2,500 children at eight schools in Embu County, Kenya, will benefit from water wells supplying reliable, fresh, clean water for drinking, washing, cleaning, and watering of crops. This will make a huge difference to their lives for less than ten pounds per child. It will end reliance on unreliable rainwater, enabling schools to grow crops to feed needy children. No longer hungry, and freed from time-wasting water collection, children will spend more time learning and thus make better progress.
Unreliable rainwater dramatically adversely impacts the poor rural area of Embu County in the foothills of Mount Kenya. Piped water is available to the schools for only an hour a day, but supply is not reliable. It must be paid for by the parents but is expensive, so at times parents cannot afford it and then the children must walk to local streams to collect essential (but not clean) water. When the rains fail, schools are not able to grow crops which are required to feed the poorer children.
Local labour will dig a well at each school to provide reliable, clean, fresh water, using locally purchased supplies and equipment. This established low-tech solution can be maintained locally. Children will no longer need to walk to streams for water, freeing more time for their studies. The schools will have water to grow crops to provide food for the poorer children, who otherwise would not have a daily meal. One pilot borewell has been completed on time and on budget to prove feasibility.
Children will learn better as they won't be hungry, tired from long walks to collect water, nor at risk from drinking polluted river water. Better education improves employment prospects; an escape route from poverty. Routine maintenance and repairs to the wells provides work for local tradesmen. A reliable water supply enables growing of more crops, creating long term farming employment and a food surplus which can be sold, raising much-needed funds to purchase extra resources for the school.
