Kenya is home to around 3 million of Africa’s over 43 million orphans. Decades of drought have left millions without access to clean water and this has resulted in around 700 children being orphaned every single day from water-related diseases such as diarrhoea and dysentery.
Fortunately all is not lost; there are those who have come up with innovative ideas to come up with sustainable solutions to help with the clean water crisis in Kenya.
Solving Kenya’s Clean Water Crisis
Around 20 years ago, Phoebe Onyango, a woman who runs the Salem Orphanage and its associated schools, envisioned serving children in an area of Kenya devastated by the AIDS epidemic. The orphanage was founded to provide a safe home for orphans, mainly those with HIV/AIDS who would otherwise be very vulnerable and open to abuse and child labour.
The orphanage sits on a small piece of land in the middle of Kisumu that is owned by Phoebe, who was struggling to care for and feed the 85 children under her care when Just One Africa arrived in Kenya in 2012, and their water had been cut off for two weeks already. Phoebe was collecting water from puddles and dripping water from a padlocked meter.
The orphanage owns a small farm near Bondo, on the shore of Lake Victoria, on which it grows kale, bell peppers, corn, bananas, passion fruit and other fruits and vegetables. The land is irrigated from the lake via a gas powered pump.
Just One Africa was started after a visit to Kisumu and to Phoebe’s school in 2012, and partners with local leaders, using an integrated approach, to create sustainable solutions for vulnerable children and to solve the clean water crisis
Just One Africa provides for women and children who are in desperate need, by helping them to improve the methods they use for farming and raising livestock, and by providing them with potable drinking water and clean water for personal hygiene, better housing and education for the children.
Through a partnership with Sawyer, a company that manufactures small, portable point-of-use water filters that do not need a power source, chemicals, or a trained operator for use or maintenance and with proven success in fighting water borne diseases all over the world, Just One Africa provides these women with access to clean water.
These and other programs are providing the millions of people in Kisumu and other areas with sustainable solutions to the clean water crisis and saving millions of lives every year.
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