Success Story Details

02 Oct 2026

A Greener Ward, Led by Others

Climate programmes in Nairobi are usually designed for the community and delivered to it. Persons with disabilities are counted in the beneficiary figures and rarely appear in the delivery. When they do appear, they are volunteers.

WECY's Green and Inclusive Communities Initiative works on a different premise: that a person who uses a wheelchair or is blind or is non-verbal has the same claim to a paid role in greening and resilience work as anyone else, and often a better understanding of the ward they live in than an outside contractor does.

The initiative funds nursery beds and tree planting in community spaces, supported waste collection and recycling points, and climate-awareness work in schools and market areas. People with disabilities are employed in that delivery as nursery attendants, waste sorters, compost handlers and community climate ambassadors, trained and paid for the work.

This changes two things at once. The ward gets trees, a cleaner environment and a functioning waste point. Participants get an income, a routine, and a role in something that is visibly improving their own neighbourhood. A person who has spent years being moved through by others is now organising a team.

We are deliberately not claiming a large carbon number. A ward-scale programme is not going to move a national emissions figure, and we would rather be judged on trees that survive, waste that gets collected, and whether the people doing the work are still in it a year later.