Rehabilitation Project
Malava Housing Spring is located on the outskirts of Malava town which is along the Kakamega-Webuye highway. Once you leave Malava town and take the earth road that will lead you to Malava Housing Spring, you pass shops, schools, houses, and government offices.
As you near the spring, you are welcomed by farms filled with sugarcane, yams, maize, and other local foods. People here keep cattle for milk, and a few run small businesses in town. There is also a high number of teachers who call this area home. Large trees line the path as you get closer to the spring, and in every direction, you see people working on their farms.
280 people depend on the Malava Housing Spring for water, but the spring water is not safe for human consumption. The spring looks like a shallow puddle carved into the earth, with water coming out through a makeshift discharge pipe the community members placed directly in the earth.
Because the community was not able to channel all of the spring's water through the pipe, the discharge speed is compromised. This, along with the slippery and narrow access area, slows community members down as they fetch. As a result, long lines and conflicts at the spring are common.
"Fetching water is really cumbersome. One has to squat and squeeze the container deep down into the water to be able to collect water. This makes one person take a long time at the spring," explained teenager Carlos.
The pipe is also very low to the ground, and it is only held in place by mud, rocks, and a few bricks. This makes accessing the water very difficult as people cannot stand their jerrycans beneath the pipe. Instead, they must hold them at an angle and then top them off using a smaller jug or cup by pouring water into their larger jerrycan.
Washout from the frequently heavy rains often washes the pipe away, leaving community members to fetch directly from the puddle while they resituate the pipe and wait for the soil and sand to settle before they can begin fetching the water again. The puddle is full of rotting leaves, dirt, algae, insects, and animals. Community members sometimes step or slip into the water, and larger animals walk, defecate, and drink in it too.
"Sometimes we find dead animals in the water, yet we have no alternative water source. Thus, we are forced to consume this water. It's such a hazard to us," said Juliah Khabakali, a 58-year-old farmer in the community.
Community members report that waterborne and water-related diseases are common, especially among their children. Some, like diarrhea, can be life-threatening. All of them are expensive to treat, with hospital visits and medication draining families of their financial resources. Time spent sick and recovering also means lost time for adults' productive work and children's schooltime. Waiting in line at the spring further affects people's, schedules, primarily impacting women and children.
What We Can Do:
Spring Protection
Protecting the spring will help provide access to cleaner and safer water and reduce the time people have to spend to fetch it. Construction will keep surface runoff and other contaminants out of the water. With the community’s high involvement in the process, there should be a good sense of responsibility and ownership for the new clean water source.
Fetching water is a task predominantly carried out by women and young girls. Protecting the spring and offering training and support will, therefore, help empower the female members of the community by freeing up more of their time and energy to engage and invest in income-generating activities and their education.
Training on Health, Hygiene, COVID-19, and More
To hold trainings during the pandemic, we work closely with both community leaders and the local government to approve small groups to attend training. We ask community leaders to invite a select yet representative group of people to attend training who will then act as ambassadors to the rest of the community to share what they learn. We also communicate our expectations of physical distancing and wearing masks for all who choose to attend.
The training will focus on improved hygiene, health, and sanitation habits in this community. We will also have a dedicated session on COVID-19 symptoms, transmission routes, and prevention best practices.
With the community’s input, we will identify key leverage points where they can alter their practices at the personal, household, and community levels to affect change. This training will help to ensure participants have the knowledge they need about healthy practices and their importance to make the most of their water point as soon as water is flowing.
Our team of facilitators will use a variety of methods to train community members. Some of these methods include participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation, asset-based community development, group discussions, handouts, and demonstrations at the spring.
One of the most important issues 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 is consumed. We and the community strongly 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 will then conduct a small series of follow-up trainings before transitioning to our regularly scheduled support visits throughout the year.
Training will result in the formation of a water user committee, elected by their peers, that will oversee the operations and maintenance of the spring. The committee 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 channels. The fence will keep out destructive animals and unwanted waste, and the drainage will keep the area’s mosquito population at a minimum.
