A Year Later: "I can achieve a lot with this water."

“Before the construction of this sand dam, life was very hard because we would hustle a lot for water. We used to trek for several kilometers, especially during dry seasons," said 43-year-old farmer Anastacia Kamwethya, describing life before we installed a sand dam in her community last year.

"Children were forced to use their play time in fetching water just after they [checked] back from school, or even before attending school. This, at times, made it difficult for the child to love the school and therefore end up missing lessons," Anastacia said.

Community members had to wait for the rains to come and for the sand dam to collect water, but that has finally happened, and the sand dam is beginning to make a difference.

“In the past year, I did not grow anything using the water from the sand dam as [back] then, the sand dam was dry. [But now], since [the] rains came, I am planning to implement my agriculture plans which I’d planned before the sand dam was implemented. I will grow sukuma wiki (collard greens), spinach, and bananas for both domestic and commercial use.”

“After constructing this sand dam, life has changed a lot. Life is now bearable. I can achieve a lot with this water now. I no longer walk several kilometers to get water. I only have to wake up at the right time, get water and go back to my farm to do other activities like growing crops and preparing the shamba (farm)," concluded Anastacia.

Anastacia pumping water at the well.