The desperate water situation across the diocese manifests itself in different ways:-

The situation Geoff found at his link school in Chebukutumi in 2007 is typical. Even the 100m deep borehole serving the whole village dried up and the desperately thirsty children were forced to travel several kilometres to collect water from the contaminated Malakisi River where they could not resist drinking it once they arrived. It was this situation and the lack of water at the school for 4 months which inspired Geoff as an engineer to offer some help which led to the installation of the first water storage tank fed from the school roofs.

Then followed a well at Mapela and a preliminary water survey carried out by the Bungoma diocese. It was at Mapela that Geoff had the good fortune to meet up with Noah Lusaka, who had a diploma in environmental studies and was working for a charity in Nairobi developing the arid lands of East Africa. Noah proposed a pilot scheme of harvested water storage tanks at Mapela and this project was completed and inspected by Geoff and Diannah in 2009.

During their 2009 mission Geoff and Diannah carried out detailed water surveys at the 10 most needy parishes recording all the water sources and whether they were seasonal and protected. In nearly all cases the shallow wells, springs and streams dried up in the dry season and were contaminated. On their return they set in motion a programme to build a 30000 litre harvested water tank at each location and set up this charity to fund them under a partnership arrangement using local labour and materials with assistance and supervision from the Mapela Christian Women Group and funding from the UK charity Wilmslow Wells for Africa.

Our principal objective in water has been that of providing access to clean water across the whole diocese which now comprises 8 archdeaconries.  To this end we have been carrying out detail water surveys to determine the water needs and resources in their parishes.  So far we have surveyed 57 parishes in 4 of the archdeaconries and have excecuted 49 clean water projects which include 24 harvested water tanks, 16 spring protection schemes and 6 wells with hand pumps.

A video of the construction of the spring protection scheme at Siuna Mukoya in Murembe parish can be viewed here........Siuna Mukoya

And a video of the construction of a hand dug borehole with handpump at Marakaru parish mother church can be viewed here........Marakaru Borehole