NETFUND announces winners of the Prestigious Green Award 2012

By Eric Akasa

The National Environmental Trust Fund (NETFUND) Thursday last week announced the winners of the Prestigious Green Award (PGA). The award, the first of its kind in Kenya, recognizes exemplary individuals, groups and organizations that have made it their business to find way to innovatively and sustainably protect and sustain the environment.

The PGA overall title was scooped by George Kanyi Kuria whose project is a waste management initiative started to reclaim the main dumping site in Nanyuki. The project has been running for 5 years and stakeholders include the municipal council, the water and Sewerage Company and the military. To date 100 acres of land have been reclaimed and are used to grow vegetables.  It has also changed the behavior of 80 street children with 11 fully reformed. He has also planted 8.000 trees around the site.

The inaugural PGA Awards was launched on 17^th November 2011 and attracted thousands entries out of which 1500 vied for the top prize of Ksh. 2 million. First, 2nd and 3^rd prizes in each category walked away with Ksh. 1 million, Ksh. 0.5 Million and Ksh. 100,000 respectively. The winners also got trophies and certificates. Winners at county level also got certificates.

“To make the awards inclusive, we welcomed submissions from individuals, community based organizations, learning institutions amongst others” said NETFUND CEO Catherine Ndegwa at the award ceremony. “As NETFUND, our mandate is to ensure that sufficient resources are available to maintain a clean healthy environment. But, we recognize that without community input, our efforts will come to naught. Through the award, we will provide incentives to recognize ideas, innovation, groundbreaking research, and extraordinary grass root initiatives in Kenya” She adds.

To ensure transparency, the judging process was done by a trained and carefully selected judging panel (the training was done by Personal Development Africa) and verified by Kenya Institute of Management. The entries were judged along three broad themes; environmental protection, natural resource management and innovation in energy resources. All entries had to demonstrate tangible results towards solving a given environmental issue together with records of key processes, anticipated impact and measures for sustainability.

In a statement read by Hon. Rev. Julius Murgor Assistant minister ministry of Environment and mineral resources Minister Hon. Chirau Ali Mwakwere lauded the commitment shown by all the participants and reiterated the government’s commitment to aligning the environmental management strategy to international environmental guidelines so as to promote self regulation and best practices in environmental management. 

“I would like to thank our partners and participants for making this day a success. Our aim is to make Kenya the benchmark in environmental management and can only achieve this by involving all Kenyans from all levels in the process” Ms. Ndegwa concluded.