the long term supporters of the school decided to donate a biogas plant to the school. Val Core has been supporting the school for the past 6 years, from a time where there were only 30 students and 5 desks to today where 240 students enjoy desk filled classrooms and a library developed by the community and well wishers. Student who once walked 20 km back n forth to school each day, now have access to boarding facilities thanks to the vision of Mr Evans the schools headmaster.

We were all moved by the experiences at TEDxEburru, and look forward to hosting another TEDxEburru event soon for the community at large.

Eburru
Kenya

Dominic Wanjihia

Dominic is a social innovator. From the age of 9 he began to dabble with electronics showing a unique ability to understand the complexities of this technology at such an early age. This has developed into a self employed career path devoted to developing appropriate technological out of the box innovations for the base of the pyramid. Some of his innovations include affordable water pumps, solutions to malaria control and his flexi portable bio-digester which is changing peoples lives all over Kenya. He brands his innovations 'Simply Logic'