A Year Later: Shikoti Community

A year ago, generous donors helped Ambale Spring for Shikoti Community in Kenya. The contributions of incredible monthly donors and others giving directly to The Water Promise allow teams to visit project sites throughout the year, strengthening relationships with communities and evaluating the water project over time. These consistent visits allow us to learn vital lessons and hear amazing stories – and we’re excited to share this one from Janet Kayi with you.

Life for people in Shikoti Community has improved significantly since the protection of Ambale Spring. The impact of the project is felt when visiting with the community members - The warm welcome tells it all. And the beautiful smiles on their faces show thanks for improved lives and money saved that they use to spend on treatment for waterborne diseases.

Women and children are happy and enjoy fetching clean and safe water for drinking. Families now cover their containers and are observing other lessons learned from the hygiene and sanitation training.

"We use to drink contaminated water from this spring before it was protected and we used to suffer from waterborne diseases," Jenipher Makokha said.

"We now have access to clean and safe water for drinking. We practice good hygiene by keeping our environment clean."

Jenipher Makokha and Josephine Muyuka

Protection of the spring is only one step along the journey toward sustainable access to clean water. The Water Project is committed to consistent monitoring of each water source. Our monitoring and evaluation program, made possible by donors like you, allows us to maintain our relationships with communities by visiting up to 4 times each year to ensure that the water points are safe and reliable.

This is just one of the many ways that we monitor projects and communicate with you. Additionally, you can always check the functionality status and our project map to see how all of our water points are performing, based on our consistent monitoring data.

One project is just a drop in the bucket towards ending the global water crisis, but the ripple effects of this project are truly astounding. This spring in Shikoti is changing many lives.

Josephine Muyuka was one of the families who had a brand new sanitation platform built for her household. She is happy and encouraged because of the new latrine.

"Now I understand the importance of good hygiene practice after I acquired knowledge on the same. I comfortably clean the latrine using water, something that I never used to do," she said.

This is only possible because of the web of support and trust built between The Water Project, our local teams, the community, and you. We are excited to stay in touch with this community and support their journey with safe water.

Read more about The Water Promise and how you can help.