Project Status



Project Type:  Protected Spring

Regional Program: Western Kenya WaSH Program

Impact: 420 Served

Project Phase:  In Service - Dec 2017

Functionality Status:  Functional

Last Checkup: 03/07/2024

Project Features


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Community Profile

The routine for people living in Futsi Fuvili Village is the same everyday, with people waking up as early as 5:30 AM. Men and women share most of the day's chores, which start with either of the two milking the cows and preparing breakfast for the children. Most children need to leave by 6:30 AM for school. Water is fetched to be used in various household chores. The compound is then cleaned, animals are taken out for grazing, and the rest of family members either head out to the farm, or downtown in search of casual work. Most of the people in this community generate their livelihood from farm products that they sell during market days.

Farmers here specialize in growing sugarcane to sell to the Butali Sugar Company. Other popular crops are maize, beans, bananas, and arrow root.

Water Situation

Futsi Fuvili Spring is the main water source in Futsi Fuvili. It is unprotected and open to contamination from animal and human activity as well as surface runoff during and after the rains, when waste is washed into the water. The water is mainly used for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, watering animals, and irrigating plants.

20-liter jerrycans are brought to the spring, along with a smaller cup or jug that is used to bail water. When delivered back home, water is kept in these jerrycans until they need to be filled again. Some of the water is poured into clay pots that keep it cool enough for drinking.

Despite the long dry period that has affected the entire country, springs in this location have not dried. There's even enough water for locals to water their plants and thus provide food for their families. But after consuming this water, people suffer from waterborne diseases, especially the vulnerable young and old.

Sanitation Situation

The parents who have pit latrines are constantly in fear that they will collapse with them or their children inside. The conditions are pathetic, as most of them are mud-thatched and almost impossible to clean. A little over half of households in Futsi Fuvili have their own pit latrine, with the others either sharing with a neighbor or seeking the privacy of bushes. Miss Makero said, "The able community members managed to build up their own pit latrines, but which have no lasted, those who weren't able, relieve themselves in the bushes. This endangers our own lives, with children complaining of stomach upsets. We therefore hope some assistance will come soon."

There are few hand-washing stations, nor are there many helpful tools like dish racks or clotheslines. Garbage, whether compostable or not, is all thrown behind the house.

Plans: Hygiene and Sanitation Training

Community members will attend hygiene and sanitation training for at least two days. This training will ensure participants are no longer ignorant 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.

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.

Plans: Sanitation Platforms

On the final day of training, participants will select five families that should benefit from new latrines.

Training will also inform the community and selected families on 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. The five families must prepare by sinking a pit for the sanitation platforms to be placed over. All community members must work together to make sure that accommodations and food are always provided for the work teams.

Plans: Spring Protection

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 the female members of the community by giving them more time and efforts to engage and invest in income-generating activities.

In addition, 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. This community is particularly needy, with a dirty water source and poor living standards; living below a dollar a day, they have no money to get medical care for treating the diseases that affect them. This spring protection will help them stay healthy and not need that medical care!

Project Updates


September, 2018: A Year Later: Futsi Fuvili Community

A year ago, generous donors helped protect a spring for Futsi Fuvili 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. Read more...




December, 2017: Futsi Fuvili Community Project Complete

Futsi Fuvili Spring in Futsi Fuvili Community, Kenya is now a protected, clean source of water thanks to your donation. The spring is protected from contamination, five sanitation platforms have been provided for the community, and training has been given in sanitation and hygiene. Imagine the changes that all of these resources are going to bring for these residents! You made it happen!  Now, want to do a bit more? Join our team of monthly donors and help us maintain this spring protection and many other projects.

We just updated the project page with the latest pictures, so make sure to check them out! And please enjoy the rest of the report from our partner in Kenya:

Project Result: New Knowledge

We worked with the village elder to mobilize the community to attend hygiene and sanitation training. We met together on the community church's land, with good attendance and participation.

Two of our facilitators 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, environmental hygiene, hygiene promotion, and many others.

Demonstrations were some of the most popular parts of the training, with participants enjoying getting their hands involved. We did this with hand-washing, teaching the 10 steps of washing with soap and running water. And since we were already near the spring, we were able to teach about proper spring use, management, and simple maintenance.

Participants look on as hand-washing is demonstrated with clean water and soap.

Participants were lively, and they performed very well during our final review session.

Project Result: Sanitation Platforms

All five sanitation platforms have been installed and are ready for use. These five families are happy about this milestone and are optimistic that there will be much less open defecation. People without proper latrines would often use the privacy of bushes, but now have a private place of their own. It is expected that proper use of latrine facilities provided by the sanitation platforms will go a long way in reducing environmental pollution here. We are continuing to encourage families to finish building walls and roofs over their new latrine floors.

This woman's husband has already begun building the superstructure for their new latrine.

Project Result: Spring Protection

Community members provided all locally available construction materials, e.g bricks, wheelbarrows of clean sand, wheelbarrows of ballast, fencing poles and hard core (crushed rock and gravel). Accommodation and food for the artisan were provided, and we asked a few people to volunteer their time and strength to help the artisan with manual labor. However, we found community members with no motivation to help us by collecting the stones and sand we needed to finish construction. The field officer decided to take community members to a neighboring village to see the protected spring we did there. Once Futsi Fuvili's people saw that clean water flowing, they were motivated to do everything they could to help our artisan.

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 head wall to direct the water from the reservoir to the drawing area.

As the wing walls and head wall were curing, the stairs were set and the tiles were fixed directly below the discharge pipe. This reduces the erosive force of the falling water and beautifies the spring. The process of plastering the head wall 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.

Lastly, the base of the spring was plastered and the collection box was cleaned. The source area was filled up with clean hardcore and covered with a polyethylene membrane to eliminate any potential sources of contamination. Community members then helped us plant grass and dig cutoff drains to direct surface water away from the spring box.

This process has transformed Futsi Fuvili Spring into a clean water source. People gathered to celebrate this transformation and fetch their first buckets of clean water. Mr. Fanual Tuya was there to say, "As a young community, we have had a number of people who have come with promises of helping us have access to clean water, but now you came in and have implemented the project in the shortest time possible. I know that our children will now have a future assured of good health all thanks to your intervention. We are saying goodbye to water-related diseases."

Sofia Wakhunu added, "Speaking as a woman it has been my desire to have this water source protected. Growing up I was forced by circumstances to believe that there was nothing wrong with the water, and so we lived on; but deep down I knew with the increase in population things would not remain the same. My children are now assured of good health due to the available clean water, and I am so happy this has happened in my witnessing."




October, 2017: Futsi Fuvili Community Project Underway

Futsi Fuvili Community will soon have a clean, safe source of water thanks to your donation. Community members have been drinking contaminated water from Futsi Fuvili Spring, and often suffer physical illnesses after doing so. Our partner conducted a survey of the area and deemed it necessary to protect the spring, build new sanitation platforms (safe, easy-to-clean concrete floors for latrines), and conduct sanitation and hygiene training. Thanks to your generosity, waterborne disease will no longer be a challenge for the families drinking the spring’s water. We look forward to sharing more details with you as they come! But for now, please take some time to check out the report containing community information, pictures, and maps.




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!


A Year Later: Futsi Fuvili Community

September, 2018

Community members in Futsi Fuvili are working together to improve each other’s lives, thanks to the protected spring and what they learned about improved sanitation and hygiene.

Keeping The Water Promise

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

This giving community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Futsi Fuvili Community 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!

A year ago, generous donors helped protect a spring for Futsi Fuvili 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 Christine Luvandwa with you.


The lives of people in Futsi Fuvili have changed in terms of improved sanitation and hygiene. It is a concern that has finally captured the whole village. People are working together to keep the spring clean and ensure everyone is following the lessons they learned during hygiene and sanitation training.

This is evidenced by the fact that community members are working together to ensure homesteads are clean and that the lives of the children are protected. They are achieving it by undertaking good practices such as general communal cleaning, encouraging others to dig latrines, installing handwashing stations, and also cleaning the spring.

"My mother is now more keen on issues of hygiene and sanitation," Florence Opiya, a 13-year-old girl, said.

"She makes sure we clean our hands properly and we handle food and water properly as well. These are changes that have made the home environment more fun to be in."

Protectection 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 Futsi Fuvili Community is changing many lives.

"We used to spend a lot of time fetching water and had to spend more time treating it to ensure it is safe for use," Josephine Joel said. "We are happier and better people now because we know we have clean and safe water. We are not worried anymore about water-related diseases."

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.


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 Futsi Fuvili Community 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 Futsi Fuvili Community – 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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