Rehabilitation Project
The 500 people in this area primarily rely on the community's women or children waking up at four a.m. each morning to find and fetch surface water. Here, water-fetching is time-consuming and best avoided under the scorching sun when it becomes oppressive.
"We spend most of the day searching for water. Like today, I woke up early, as usual, to fetch water from the surface water located far away. I arrived past midday and [was] tired from carrying water on my back. However, this is a normal routine, and I have had to bear with the situation," shared 39-year-old farmer Marietta Mutua (seen below).
Marietta continued: "The long journey is time-consuming and exhausting, leaving me with little time and effort to conduct activities like farming or improving hygiene standards at home."
The available water sources are four kilometers (2.5 miles) away, so understandably, the journey is tiring and time-consuming.
There is a hand-dug well where some community members choose to fetch water, but the long queues waiting for their turn waste even more time. To collect from the well, they attach their containers, which are inevitably dirty from the journey, to a rope and drop it into the water. Not only is it challenging to haul full heavy water containers back out of the well, but this process surely contaminates the source.
Because of the delays at the well, people choose to collect from open pools of water instead. But this is a hazardous choice, as this water is open to contamination from humans and animals alike.
Once the water's collected, there is still a long journey back home with it on their backs or, if they are fortunate enough to afford one, by donkey.
It is not surprising that after arriving home, people are exhausted. All of the time spent collecting water makes them unable to concentrate on other essential activities like conducting chores, land preparation, or rearing cattle, rendering success unattainable.
Young people are not immune from responsibility and pay high physical and academic prices. Many help collect water for their families or, if they stay home, spend a lot of time waiting for their parents to return from collecting water. Often, meals end up delayed, and children remain hungry.
"I am often requested to carry water to school for cleaning, drinking, or cooking purposes. However, water is scarce at home, and I have to fetch some at the distant surface water [source] before going to school," said 18-year-old student Mila (shown below).
He continued: "Due to such water scarcity issues, I am occasionally late for classes. Like [the] last term, where I had to face disciplinary action from the teacher due to lateness. I was lucky the teacher understood my situation, but in most cases, I am unlucky. I also help my parents fetch water in the evening and [on] weekends, which consumes my play and study time."
"During this and [the] last drought season, my children have had to stay at home because they did not have water to carry to school, which is often requested by the school administration for cleaning, drinking, and cooking," said Marietta.
If that wasn't bad enough, residents also regularly suffer from water-related illnesses like typhoid, amoeba, and dysentery after drinking water from the sources. Doing so causes them to spend their meager earnings on medical care and treatments, extending the reach of their poverty even further.
With a reliable water source near their homes, people should be able to quickly and efficiently collect water and get back to doing essential things. And hopefully, this will reserve their energy and finances to improve their daily lives.
Note: Our proposed water point can only serve 300 people per day. We are working with the community to identify other water solutions that will ensure all 500 people in the community have access to safe and reliable drinking water.
What We Can Do:
Reliable Water
Our main entry point into this community has been the Self-Help Group, which comprises households working together to address water and food scarcity in their region. These members will be our hands and feet in constructing water projects and spreading the message of good hygiene and sanitation to everyone.
Hand-Dug Well
This particular hand-dug well will be built adjacent to a sand dam project, which will supply clean drinking water once it rains. We have provided the group with the tools needed for excavation. With the guidance of our artisans and mechanics, the excavated well will be cased, sealed with a well pad, and then finished with a new AfriDev pump.
Excavation takes a month or more on average, depending on the nature of the rock beneath. Construction of the well lining and installation of the pump takes 12 days maximum. The well will be lined with a concrete wall including perforations so that once it rains, water will filter in from the sand dam.
This well will bring clean water closer to families.
New Knowledge
These community members currently do their best to practice good hygiene and sanitation, but their severe lack of water has significantly hindered reaching their fullest potential.
We will hold hygiene and sanitation training sessions with the Self-Help Group and other community members to teach essential hygiene practices and daily habits to establish at the personal, household, and community levels. This training will help to ensure that participants have the knowledge they need to make the most out of their new water point as soon as the water is flowing.
One of the most important topics we plan to cover is handling, storage, and water treatment. Having a clean water source will be extremely helpful, but it is useless if water gets contaminated when it is consumed. We will also emphasize the importance of handwashing.
The community and we firmly believe that all of these components will work together to improve living standards here, which will help to unlock the potential for these community members to live better, healthier lives.
We typically work with self-help groups for 3 to 5 years on multiple water projects. We will conduct follow-up visits and refresher training during this period and remain in contact with the group after all of the projects are completed to support their efforts to improve sanitation and hygiene.
