Ulagai Community, Rose Obare Spring

May, 2020: COVID-19 Prevention Training Update at Ulagai Community, Rose Obare Spring

Our teams are working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Join us in our fight against the virus while maintaining access to clean, reliable water.

Passing out informational pamphlets on COVID-19

We are carrying out awareness and prevention trainings on the virus in every community we serve. Very often, our teams are the first (and only) to bring news and information of the virus to rural communities like Ulagai, Kenya.

A woman shows her pamphlet written in her Dholuo language

We trained more than 34 people on the symptoms, transmission routes, and prevention of COVID-19. Due to public gathering concerns, we worked with trusted community leaders to gather a select group of community members who would then relay the information learned to the rest of their family and friends.

Trainer emphasizes social distancing and handwashing as key preventive practices

We covered essential hygiene lessons:

- Demonstrations on how to build a simple handwashing station

- Proper handwashing technique

- The importance of using soap and clean water for handwashing

- Cleaning and disinfecting commonly touched surfaces including at the water point.

Handwashing demonstration with a young volunteer

We covered COVID-19-specific guidance in line with national and international standards:

- Information on the symptoms and transmission routes of COVID-19

- What social distancing is and how to practice it

- How to cough into an elbow

- Alternative ways to greet people without handshakes, fist bumps, etc.

- How to make and properly wear a facemask.

Some community members came prepared wearing face masks

During training, we installed a new handwashing station with soap near the community’s water point, along with a sign with reminders of what we covered.

Explaining the prevention reminders chart

Due to the rampant spread of misinformation about COVID-19, we also dedicated time to a question and answer session to help debunk rumors about the disease and provide extra information where needed.

Community Health Worker speaks at training

We continue to stay in touch with this community as the pandemic progresses. We want to ensure their water point remains functional and their community stays informed about the virus.

Installing the chart at the spring

Water access, sanitation, and hygiene are at the crux of disease prevention. You can directly support our work on the frontlines of COVID-19 prevention in all of the communities we serve while maintaining their access to safe, clean, and reliable water.

August, 2018: Ulagai Community Project Complete

Ulagai Community now has clean water! Obare 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

Community members were invited to hygiene and sanitation training by Mrs. Eunice Obare and the village elder. These two moved from one house to another asking every household to send at least one member to attend. At our training, they could learn how to manage the spring and get insights into health matters that they could then teach to other members of their households.

Because of the need to work hard and fend for families so that no one sleeps on an empty stomach, not every household was able to send a representative. However, every sector sent a good number of people to represent them in the training. This means the information shared will reach every corner of Ulagai Village. The training was carried out on Mrs. Obare's land, where there was enough space to accommodate all participants comfortably. Moderate sun and a slight breeze created a conducive environment for us.

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.

The most memorable session was on community involvement. Members of two households had not helped our artisan at all during construction, yet they were young with a lot of physical energy. As they tried to attend our training, the landowner and some others tried to chase them away because of their negligence. The training officer intervened and asked that we work together to find a solution. Community members seized the opportunity and corrected these young men in a wise and controlled; by the end of that discussion the two young men volunteered to take full responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the spring for the first three months just on their own.

Spring protection construction finished before our session on water source maintenance and management.

Another memorable topic was primary health care. It is during this topic that we discovered that community members prefer giving birth at home, believing they could get the best care from their kin. We outlined the dangers of giving birth at home so that participants understood why there are fatalities of the mother, child, or both. All women promised to attend pre and post-natal care and also committed to going to the hospital to give birth.

Farmer Francis Otieno sacrificed valuable time on his farm to learn about things that will help him and his family.

"I'm glad that you came just in time. We have been living in ignorance, and it is so surprising to know that some of the simple things we've been ignoring like washing hands with soap and clean water and sleeping under mosquito nets are the major causes of death in our community. Let us unite and do as we have learned today so that we save ourselves and our future generations," he shared.

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. Even more families have replicated the construction process to build new latrines of their own.

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.

The process of protecting Obare Spring began with clearance and excavation of the site so that a foundation could be built to specified standards. Stones were packed together for the first layer, and the foundation slab was made paved so that walls could be built up. Delivery pipes, inlets, a draw-off pipe and overflow inlet screen were fitted. A pipe was installed in the collection box to direct water from the reservoir to a concrete and plastic spring box.

The area behind the discharge pipe is filled with sand, gravel, and larger stones. All that is covered with a plastic tarp, dirt, and new grass.

Stairs were built for easy access. The cement was plastered with a final waterproof mixture and ceramic tiles were fixed below the discharge pipe to make sure the cement doesn’t wear away. The area behind the discharge pipe was then backfilled with stones and sand. Finally, more community members helped us dig proper drainage so that no water will pool and attract mosquitos.

Mrs. Rose Obare lives closest to the spring as the landowner. She calls this spring protection the greatest achievement she's seen in her lifetime. Plus, she said that the can "just peep through the window and see everything that happens at the spring - therefore, nobody will tamper with it."

It will serve generations to come!

Mrs. Lilian Ngesa was one of the first people there to fetch water.

"This spring has served us for so many years in its former open state, and we suffered a lot of health challenges because of that poor condition it was in. Now that it has been protected, we are going to take good care of it so that we enjoy good health that we hardly knew before its protection," she said.

Lilian and Rose are confident that the families of Ulagai Community will no longer spend time and money lining up for treatment at Sagam Hospital.

April, 2018: Ulagai Community Project Underway

Dirty water from Rose Obare Spring is making people in Ulagai Community sick. Thanks to your generosity, we’re working to install a clean water point and much more. Since actual construction is starting a little later than planned, we've moved the expected completion date back to 8/31.

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!