From 2014 to 2018, EWB-NU was partnering with My Chosen Vessels, a local NGO dedicated to leading a global community to empower indigenous people of Kimuka, Kenya through water, art, and education.
Learn more about My Chosen Vessels.
Clean water is life.
Kimuka lacks permanent rivers or reliable natural springs. It is an arid region at the leeward shield of Ngong Hills, and receives an average of 700mm of rainfall per year. The drought season in Kimuka is 8 months long. 80% of the population is categorized as living below the national poverty index. Rainfall in Kenya, especially in the Arid and Semi Arid Lands/ASALS, has increasingly been low and erratic due to environmental degradation and changing global weather patterns.
The main source of water is surface run off from occasional rains, and even in this instance, there are no dams or cisterns to assist in rain water harvesting, resulting in acute shortages for drinking, domestic and agricultural use. The Maasai people are known for their nomadic nature, more often than not to find other sources of water to feed their families and livestock – to survive. The Maasai are known to travel up to 10 km daily, to gather water from unprotected, bacteria-laden, sources. Up to 60% of Maasai children require monthly medical attention, due to the daily consumption of contaminated drinking water.
Traditionally, women and girls are responsible for traveling these distances and providing water for daily use – one of many major responsibilities she has in maintaining her home and village. This fact contributes to the elevated, disproportionate number of uneducated girls, women’s health and mortality rates, particularly of expectant mothers charged with carrying heavy weights, long distances, up steep gradients. The water shortage also affect school enrollment severely during dry seasons. Drop out rates dramatically increase at these times interrupting teaching and learning in Maasai area schools. Providing clean drinking water in Maasailand is vital for the health of the Maasai Community.
Our solution.
EWB-NU first visited the community during spring of 2014 to meet with community leaders and assess existing access to water. Our team of students and professional engineers traveling with us learned that surface “dams”, natural or manmade depressions in the ground, were the most common source of drinking water. However, this standing water was not treated, used by the community’s cattle, and found to be highly contaminated. We also learned of a borewell at the church in the community during this trip. This well at the center of the community sustainably served many residents; however, the distribution system it served was inadequate. Our team returned to Kimuka during spring of 2015 on an implementation trip to create a more robust distribution line that serves a public tapstand.
With the new pipeline and community water access point in place, EWB-NU returned to Kimuka during winter of 2015 to assess the feasibility of creating a distribution system directly to individual homesteads. The current solution reduced walking distances for many residents. We implemented this updated solution, along with a redesigned pump in 2017, and closed the project out in 2018.
Timeline.
December 2014
The first travel date for EWB-NU. Once on the ground, our team of professional mentors and students were able to determine a viable pipeline extension from the local church. Furthermore, they were able to start building a community relationship and gain the trust of everyone involved.
December 2015
This was the first implementation trip for EWB-NU in which the team was able to successfully lay over 1.2 km of piping away from the local church towards more homesteads in need. On top of that, they were able to install a 30,000 L storage tank that could be operated by a water committee on the ground.
October 2015
EWB-NU and the Buffett Institute started their partnership, in which the primary goal was finding resources to help further the water project in Kimuka. This signified a big step for the organization, because it indicated the growth as a chapter and validated the progress that the team was making on the ground.
March 2016
This assessment trip proved to be a big step towards continuing the project. There were some issues that came up with land rights, but one of the community elders donated his land for us to potentially build another tank- reaching even more homesteads. He specifically cited that he trusted the work EWB-NU and MCV were doing, saying that the visible advancement of the project and our annual return to Kimuka gave him confidence that the land he donated would be used properly.