Lawi S. Njeremani
It may sound cliché to state that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step but that is exactly my position today. I have also been wrestling with the question of Turf Industry experience. When is the right time to get into the Turf industry?
As a 1st Year student in the Diploma in Turfgrass Management, coming from Kenya and having taken up golf in 2015, I have observed that in my class of 22, my classmates not only started playing golf at a much younger age and have had considerable experience in the Turf industry ranging from a year or two of formal employment to early years working on golf courses as teenagers to the level of second Assistant Superintendent and General Management.
When I match up my experience, I find that I have done quite a bit in the environmental sphere and I look back in awe that most of that experience was happenstance—but the universe does align.
Having been a member of Lions Clubs International for just under five years I was approached by our District leadership, including a Past District Governor and International Director to be the chairperson of the District’s Environment Program. The previous chairperson had done some tremendous work mobilizing members of the organization and the Ministry of Environment towards tree planting. I recall him addressing the national media on one occasion at a much publicized press conference and laid out the Lions Clubs tree planting initiative, which was flagged off by the Lions Clubs International President in 2011. Unfortunately, he passed away just as a new phase of the scaled partnership was being considered.
Three years on, an International agreement was signed between Lions Clubs International and the Aga Khan Development Foundation riding on previous success and with the intention of scaling the scope of cooperation. Expectations were high.
I had been a passive participant in the Environment program, in the sense that I would appear where the program of the day dictated and do what was required on site. I had not taken part in the high level planning, resource mobilization and coordination that accompanied the tree planting events. As Chairperson of the program I found that all those responsibilities were now thrust upon me.
Luckily, I had been working as a Project Consultant and Project Manager (PM) and had accumulated years of experience starting as a Project Coordinator, then a Project Scheduler and then as a PM. When the opportunity connected, these are the skillsets that came in handy.
I was able to draw up a stakeholders list very quickly, I was facilitated in my dual role as the Environment Chairperson of Lions Clubs District 411A and as a Project Consultant for the Aga Khan Fund for the Environment.
As soon as I was ready to lay down the Project Plan certain realities came to the fore, top among them being stakeholder fatigue. Those who had put their weight in the initial phase of the project dreaded the demands that the project had thrust on them from a time and resource perspective. They were willing to support the project but not as frontline volunteers with direct accountability. My stakeholder analysis and level of support document changed drastically. I had to find a new team of stakeholders who were invested in the tree planting mission and were ready to dedicate time and volunteer hours to see it through. There was no budget for personnel. Double jeopardy doesn’t start to define the problem.
Perchance, an invitation came to the Lions Clubs District office from Total Kenya, an oil marketer who had recently initiated the Eco Challenge—a tree planting initiative. The invitation was for a Conference that brought together stakeholders with a particular focus on tree planting.
At the conference, I met with then Major David Wando who was incharge of the Environmental Soldier Program at the Kenya Defence Forces. We struck up a conversation at tea-break and that was the first time I got to know, formally, of the tree planting initiative by the soldiers. I shared with him the tree planting aspirations by the Lions Clubs of Kenya and the Aga Khan Development Foundation and we agreed to find a way to work together.
Over the next few weeks of correspondence exchange and discussions of how to make the Partnership work, we came up with a guiding MoU which was then signed by the Lions Clubs District Governor and the Cabinet Minister from the Ministry of Defense. I now had an additional role as Partnership Director.
In the second part of this article, I narrate how we went about the partnership and the milestones we hit.