Who we are
A community that refused
to be a headline
Suguta Resilience Watch (SUREWA) is a community-based organisation working in the Suguta Valley — advancing basic rights through community advocacy and the delivery and improvement of water, climate change response, food security and education.
01 Our story
From self-help group to community organisation
For generations, the Suguta Valley was known as the valley of insecurity — a hard land of scanty vegetation where settled life was difficult. Today that story is changing. Through community advocacy and climate resilience work led by the people of the valley themselves, water is reaching more households and acacia trees bloom green across the rift.
SUREWA began in 2019 as a self-help group — neighbours who saw that the valley's problems would not be solved from outside, and organised themselves to act. The group has since grown into a full community organisation, giving the community's advocacy an institutional standing it had never had before.
Today SUREWA works across five fronts — water, climate resilience, food security, education and the civic engagement that ties them together. The method never changes: the community meets, the community decides, and SUREWA carries that decision to every office that needs to hear it.
Organising is not the destination — it is the tool. The destination is a valley where every community enjoys water, food, education and a healthy environment.
02 Purpose
Mission
A community-based organisation working in Suguta Valley to advance the enjoyment of basic rights through community advocacy, and the delivery and improvement of water, climate change response, food security and education for all.
Vision
A Suguta Valley where every community enjoys water, food, education and a healthy environment — secured by its own voice.
Community first
Every programme starts in a baraza, not a boardroom. The valley sets its own priorities.
Dignity
We speak about our home in facts, not pity. The community is the agent of change — never the subject of charity.
Accountability
Decisions are taken in the open, recorded, and reported back — to members first, then to partners.
Stewardship
The land, the water and the trees are borrowed from the next generation. We manage them that way.
Persistence
Change in the valley is measured in seasons, not news cycles. We are organised for the long term.
One voice
Alone, a remote village is easy to overlook. Organised, the valley cannot be ignored.
03 History
The road so far
-
2019
SUREWA forms as a self-help group of Suguta Valley residents, determined to change the story of a place long called the "valley of insecurity".
-
2019 – 2025
Community advocacy and climate resilience work take hold — civic engagement meetings across the valley, improved water supply, and acacia trees returning with green cover.
-
Today
A community organisation — five programme areas, one organised community, and an open invitation to partners who want to help the valley finish what it started.
04 Organisation & leadership
- Name
- Suguta Resilience Watch (SUREWA)
- Type
- Community organisation
- Founded
- 2019 (as a self-help group)
- Based in
- P.O. Box 221-30500, Lodwar, Kenya
Leadership
The management committee
info@sugutaresiliencewatch.or.ke
SUREWA is governed by a management committee elected by its members, and accountable first to the community assemblies it serves. Every shilling entrusted to SUREWA is allocated in open community barazas, recorded by the management committee and reported back to members and partners.
“The valley speaks for itself — and is heard.”
The Suguta Valley · Northern Rift
Meet the organisation the valley built.
We welcome visits, due-diligence calls and honest questions — from partners, donors and journalists alike.