A self-help community-based organization (Inyamandu) in Kitui near Ndandini has been successful in securing some funding from the Kenyan government's CDTF (Community Development Trust Fund) which in turn gets funding from DANIDA (the Danish International Development Agency).
This funding is intended to build a water pipeline from the well site, that was provided by a Rotary project in 2010, to a new large 100,000 litre water tank in the village of Kyaithani - about 5km from the well.
This pipeline will make the well a major part of the future and ongoing water supply and distribution system for the whole area. The report that Inyamandu submitted to CDTF indicates the potential to eventually make the water available to up to 9 area villages (subject to further funding).
Construction has already begun on the 1.7km portion from the well site to the one acre Community Garden (where our donors bought land and provided a large drip irrigation greenhouse in 2011).
It is wonderful to see donor support growing and extending beyond our own donor community!
It is wonderful to see our initial investment in the well site now becoming such a key part of the area's future!
Thanks again everyone for all your support since we started this humanitarian venture way back in September 2007. Its great what we have accomplished, yet there is still so much more that we can do.
Once you go there you know how little they have and how much we all take for granted every day. The villagers would love to have you come. A small group from Canada just visited in September (their first visit to Africa) and already they are talking about going back. Come along with us some time and see for yourself.
All the best to all of you over this Christmas season. God Bless Us, Everyone!
Terry & Jan
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Rotary Clubs provoide drinking water for students for a month. Please join us.
UPDATE: Individual donors are continuing to donate $20 to help provide a load of drinking water to a school. Every $20 helps us meet the requirement for 18 loads each month.
We now have two Rotary Clubs that have decided to support us by sponsoring a whole month of water deliveries. Two Rotary Clubs on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia Canada have each donated $500! Thank you RC Gibsons and RC Sunshine Coast-Sechelt.
If you or your Rotary Club would like to help us, click on the donate button on this website (or send an email to me at terryumbach@hotmail.com for an address where you can send your cheque.)
Thanks for all your interest and support as we endeavor to keep providing drinking water to these 1200+ students in the Ndandini, Kyaithani, Muusini, Ndunguni, and Nthilani area of eastern Kenya.
Terry
We now have two Rotary Clubs that have decided to support us by sponsoring a whole month of water deliveries. Two Rotary Clubs on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia Canada have each donated $500! Thank you RC Gibsons and RC Sunshine Coast-Sechelt.
If you or your Rotary Club would like to help us, click on the donate button on this website (or send an email to me at terryumbach@hotmail.com for an address where you can send your cheque.)
Thanks for all your interest and support as we endeavor to keep providing drinking water to these 1200+ students in the Ndandini, Kyaithani, Muusini, Ndunguni, and Nthilani area of eastern Kenya.
Terry
Friday, May 24, 2013
Rotarians choose to give water instead of eating!
We have had a good immediate response to our request to provide $20 donations with each donation delivering a 7,500 litre tanker load of potable water to schools in the Ndandini/Kyaithani area of Kenya. And we have already sent $720 to provide for water for the 6 schools for the months of May and June.
I suggested to our local Rotary Club that members might consider giving up their weekly meal at our Rotary Club meeting and donating that $20 for a load of water instead. At that meeting our club members spontaneously donated over $250! Several more also donated monthly amounts online on this site. We now have several members who have agreed to donate the $20 each week instead of eating at our club meeting.
We welcome everyone who would like to help us. Perhaps there are other Rotary clubs that might like to take this on as well?
The six schools each need 3 ($20) loads of water per month in order to provide the 1200 students with the minimum of 4 litres of potable water per day recommended by WHO. There is also a great need to provide potable water to the rest of the 5000+ villagers in the area who are subsistence farmers with essentially no income.
Any help is appreciated.
I suggested to our local Rotary Club that members might consider giving up their weekly meal at our Rotary Club meeting and donating that $20 for a load of water instead. At that meeting our club members spontaneously donated over $250! Several more also donated monthly amounts online on this site. We now have several members who have agreed to donate the $20 each week instead of eating at our club meeting.
We welcome everyone who would like to help us. Perhaps there are other Rotary clubs that might like to take this on as well?
The six schools each need 3 ($20) loads of water per month in order to provide the 1200 students with the minimum of 4 litres of potable water per day recommended by WHO. There is also a great need to provide potable water to the rest of the 5000+ villagers in the area who are subsistence farmers with essentially no income.
Any help is appreciated.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Water delivery update - we need your help.
I am glad to report that the well which we drilled in Ndandini in 2010 is still producing water at the original pumping test rate of 19,000 litres per hour. I am also glad to report that the tractor and 7,500 litre bowser delivery system that we provided in June 2012 has worked well in providing potable water to each of the six schools in the Ndandini and Kyaithani area.
The World Health Organization and other learned bodies have concluded that the minimum Adequate Intake (AI) of water per day is about 4 Litres per person. If the schools provided each school child with 4 litres of water a day for consumption (remember that it can be 120 degrees fahrenheit outside), that would require the delivery of three 7500 litre loads of water per month for each of the 6 schools. 18 loads of water each month would meet the minimum level of water provision for the 1200 or so children attending school. If we could provide more it would be great!
It costs about $20 per load of water (for fuel, driver compensation and a bit towards inevitable tractor repairs). So 18 loads of water for the school children would cost about $360 per month.
However, we need some immediate financial help to ensure the water is delivered to the schools.
Last year we installed a 10,000 litre water tank at each of the schools and we had secured the commitment from each school headmaster that each school would pay 1500 Kenyan shillings (about $20) per load of water to cover the cost of fuel and tractor driver wages. The headmasters would administer the school's water providing potable water free to the students from the school's revenues and also making water available to the villagers living in proximity to the school (for a fee of about 5 Kenyan shillings per 20 litre jerrycan). The fee charged to the villagers only recovered the cost of the water to the school.
However, reality has proven to be different than the agreed to plan. While the headmasters still are in agreement to buy the water, the schools chronically have no available money. So almost no water deliveries are being made for use by either the 1200+ students or villagers. We cannot stand by and watch as precious potable water fails to reach the target community.
The lack of money at the schools is because of the failure of the government to adequately fund the schools, the delay in receipt of government funding, and the villagers' lack of money to pay for water. The villagers exist in a subsistence-farming economy with drought and famine the regular occurrence. What little money they have is largely spent on school fees and school uniforms.
There are two actions that need to be undertaken to help alleviate this situation:
1. we need to quickly start to raise money to pay for the costs of delivering at least a minimal number of loads of potable water to the schools, and
2. we need to challenge the newly elected Kenyan government to provide these schools with sufficient and regular revenues to both operate the schools and provide the students with potable water.
I am prepared to communicate again with the (newly re-elected) MP for the area in this regard. However, realistically we should not expect a quick resolution of the schools financial shortages from government sources.
In the meantime, and hopefully only for the near-term future, we need to find a way (or ways) to raise some money to pay for water deliveries to the schools.
Last year we installed a 10,000 litre water tank at each of the schools and we had secured the commitment from each school headmaster that each school would pay 1500 Kenyan shillings (about $20) per load of water to cover the cost of fuel and tractor driver wages. The headmasters would administer the school's water providing potable water free to the students from the school's revenues and also making water available to the villagers living in proximity to the school (for a fee of about 5 Kenyan shillings per 20 litre jerrycan). The fee charged to the villagers only recovered the cost of the water to the school.
However, reality has proven to be different than the agreed to plan. While the headmasters still are in agreement to buy the water, the schools chronically have no available money. So almost no water deliveries are being made for use by either the 1200+ students or villagers. We cannot stand by and watch as precious potable water fails to reach the target community.
The lack of money at the schools is because of the failure of the government to adequately fund the schools, the delay in receipt of government funding, and the villagers' lack of money to pay for water. The villagers exist in a subsistence-farming economy with drought and famine the regular occurrence. What little money they have is largely spent on school fees and school uniforms.
There are two actions that need to be undertaken to help alleviate this situation:
1. we need to quickly start to raise money to pay for the costs of delivering at least a minimal number of loads of potable water to the schools, and
2. we need to challenge the newly elected Kenyan government to provide these schools with sufficient and regular revenues to both operate the schools and provide the students with potable water.
I am prepared to communicate again with the (newly re-elected) MP for the area in this regard. However, realistically we should not expect a quick resolution of the schools financial shortages from government sources.
In the meantime, and hopefully only for the near-term future, we need to find a way (or ways) to raise some money to pay for water deliveries to the schools.
The World Health Organization and other learned bodies have concluded that the minimum Adequate Intake (AI) of water per day is about 4 Litres per person. If the schools provided each school child with 4 litres of water a day for consumption (remember that it can be 120 degrees fahrenheit outside), that would require the delivery of three 7500 litre loads of water per month for each of the 6 schools. 18 loads of water each month would meet the minimum level of water provision for the 1200 or so children attending school. If we could provide more it would be great!
It costs about $20 per load of water (for fuel, driver compensation and a bit towards inevitable tractor repairs). So 18 loads of water for the school children would cost about $360 per month.
Can I ask that you consider commiting to provide $20 or $40 per month (for one or two loads of potable water) for the next six months or so as we attempt to get the water flowing again to the six schools in the Ndandini and Kyaithani area of Kenya?
Just click on the "donate here" area near the top/right of this page. Every donation made on this blogspot gets an instant Canadian tax receipt.
Thanks again for your support of our work in Ndandini and Kyaithani.
Terry & Jan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
