A way of life driven by community and friendship
Vipingo Ridge is founded on the promise to enrich the lives of local communities and leads the industry in both social and environmental responsibility. Through fair employment policies, environmental standards, sustainable partnerships, projects and more, Vipingo Ridge works hard to ensure this development is beneficial to all.
Vipingo and Schools
Over the years, Vipingo Ridge has been supporting local village schools offering the much needed funds to build or rehabilitate classrooms and toilet facilities for their students. Other initiatives have included the donation of trophies, the gradation of access roads and provision of new water tanks so that the children can have access to clean water whilst at school.
Vipingo Villages
Vipingo Ridge provides free firewood, palm fronds and fruit from the estate to the local communities as part of the brand’s promise for social responsibility. The Ridge also works closely with the Kuruwitu Conservation and Welfare Association, offering employment to their members, actively supporting their projects and helping them financially. During Covid, Vipingo Ridge donated local villages with medical masks and information on how to avoid contracting the disease to reduce the spread.
Local Support
85% of Vipingo Ridge employees come from surrounding communities and there is a strict policy in place to improve the gender balance by hiring women as greens-keepers. In addition to employment and career opportunities, an impressive number of CSR programmes have been put in place to improve standards of living. Vipingo Ridge not only helps with community education, but with everyday needs such as access to water and better sanitation for vulnerable people in the area. Centrally located storage tanks with collection points for clean water have been installed and are maintained by Vipingo Ridge. Water deliveries are made to various villages during the dry season and local school buildings are upgraded -all part of the on-going community support.
Kuruwitu conservation
Kuruwitu was Kenya’s first Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) on the Kenyan coast. The aim of KCWA was to minimise the reliance of the local community on fishing within the reef. They did this by offering them alternative job opportunities as well as improving their welfare with projects such as school education programmes, assistance to the Kuruwitu women’s group, water projects and various youth empowerment schemes. Marine research, Turtles Alive and Tourism initiatives are just three of the projects that have been activated at Kuruwitu beach, to find better ways of preserving marine life and supporting livelihoods.
Kitchen Gardens
Via Kuruwitu, the kitchen garden at Vipingo Ridge has been allocated to Oceans Alive to manage and maintain. Being run by a local women’s group, the garden supplies the restaurants on site with fresh organic produce but also offers the opportunity to sell any surplus for a profit. Through this initiative, these members of the local community are also being educated on food security issues and sustainable practices, such as producing eco-charcoal from natural waste collected from the golf course.
