Writing on the spatial planning chapter for the Sponge City guidelines
Hi all, here we are again,
Just coming out of a write shop. A what? Yes a write shop. Instead of working in a workshop, we decided to write in a write shop. Experts in different fields relevant to establish Sponge Cities gathered for 2 days to write chapters for the Guidelines on 'How to create a Sponge City?'.
One of the main outputs to trigger a wide uptake and upscaling for Sponge Cities. First with a focus on Kenya and ASAL. The Guidelines will be an appealing document that gives you a quick overview and stepwise approach on how you can Sponge yourself. (we are still thinking of a better name for the 'guidelines', suggestions are welcome!)
In the mean while there have been many activities in KwaVonza in the past months.
And it has been quite a year. After 2 very dry years the last rainy season (March-May) has brought Kenya a lot of rain. Timely for all the people in KwaVonza who are now doing rain water harvesting!
We have focussed on follow-ups on the implementation part, after evaluating the first implementation phase we decided to focus on a limited number and expand this more. This concentrated on: rehabilitating existing ponds, tree planting, and more roof harvesting systems.
Looking forward to our next steps on upscaling!
Cheers,
The Sponge Team
Suggestions for a better name for guidelines: 'Spongelines', 'do-it-yourself-sponging instructions', 'SSS - Step-by-Step-Sponging
Great team effort on the write shop! Thanks for sharing this update on bringing sponge experts together to share knowledge and collaborate. I'm very interested to see the final guideline.
How many experts attended the write shop? And will you be channelling the lessons learned from Sponge Cities in Kenya/ASAL to other countries of interest?
Pleased to see more of this inspiring way of sharing views and insights.
My suggestions: Sponge-lines; or Sponge Town Cook book, or Sponge Town recepies
We had about 15 experts for 2 days of writing, coming from the 2 counties of Sponge Kajiado and Kitui, and also from other areas and cross-cutting organizations.
For the out-reach we will first focus on other counties in Kenya, there is a large scope for booming towns in ASALs. After that we can think of other countries to expand to.