October 2025 Excellence in Action: Mara North Conservancy Rabies Project, Kenya
In August 2024, GARC recognized its first Rabies Centers of Excellence (RCE), and since then many more organizations have joined our community of dedicated rabies champions. RCEs approach rabies elimination in their community with a keen awareness of local challenges. As part of our Communities against Rabies initiative, we want to showcase the incredible work that they do.
For this month’s Excellence in Action, we want to share the work of Mara North Conservancy Rabies Project (MNCRP), Kenya. In Mara North Conservancy, land is shared in an effort to balance the need for grazing lands for Maasai livestock and wildlife conservation. These are vital elements to help support tourism and the Kenyan economy. At this interface between civilization and wilderness, dogs play a critical role in protecting Maasai families and their grazing herds from the large carnivores (lions, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards) living on the Mara. When dogs are not vaccinated against rabies, they can expose wildlife, livestock, humans, and other dogs to rabies. By protecting dogs and keeping them rabies-free, the MNCRP helps to preserve the fragile health of the entire Maasai Mara ecosystem.
In addition, MNCRP veterinary staff visit schools in the area to teach children about how to prevent dog bites and rabies. Children need to understand the importance of cleaning wounds properly and speaking to an adult as soon as possible. They receive training about responsible dog ownership, veterinary care, dog behavior, preventing dog bites, how to treat dog bites, and the dangers of rabies. MNCRP believes that educating children creates a strong future work force and saves lives by increasing rabies awareness in local communities.
Tell us more about who you are and where you work.
MNCRP operates in Narok County, Kenya, around the Mara North Conservancy. We provide education and vaccination services. We give dog bite and rabies prevention training to local school children. In 2025, we have educated more than 138,000 children in Narok County. We couple school trainings with mobile dog vaccination clinics on weekends. We also deliver door-to-door dog vaccinations in the most rural parts of the county where services are generally unavailable.
What are your biggest challenges in working as an RCE?
There are numerous challenges in this type of work, particularly related to vaccination. My teams contend with a general lack of infrastructure ranging from poor roads to poor cell service, lack of transportation and often non-existent Wi-Fi access. Deficiencies in communication make advertising for vaccination campaigns difficult, which can result in poor community participation because dog owners are simply unaware of the campaigns. When the community only has access to walking, and no other transportation options, the number of animals vaccinated at one clinic is also limited. Clinics must be spaced close together to increase accessibility to vaccination sites. This is labor-intensive and time-consuming work.
Why did you want to be a GARC Rabies Centre of Excellence?
MNCRP is delighted to be one of GARC's Rabies Centers of Excellence! This designation has opened doors for our organization to meet others in the area doing similar work. We have new opportunities for collaboration. Working together allows us to share ideas, as well as our workload.
Do you have any campaigns that you want to highlight for 2025?
Our organization has vaccinated more than 3800 dogs so far this year. Our goal is to reach 5000 vaccinations.
How have you used the GARC resources in your community?
MNCRP uses the Rabies Vaccination Tracker on the GARC Data Platform to record all our dog vaccinations. This makes our work visible to GARC and accountable to our financial supporters. We also use the GARC Education Initiative Tracker to record all our educational events in primary schools. By overlaying education and vaccination maps, we can coordinate our activities and see areas where coverage is missing.
Read more about their incredible work here: https://karenblixencamptrust.org/program/mara-north-conservancy-rabies-project-2/
Contact them at: info@karenblixencamptrust.org
These activities were supported by Boehringer Ingelheim.
The Communities Against Rabies initiative is supported by Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.