Water for Koliech: Keep Our Girls Safe and in School

My name is Maryline Grace Awuor. I live in Koliech, Homa Bay County, Kenya — a village of farmers and fishermen on the edge of Lake Victoria.

Every year, for more than six months, our village has no water.

No borehole. No pipe. No pump. When the dry season comes, the only water is the lake — eight miles away on foot. That is the walk our girls make. Every single day. Some of them are eleven years old.

What water scarcity does to girls

I have watched girls arrive home from that walk too tired to study. I have watched girls stop coming to school entirely — they became the family's water carrier and never came back. And I have watched what happens when a young girl walks eight miles through lonely terrain, alone.

She becomes vulnerable.

Some of our girls were approached along that road by bodaboda motorcycle operators. Some came home pregnant. They did not choose that life. They were exhausted, isolated, and trying to survive.

This is why I run GPAK Girls — Girls Pride Africa Kenya (gpakgirls.org). We work with adolescent mothers and pregnant girls aged 13 to 23 in Homa Bay County. We help them back into school, into health care, into a future. But every year, the same drought sends us more girls. The same road takes more of them.

I keep asking: what if we stopped this at the source?

One borehole changes everything

Clean water in Koliech means:

Girls stay in school instead of spending their days fetching water

Girls are no longer walking 8 miles alone through isolated areas

Women have time to farm, grow food, and earn income

Waterborne illnesses — which are constant here — drop significantly

The whole community eats better, because water unlocks agriculture

Everything GPAK Girls works to repair after the fact — the pregnancy, the dropout, the lost potential — water prevents before it happens.

Why The Water Project

The Water Project already works in Western Kenya. I trust their model because they don't just drill and leave. They train community members to maintain the system, they follow up, and they report back to donors with real updates. Your money goes to real infrastructure, not overhead.

What your donation does

$25 provides clean water for one person for years

$150 helps cover part of the site survey and drilling preparation

$500 is a significant step toward the pump and casing

$1,000 brings us noticeably closer to the day the water flows

Every dollar counts. Every share of this page counts.

Koliech is not waiting for a miracle. It is waiting for water. Please help us bring it.

With deep gratitude,
Maryline Grace Awuor
GPAK Girls, Koliech, Homa Bay County, Kenya
gpakgirls.org