Purity Busena: Restoring the Land, Reclaiming Belonging: Cultural Performance as Ecological Healing in Kenya

Purity Busena is a community organizer, environmental advocate, and co-founder of Dream Hatch Kenya, a grassroots initiative working at the intersection of ecological restoration, gender equity, and cultural heritage. Based in Ikolomani, Kenya, she leads the Mazingira Community Drive, a youth- and women-led movement that transforms abandoned gold mine sites into productive farmland using regenerative agriculture, tree planting, and community land leasing.

Her unique approach blends land restoration with cultural remediation, using storytelling, traditional Isukuti dance, bullfighting, and theatre to foster ecological belonging and social healing in a community fractured by decades of unregulated mining. A 2023 Bow Seat True Blue Fellow and member of the Future Blue Youth Council, Purity continues to amplify youth and women’s voices through the arts as a tool for climate justice, economic empowerment, and environmental repair.