Leaving the City
When I left Nairobi for shagz [rural home] in late 2007, I never knew just how much I’d enjoy living away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Suddenly, life was very affordable, simple and much better in innumerable ways.

Much of what happens on this blog is a direct consequence of leaving the city. Otherwise, I was happily paying my electricity bills, using LPG gas and quite content with the single tree that I only saw within our plot while I took my clothes out to dry. In fact, I never once sat under that tree.
Open Spaces, Expanded Horizons
It is a fact that the rural areas actually sustain the cities. Food is delivered every day to the cities, from both small and large scale farms in the rural areas.
People who live in the rural areas would be more interested in green houses, biogas installations, tree planting among other initiatives. This is largely because they do have the farms to do these things or are forced owing to the absence of the conventional utilities such as electricity from the grid.
Personally, I have opted to use a combination of solar, wind and biogas energy because I am persuaded that it is the right thing to do. Electricity is less than 100m from where I live, but I still opt to make the investments into the aforementioned energy sources for ethical reasons. Having an advantage of time, I hope to live long enough for these investments to pay back… but I digress.
Living far from the cities accords those who are interested, a rare opportunity to actually try out all the things one can possibly do to live a simple, albeit self sustaining life. It is for this reason that we feel that there is need to look at the development of rural areas as a direct result of these initiatives.
Rural Development
I have always maintained that a very effective way to reduce poverty and empower young persons is making it possible for them to earn without necessarily working in towns and big cities. Let me give one example that has worked really well.
The rural electrification project that was started in 2003 in Kenya has really localized development in the country. Young men can now engage in gainful self employment such as kinyozis, welding, selling and repairing electronics, rearing chicken, and many other activities that are primarily driven by electricity.
In Finland, it became a legal right for every citizen to access broadband internet beginning last week. This essentially means that those who live in the rural areas can get things done online without expensive and time consuming commute to the cities where speeds are obviously higher.
The Neglected Masses
The majority of any country’s population live in the rural areas. These are the guys who work behind the scene and make the cities and those who live in them carry on in life.
This series of posts focusing on rural development will highlight the gains made so far in developing our rural areas, as well as mentions of what needs to be done.
We look forward to your thoughts.