The most amazing this about this photograph is that it doesn’t even begin to tell the story of what will happen in this place. Yet, so often, we get caught up in images like these. Don’t get me wrong, there is every reason to. The first drops of clean, safe water for a school bring […]

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time with a men’s support group in Changamwe recently, an informal urban settlement on the main Nairobi road out of Mombasa. They have developed a proposal for a sanitation block in their community, involving three or four flush toilets and a shower. The idea is that people will […]

In some areas of Kenya – like where I live in Coast Province, finding clean water is almost impossible. With little rain and salty groundwater, people travel for miles with jerry cans to find fresh springs or river beds where they can dig for water. For us, the question is often not “Do we want […]

Yesterday I visited an Informal Urban Settlement in Mombasa, in an area called Likoni. Informal Urban Settlements, or slums, are areas characterised by poor housing and squalor, where the population lack official land tenure rights. Globally, more than 1 billion people live in slums, a figure that is rising all the time as people move […]

I recently had a meeting with a local NGO here in Coast Province called Community Link International. They are a small and embryonic team, primarily made up of Margaret and Musyoka, with a couple of part time field staff. They’ve been registered as an NGO for about a year, but can collectively draw upon a […]

  Today is World Water Day (http://www.worldwaterday.org/), the annual global day of events that grew out of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The focus changes every year, with the theme this year  titled ‘Water for Cities’. The last 20 years has seen a massive shift […]

  Ever wondered what sustainability means? People use it a lot in our line of work, usually when thinking about the IMPACT development work has. I thought I’d try and go for a definition today as I sit here thinking about how to get more of it! Interested? Have a read of this and tell […]

Since I last posted, I’ve been over to Western Kenya to visit our partner Bridge Water Project. It’s been great to visit old friends, and to get involved in the day to day activities of a local development organisation. I’ll try and post a longer piece on some of the things we got up to […]

Last time I wrote on here, I briefly mentioned that the groundwater here is saline. It’s not good for drinking, yet most people drink it. Only the wealthy are able to consistently buy bottled mineral water. As I was walking through town the other day, I saw a sign – ‘Dutch Water Limited’. As is […]