The Water Project: Kenya - Mumuli Community A

Project Status

Project Type: Protected Spring

Regional Program: Western Kenya WaSH Program

Impact: 168 Served

Project Phase: Installed - Oct 2017

Functionality Status: Functional

Last Checkup: 03/21/2018

Project Features

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Community Profile

This project is a part of our shared program with Western Water and Sanitation Forum (WEWASAFO). Our team is pleased to directly share the below report (edited for clarity, as needed):

Welcome to the Community

A normal day in Mumuli Community starts at 5:30am. Parents who have school-going children start by preparing them to get out the door. Once they have finished seeing them off to school, they embark on their daily duties like bringing water from the spring, washing utensils, collecting firewood and many other domestic chores. Once finished at home, most adults head to the farm to grow popular crops like sugarcane, vegetables, or bananas. They take a quick break to prepare lunch at home, but then you will see them carry part of their cooked lunch and their farm tools back to the farm. They spend most of their day on the farm to make ends meet.

Water Situation

Shalolwa Spring is the main source of water for 168 people who live in Mumuli. Its water is used for drinking, cooking, and watering animals.

Conflicts often arise during certain times of the day while crowds of people wait for their turn to fetch water. It’s first come first serve, but the fights always happen because women and children disagree about who got there first.

This unprotected spring is located on the lower end of a hill and is surrounded by bushes; two reasons the water is so dirty. Many people who lack latrines defecate uphill, and during the rainy season the rainwater carries the waste into the water. After drinking this water, community members battle waterborne diseases like typhoid.

Sanitation Situation

Sanitation is also a big problem here, as many people do not have good latrines and use the privacy of bushes and sugarcane plantations to relieve themselves. “Your coming was timely, since many of us have suffered in ignorance. A lot of our money is lost in seeking medication, yet these are diseases we could easily avoid. I sincerely appreciate this intervention,” said a community member at the spring. The situation is so severe, for less than a quarter of households have usable pit latrines.

Less than half of households have helpful tools like dish racks and clotheslines to safely dry their belongings up off the ground.

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

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.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.

Project Updates

10/31/2017: Mumuli Community Project Complete

Shalolwa Spring in Mumuli 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

Hygiene and sanitation training in Mumuli Community drew quite a crowd; there were 21 people in attendance, all engaged in each activity.

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. The community should refrain from washing clothes, watering animals, farming with fertilizers, and open defecation in the vicinity.

There was a transect walk, which means we walked around Mumuli with the community members, talking about the environment and keeping an eye out for things that could negatively affect it. We came across a few spots with open defecation, which disgusted community members and motivated them to keep their neighbors accountable and encourage them to build latrines.

We also demonstrated the 10 steps of hand-washing and gave each participants a chance to practice. We taught how to build a tippy-tap (hand-washing station) out of all easily accessible materials. Mr. Jackson thanked the team and confessed to not washing his hands after visiting the latrine. “I will be washing my hands after visiting the toilet, before and after eating, and after farming activities. This is the main thing I have learned,” commented Mr. Jackson.

A few days after training, we returned to take final pictures of the finished spring protection. During our visit, we noticed that many more homes now have dish racks, clotheslines, and compost pits.

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.

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 a few people even volunteered their time and strength to help the artisan with manual labor.

The spring area was excavated to create space for setting the foundation of polythene, wire mesh and concrete. After the base had been set, both wing walls and the head wall 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 polythene membrane to eliminate any potential sources of contamination. Finally, grass was planted and cutoff drains dug to direct surface water away from the spring box.

Beginning to work on the steps down to the spring.

This process has transformed Shalolwa Spring into a clean water source. People gathered to celebrate this transformation and fetch their first buckets of clean water. As health improves with the presence of clean and safe water, time and money will be unlocked for economic progress.

The Water Project : 16-kenya4737-clean-water

09/14/2017: Mumuli Community Project Underway

Mumuli Community will soon have a clean, safe source of water thanks to your donation. Community members have been drinking contaminated water from Shalolwa 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.

The Water Project : 4-kenya4737-fetching-water

Project Type

In many communities, natural springs exist as water flows from cracks in rocky ground or the side of a hill. Springs provide reliable water but that doesn’t mean safe. When left open they become contaminated by surface contamination, animal and human waste and rain runoff. The solution is to protect the source. First, you excavate around the exact source area of the spring. Then, you build a protective reservoir for water flow, which leads to a concrete spring box and collection area. Safe water typically flows year-round and there is very limited ongoing maintenance needed!