Individuals living in the semi-arid areas of the central highlands region of Kenya suffer greatly from water scarcity due to months of drought then abrupt flash-flooding for a few weeks, rinse and repeat…
These problems have led to a vicious circle of causing ill health, conflict and food insecurity, which also do nothing to alleviate the poverty in the region and this has been continuing for decades until British architects Jane Harrison and David Turnbull, founders of the non-profit PITCH Africa came onto the scene.
Rural Kenyan School Provides Community with Water
In excess of 330 million individuals in sub-Saharan Africa live without access to clean drinking water, and Africa faces huge challenges over water shortages. The United Nations Commission for Africa’s Water Vision for 2025, which was launched in 2009, created a road map for equitable and sustainable use and management of water,
The opening of the Uaso Nyiro Primary School in rural Laikipia is set to break the cycle for the 300 scholars, their teachers and the community. The school is revolutionary in its design, in that it is a living infrastructure that can harvest rainwater from the roof and store between 100-150,000 litres in a storage tank below the school’s courtyard
This Waterbank School is a first of its kind in Africa, and is a solid, single-storey cylindrical structure with walls made of local stone, and a 600m2 pitched roof catchment area. The rainwater is harvested via a low-tech ceramic water filtration system, which purifies it for immediate use by the scholars and nearby locals.
The school was completed in 2013 for the same price of a typical four-classroom school building, but apart from being an education centre with twice the space, it is also a water bank and a hosts an indoor vegetable garden.
The school was funded by a Channel Islands NGO, the Guernsey Overseas Aid Commission, working in conjunction with a local NGO, and has been successfully duplicated in Laikipia, where the Endana secondary school complex which includes dormitories and a 1,500-seater football and volleyball stadium has been built; this waterbank school has an overall rain harvesting and storage capacity of 1.5 million litres.
The school also teaches scholars about economically and environmentally sustainable rainwater harvesting, water filtration, sanitation and agricultural practices, and headmaster Patrick Mwaura says that attendance has dramatically increased and the students are taking home lessons about health, water and nutrition, which is strengthening the entire community.
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