Who Is Waterkeeper: Millicent Olal-Muchilwa, North Basin Lake Victoria Waterkeeper

May 20, 2026

Millicent Olal-Muchilwa credits her children as the reason she became North Basin Lake Victoria Waterkeeper. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, her children were out of school. Two of her then teenaged children, Jeremy and Michelle, wanted to explore alternative ways of schooling. They immediately became interested in ocean studies.

“Michelle was always interested in science, and Jeremy always wanted to take things apart and see how they work, even laptops,” says Millicent. “They eventually wanted to do a bootcamp that began very early in the morning, which was surprising since they would usually never get out of bed for anything.”

However, Millicent’s teenagers had found their passion and would easily rise as early as 3:00 am to attend virtual classes and do their coursework. After their school work was done, the children would want to go to the shores of Lake Victoria to photograph and document litter.

Next, Michelle and Jeremy told their mother that they wanted to rid Lake Victoria of plastic pollution. Millicent laughed and wished her children good luck with this seemingly impossible goal. Still, the children persisted in pestering their mother for help. Millicent realized that she would not win this battle and took her children to meet researchers at the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute.

Millicent was astonished to see her children hold their own in these meetings. The children were encouraged to keep up their work and even referred to more experts at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Institute, who also agreed that the children were on to something, but stressed that they needed to collect more data before proceeding. So, naturally, Millicent’s children began holding weekly beach cleanups.

Truthfully, Millicent’s children hadn’t introduced her to this movement. They had re-introduced her. In years past, Millicent was very involved. She would write letters and share petitions and speak up at public meetings. She had even earned herself the title of “rabble rouser.” Tragically, speaking up for the environment in Kenya can be a dangerous endeavor. Two protestors lost their lives earlier this year for speaking out against a gold mine.  For these reasons and more, Millicent thought her advocacy days were long behind her. That was until her kids demanded she get back involved.

“Michelle and Jeremy dragged me back into this,” says MIllicent. “Every time I said no, Michelle would change tact. She would say, ‘your generation messed this up. Where were you when the lake got so degraded? My older sister and I got to eat so many fish when we were young, and our younger siblings do not.’ It hit hard.”

In 2025, Millicent decided to follow her children’s lead – and urging – and became the North Basin Lake Victoria Waterkeeper.

Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. By way of fishing, transportation, recreation, and industrial uses, the lake supports the livelihoods of over 40 million people living across three East African nations. It plays a crucial role in regulating the local climate and its remaining wetlands filter wastewater from urban and agricultural areas.

Furthermore, it is beautiful.

“We like to refer to it as our little ocean,” says Millicent. “Unending water with undulating hills. The fresh breeze, the wildlife. Calmness comes upon you. Even if you are angry or depressed, you find your spirits just lift up. We don’t take it for granted. We are very lucky to live by the shores.”

Sadly, it is not all bucolic beauty. The lake faces many threats, including surface runoff, industrial sewage, and algal blooms that deny living organisms within the lake of oxygen. Millicent reports that over 300 species of fish have disappeared from the lake, which of course, impacts birds, insects, and mammals. There is even mercury in the lake. What’s missing from the lake is any kind of real regulation, oversight, or protection.

A potential future threat comes by way of a nuclear power plant that is being proposed on the shores of Lake Victoria. Millicent feels the project is being done in secret and is demanding more transparency. She wants to know what the impact will be on water quality, what will be done with the nuclear waste, and how wildlife will be affected.

“Imagine all those fish that my children won’t see because we were so careless and just did what we wanted to do. What we are pushing for now is for the lake to be protected, so we can begin the work of restoration as opposed to dealing with new problems,” says Millicent. “If you listen to how the old people talk about the lake, they refer to the lake as mother. And then we come in and just mess up because we don’t want to be accountable to one another. It’s really sad.”

In the meantime, Millicent and her precocious children are hard at work advocating for the lake and coming up with innovative ways to protect it. Jeremy and Michelle have organized a summit for youth where kids from around the world virtually meet to discus what they need to do about their respective waterways. Millicent’s children have also developed an app to help collect and document plastic pollution so users can identify where the plastic item was produced. There’s even plans for a “Save Lake Victoria” running race in September.

“We need people to understand that this is our lake and we need to protect it,” says Millicent. “One of the things I want to be remembered for is that I did my best and made enough kids aware of what’s going on.”

It’s safe to say that Millicent has at least made two kids very aware of the situation.