Project Status



Project Type:  Protected Spring

Regional Program: Western Kenya WaSH Program

Impact: 210 Served

Project Phase:  In Service - May 2018

Functionality Status:  Functional

Last Checkup: 11/06/2024

Project Features


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Community Profile

Fetching water, cultivating land, shepherding animals, going to prayer meetings, smearing houses with cow dung to keep away jiggers, picking tea, and brewing and drinking alcohol are some of the daily activities that take place in Bumavi. Many local men have embraced alcohol, leaving the brunt of hard work to their wives. These women must work extraordinarily hard to provide food, do chores, and pay school fees for their children. When the children are out of school, they work alongside their mothers.

Water

This community has tried to get clean water for years. They've known that if they protect Esther Spring, water will no longer be contaminated. Unfortunately, this area has been ravaged by malaria and HIV/AIDS, and money dwindles as people care for their loved ones.

Thus, the dirty water from Esther Spring must meet everybody's needs, from drinking to cleaning. Community members constantly suffer from diarrhea. If they could afford go to the clinic for help each time, they'd most likely be diagnosed with typhoid.

Hygiene and Sanitation

Less than half of families living in this part of Bumavi have a pit latrine. The ones we observed are almost full, with very wide pits that endanger small children. Some don't even have doors, so there's no privacy. Because of these poor conditions, some families who have a latrine don't even use them. The other families either share with a neighbor or seek the privacy found behind other buildings or bushes.

Hand-washing is not practiced here, nor are there many sanitation tools like dish racks or clotheslines for keeping things off the ground and clean.

Melody Andaye said, "This community is dirty everywhere, and we shall prevent many diseases caused by poor health as a result of the training that you will bring."

Here’s what we plan to do about it:

Training

Community members will attend hygiene and sanitation training to give them a chance to learn about healthy practices and their importance. The facilitator plans to use PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation), CLTS (Community-Led Total Sanitation), ABCD (Asset-Based Community Development), group discussions, handouts, and demonstrations at the spring. One of the most important topics we plan to cover is the handling, storage, and treatment of water. Having a clean water source will be extremely helpful, but it is useless if water gets contaminated by the time it’s consumed.

Hand-washing will also be a big topic. And since open defecation was encountered here, this is at the top of our list of things to address. Waste always needs to be disposed of properly, or else it will be spread by flies or rainwater.

Training will also result in the formation of a committee that will oversee operations and maintenance at the spring. They will enforce proper behavior around the spring and delegate tasks that will help preserve the site, such as building a fence and digging proper drainage.

Training will inform the committee and the rest of the community about what they need to contribute to make this project a success. They must mobilize locally available materials, such as bricks, clean sand, hardcore, and ballast. All community members must work together to make sure that accommodations and food are always provided for the work teams.

Sanitation Platforms

On the final day of training, participants will select five families that should benefit from new latrine floors. The five families must prepare by sinking a pit for the sanitation platforms to be placed over.

Spring Protection

Protecting the spring will ensure that the water is safe, adequate and secure. Construction will keep surface runoff and other contaminants out of the water.

Fetching water is predominantly a female role, done by both women and young girls. Protecting the spring and offering training and support will therefore help empower female community members like Melody by giving them more time and efforts to engage and invest in income-generating activities.

This project is a part of our shared program with Western Water And Sanitation Forum (WEWASAFO). Our team is pleased to provide the reports for this project (formatted and edited for readability) thanks to the hard work of our friends in Kenya.

Project Updates


September, 2019: Giving Update: Bumavi Community, Esther Spring

A year ago, your generous donation helped Bumavi Community in Kenya access clean water.

There’s an incredible community of monthly donors who have come alongside you in supporting clean water at Esther Spring in Bumavi. Month after month, their giving supports ongoing sustainability programs that help this community maintain access to safe, reliable water. Read more…




May, 2018: Clean Water for Bumavi Community

Bumavi Community now has clean water! Esther Spring has been transformed into a flowing source of clean water thanks to your donation. The spring is protected from contamination, five sanitation platforms have been provided for the community, and training has been done on sanitation and hygiene.

New Knowledge

Mr. Wicliffe Magomere was our contact person as we planned for hygiene and sanitation training in Bumavi. He kept in constant communication with us and his neighbors, going door to door to invite each household to attend. The turnout was great, with the young and old, male and female waiting there eager to learn. The people come in large numbers because we met on a weekend.

We handed out notebooks and pens for community members to record or draw what they learned.

We covered several topics including leadership and governance; operation and maintenance of the spring; healthcare; family planning; immunizations; the spread of disease and prevention. We also covered water treatment methods, personal care like handwashing, environmental hygiene, hygiene promotion, and many other things.

Discussing ways to treat water so it's safe at the time of consumption.

Participants were especially excited about the session on project monitoring. This explained how the community would be responsible for working closely with us to monitor the quality of their clean water source over the next years. This assured them that this partnership isn't just a quick project, but is longterm and is meant to spur development and transform lives. The participants came up with a committee that will be in charge of the spring. This committee will lead the rest in forming rules and regulations to govern spring use.

"The officers have stressed the value of making sacrifices. We have contributed material and helped the skilled artisan with the construction process," the committee chairperson, John Jiseve, stood up and said.

"I assure you that whoever is found messing with our beautifully built spring will be answerable to the area chief because we cannot afford to have it broken within a short time."

Mr. John Jiseve, the water user committee chairman.

Sanitation Platforms

All five sanitation platforms have been installed. These five families are happy about this milestone of having a private latrine of their own and are optimistic that people will no longer leave waste outdoors. We are continuing to encourage families to finish building walls and roofs over their new latrine floors.

Spring Protection

Community members provided all locally available construction materials, e.g bricks, wheelbarrows of clean sand, wheelbarrows of ballast, fencing poles and gravel. Accommodations and meals were provided for the artisan, too.

A woman harvesting sand to be used in spring protection construction.

Men and women lent their strength to the artisan to help him with manual labor. The spring area was excavated to create space for setting the foundation of polyethylene, wire mesh and concrete. After the base had been set, both wing walls and the headwall were set in place using brickwork. The discharge pipe was fixed low in place through the headwall to direct the water from the reservoir to the drawing area.

As the wing walls and headwall were curing, the stairs were set and ceramic tiles were fixed directly below the discharge pipe. This protects the concrete from the erosive force of the falling water and beautifies the spring. The process of plastering the headwall and wing walls on both sides reinforces the brickwork and prevents water from the reservoir from seeping through the walls and allows pressure to build in the collection box to push water up through the discharge pipe.

The source area was filled up with clean stones and sand and covered with a polyethylene membrane to eliminate any potential sources of contamination. It took about two weeks of patience for the concrete to dry.

"The spring now looks so attractive, neat and safe to go in and fetch water from," Mrs. Calistus Amalemba said.

"We are humbled and we feel so uplifted in spirit because of the new water point. We are confident that the water gotten from this point is safe for human consumption and thus our medical expenses due to waterborne diseases will be a thing of the past. The savings accrued due to the rescue of the spring will help us start small business enterprises!"




March, 2018: Bumavi Community Project Underway

Dirty water from Esther Spring is making people in Bumavi Community sick. Thanks to your generosity, we’re working to install a clean water point and much more.

Get to know your community through the narrative and pictures we’ve posted, and read about this water, sanitation and hygiene project. We look forward to reaching out with more good news!




Project Photos


Project Type

Springs are water sources that come from deep underground, where the water is filtered through natural layers until it is clean enough to drink. Once the water pushes through the surface of the Earth, however, outside elements like waste and runoff can contaminate the water quickly. We protect spring sources from contamination with a simple waterproof cement structure surrounding layers of clay, stone, and soil. This construction channels the spring’s water through a discharge pipe, making water collection easier, faster, and cleaner. Each spring protection also includes a chlorine dispenser at the waterpoint so community members can be assured that the water they are drinking is entirely safe. Learn more here!


Giving Update: Bumavi Community, Esther Spring

September, 2019

A year ago, your generous donation helped Bumavi Community in Kenya access clean water – creating a life-changing moment for Eunice Shibale. Thank you!

Keeping The Water Promise

There's an incredible community of monthly donors who have come alongside you in supporting clean water in Bumavi Community 2.

This giving community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Bumavi Community 2 maintain access to safe, reliable water. Together, they keep The Water Promise.

We’re confident you'll love joining this world-changing group committed to sustainability!

Since the protection of Esther Spring in Bumavi last year, the improved access to clean and safe water in this community has helped reduce incidences of waterborne diseases that were once a very big problem. The situation would get worse during the dry season when people would fight for water and young children would be left last in line at the spring since there was pushing and pulling at the water point. Algae in the water used to be a problem as well, hence making the water they used to get not safe for consumption.

Today, all that has changed.

Women now get water without struggle, and children have been enabled to go to school without fear of contracting diseases from their water at home. They now carry drinking water from the spring to school and can get enough water when they come back home (though we are working with their school to see if we can help provide a source of clean water right on school grounds!). Community members no longer have to work as hard or wait as long to fetch water, and the burden of treating diseases related to water and sanitation has also reduced.

The community has really shown that they love and appreciate their spring. They have kept sanitation standards high around the spring, and the drainage channels are cleared and well-directed. This is done by both the young and older users of the spring. In addition, they have a chlorine dispenser near the spring that is well taken care of and helps to ensure that their water is free from harmful bacteria.

"Cases of children struggling at the water point has been reduced since the spring was protected," said Eunice Shibale, who serves as Treasurer of the water committee in Bumavi.

Eunice told us how there used to be pockets of deep water near the spring that would pool up, exposing children to the risk of drowning, but this is no longer the case.

"Cases of absenteeism in schools due to cases such as diarrhea from waterborne diseases have been minimized," Eunice continued. "This has led to improved academic performance. [Due to the] clean water and knowledge of proper hygiene practices, parents are now helping their children to practice personal hygiene and sanitation. This has reduced the spread of disease in schools and among the villagers as well," Eunice said.

6-year-old boy Justin Mbone, who along with his family depends on Esther Spring for their daily water needs, also shared how the project has impacted him.

"We are happy that we get clean water from the spring. My mother does not struggle unlike before [when] she could go to fetch water and take a lot of time since many people were [there] and [they] could struggle. Sometimes I would fear [going to] fetch water if sent by my mother since the water was too much for me and the drawing point was not well made. This meant that I could not go alone, yet the water point is just next to our house. Right now, I can easily run to the spring and get my mother water."

From left to right: Eunice, Justin, Field Officer Laura Alulu, and another community member

Navigating through intense dry spells, performing preventative maintenance, conducting quality repairs when needed and continuing to assist community leaders to manage water points are all normal parts of keeping projects sustainable. The Water Promise community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Bumavi Community 2 maintain access to safe, reliable water.

We’d love for you to join this world-changing group committed to sustainability.

The most impactful way to continue your support of Bumavi Community 2 – and hundreds of other places just like this – is by joining our community of monthly givers.

Your monthly giving will help provide clean water, every month... keeping The Water Promise.


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