For most of the 120 community leaders who arrived at the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) farm on Thursday 30th July 2026, it was the closest they had ever stood to the turbines that have shaped the region’s skyline for years.
Many were seeing the windfarm’s operations up close for the first time as part of our Community Leaders’ Open Day, an event that reflects our ongoing commitment to staying inclusive and transparent with the communities hosting us. Beyond a tour of the wind farm, the day gave attendees a direct look at the work of our NGO, Winds of Change and a chance to speak with our team face-to-face, many for the first time.
The turnout was broad by design: 57 community elders and stakeholder representatives, 28 women representatives, 23 government officials, including representatives from the Sub-County Commissioners’ offices in Laisamis and Loiyangalani, alongside chiefs, ward and village administrators, and 12 youth representatives, all under one roof. Our CEO, Site Manager, Community Liaison Manager, and our Community Liaison Officers, led the presentations.
The session highlighted LTWP’s ongoing commitment to expanding educational opportunities and equipping young people with the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to sustainable community development. The community leaders were presented with an overview of the Winds of Change Scholarship Programme, its objectives, eligibility criteria, priority academic courses, and partner learning institutions.
The Winds of Change Scholarship programme didn’t start in a boardroom but grew out of such conversations with the community, where residents raised a concern heard often in the region: that too many young people finished school with nowhere to go next; no route into tertiary education, and few opportunities to build skills that could support them and their families. In the month of August, we will celebrate the first cohort of 25 scholarship recipients from Laisamis Constituency, who have been awarded comprehensive scholarships to pursue courses in engineering and education.
Our education projects extend beyond the scholarship programme. At Mpagas Primary School, Chief Ebrahim Lesagoi of Ngurunit points to a simpler fix with an outsized impact: staff accommodation units. Poor living conditions had made it hard for teachers to stay, and as staffing dropped, so did enrolment. Since we built these units for teachers on-site, Chief Lesagoi says both retention and enrolment have improved.
For veterinary officer Moris Ogom, the support that matters most is unglamorous but essential: fuel. The county government supplies the vehicles and the vaccines for livestock campaigns, but Laisamis is vast, and its most remote corners are hard to reach on a limited budget. LTWP’s fuel support has kept vaccination runs on schedule, protecting livestock, and with it, the livelihoods that depend on them, from preventable diseases.
Water access has been one of our most visible contributions to date: more than 20 boreholes drilled across the area, backed by piping, storage tanks and associated infrastructure. The community leaders at the Open Day made clear they see this as a foundation, not a finishing line and called on us to go further into irrigation infrastructure and training in greenhouse farming, so that water access can help secure the region’s food supply and sustainability.
Winds of Change conducts an annual community needs assessment exercise, where such requests are given consideration.
