Project Status



Project Type:  Protected Spring

Regional Program: Western Kenya WaSH Program

Impact: 350 Served

Project Phase:  In Service - Jul 2018

Functionality Status:  Functional

Last Checkup: 09/10/2024

Project Features


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Community Profile

Chandolo Community is covered with farms where maize, cassava, tea, and beans are grown. People also raise chickens, ducks, dairy cows and goats, and many other animals.

30 households have established themselves around Joseph Ingara Spring, which serves as their main water source. Most of the young children attend nearby Chandolo Primary School, where we've already installed a water source.

Water

Though there's plenty of water to serve 30 households flowing from Joseph Ingara Spring, this water is dirty. The quality is especially bad after the rains wash dirt and all kinds of waste into the water.

The spring pools deep enough for users to dunk their 20-liter jerrycans under the surface. These are held under until full and carried back home on their heads. Water is fetched throughout the day as it's needed because homes don't have larger storage containers.

Not only do these continuous trips waste a lot of time, but they result in illnesses too. Waterborne disease is normal news for those living in Chandolo.

"The biggest setback here is the shortage of safe, clean and adequate water. The water gets dirty as containers are dipped into it. Users have suffered various types of waterborne diseases such as diarrhea," Mrs. Jane Musembe said.

Sanitation

Less than half of households have a pit latrine. Most of these are made of log floors, mud walls, and iron-sheet roofs. These pits are left uncovered when not in use and thus smell terrible, attracting flies that spread disease throughout the community. Open defecation is a huge issue in this community both for the families who lack latrines and those who have them and just don't want to use them.

Here’s what we plan to do about it:

Training

Community members will attend hygiene and sanitation training for at least two days. This training will teach participants 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 inform the community about what they need to contribute to make the construction for 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.

Finally, a committee will be formed that oversees operations and maintenance at the spring. They will enforce proper behavior and delegate tasks that will help preserve the water point, such as building a fence and digging proper drainage.

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

Construction will keep surface runoff and other contaminants out of the water, which means the water will be safe, clean, and adequate.

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 community members like Jane by giving them more time and efforts to engage 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: Chandolo Community, Joseph Ingara Spring

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

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




July, 2018: Chandolo Community Has Safe Water!

Chandolo Community now has clean water! Joseph Ingara 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. These things unlock the opportunity for people to live healthier lives.

New Knowledge

Mr. Josphat Nyadaya was our contact person as we planned for hygiene and sanitation training in Chandolo. We were able to choose a date that was comfortable with most of the community members. The session took place at Rose Ingara's home which since it had a good shady spot where everyone could sit comfortably.

The facilitator demonstrates handwashing as participants watch

The turnout was great, with more people showing up than we expected. The weather was sunny and everyone was comfortable.

Participation from the participants was great; they asked questions and took an active part in all the activities.

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.

Facilitator explaining the Dos and Don'ts of solar disinfection of water

The participants were so eager to learn how to treat water and were so inquisitive when it came to solar water disinfectant. They all agreed that it was the easiest way in which they could treat their water as they would not have to sit and wait for the water to boil.

The participants were taken to the spring so they could see different things they could do to take good care of it. They were also told to always report any issue with us so we could repair it in a timely fashion. There was also a committee that was formed in order to take care of the spring and to ensure certain usage rules are followed.

Learning about caring for spring

"We are very happy about this project and for the hygiene training that we have gotten. There are a lot of things that we had no information about but now we have it," Mrs. Anaya Minayo said.

"We promise to take care of this facility and for whatever we have been told, we will practice them."

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.

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.

Protection of Joseph Ingara spring has come as a blessing to this community. Even coming together to gather the local construction materials brought a unity that has never been experienced in this village.

"We are very pleased with this water point and we will really take good care of it. We know where we have come from with the water problem such that we cannot afford to joke around it when the problem has been solved," Mr. Naboth Manase said.




April, 2018: Chandolo Community Project Underway

Dirty water from Joseph Ingara Spring is making people in Chandolo 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: Chandolo Community, Joseph Ingara Spring

September, 2019

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

Keeping The Water Promise

There's an incredible community of monthly donors who have come alongside you in supporting clean water in Chandolo Community, Joseph Ingara Spring.

This giving community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Chandolo Community, Joseph Ingara Spring 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!

The protection of Jospeh Ingara Spring in Chandolo has brought order, unity, and a great sense of responsibility in sharing common resources within the community. The spring has brought people together, especially during the dry season, when many people come together to find a solution to their water problem from this water point.

The spring users here have learned to face difficult moments with strength and to open their hearts for new learning. As a result, they have become more resilient, reliable, and trustworthy in terms of their ability to conserve, manage, and sustain the available water points within their community.

To ensure that future generations in Chandolo will no longer have to struggle to get water, community members are running an environmentally friendly campaign within their area to replace eucalyptus trees with different species that do not drain and lower the water table like Chandolo once encountered.

It is so encouraging to see community members practice what was learned during the health and hygiene training to the letter. Most compounds are clean, and houses are visibly clean. Clothes are hanged on wire lines and dishes are put on dish racks to dry, and this explains why hygiene-related diseases have decreased here.

The coming of this project has brought positive change in the Chandolo community and this means their living standards will keep on improving, leading to continued development by the community, in the community as an impact of this spring protection.

Landowner Joseph Ingara welcomed us back to his spring to share his story of how the project has changed his community over the last year.

"Protection of Joseph Ingara Spring has come as a blessing to this community. The spring is neat and clean at all times. This beauty acts both as a trigger and a positive reinforcement on the hygiene and sanitation message that is still being perpetuated by the people who were trained on the same. It has also made it easy for the spring users to volunteer to clean the spring weekly. Some feel indebted to us as the landowner and they don't want to disappoint us should the spring be found dirty," he said.

"This has helped in developing a deep sense of responsibility and accountability among the community members because everyone knows the value of this water point. We use it to water our animals, for cooking, bathing, [to] do laundry and [wash] utensils as well for drinking. In addition, we no longer have reported cases of diarrheal diseases when one uses water from this source unlike [how] it was during the baseline survey."

"Members of Chandolo Salvation Army church also fetch water from this source and cases of waterborne and water-related diseases among [attendees there] have reduced. This is not [only] because the water point is safe but also due to the improvement in water handling skills among users. As parents, we feel good that the burden of footing medical costs has been lifted off our shoulders because our children now drink safe water ."

Landowner Joseph Ingara, namesake to the spring

Though decades younger than Mr. Ingara, 12-year-old Stacy Vugutsa was not to be left out in sharing her story about the spring's impact with eloquence and impact.

"Looking back a year ago, I dreaded the mere thought that I should go to fetch water from the spring. It meant carrying a container and a cup or anything else that I had to use in scooping water from the open-source and to fill my bucket. It was an embarrassing scene and a bad experience that today belongs to history."

"Now, [I] am very much [a] happy girl for I am able to rush and collect water from the spring without necessarily having to wade into the dirty water as it was [once] the case. When I drink water from this spring [I] am confident that the water is safe for human consumption. And whenever I wash my clothes and school uniform my joy is that I will be smart and ready to learn without the worry that my clothes could be dirty. Why? The water is clean and rinses clothes so well. One fruit I count to my credit is the pawpaw tree that I planted and irrigated with the water from Joseph Ingara Spring; it helps me appreciate development, however little my contribution could be."

Stacy Vugutsa

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 Chandolo Community, Joseph Ingara Spring 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 Chandolo Community, Joseph Ingara Spring – 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.