Water and Sanitation projects

Poverty in Africa is a daunting problem.It can make us feel hopeless in the face of great challenges.But we are all given opportunities to make a difference-one person, one family, one community at a time.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on clean water projects in rural Africa and moreso Kenya. Upto $60 million dollars has been spent on building boreholes and wells that became useless because they are not maintained or fixed when they breakdown in rural Kenya. As a result,1,500 water supply points are not functioning across the country.

One third(1/3) of water points built by NGO's in Kenya's semi arid regions are working and 60% of water points in Northern Kenya are in disrepair.

Waterpoints are often built by donors,governments and NGO's without fully consulting local people and finding out just how much it will cost to keep the boreholes clean and functioning over a sustained period of time.

We at VoDA believe that there is no point of an external agency coming in,putting in a drill hole and then passing it over to the local communtiy if they cant afford to maintain it over the next 10 or 20 years.We believe in carrying out a proper assesment of just how much local people are able to finance these water points.Its not enough to just drill and walk away.

Some drilled wells have fallen to such a degradable state that worms have been found in the polluted water supply due to various reasons,one of them,a well located near a swamp.Another well discovered by the team at VoDA was a badly constructed and poorly maintained shallow well dug by a charity that was full of soil and animal feaces.The polluted water from this well was the reason the people from a village in homa bay county were falling sick and suffering from diarrhoea.

VoDA's strategy is to train local communities to operate and maintain new safe water points that we establish and those that have been already established in the villages across Kenya's countys and sub-countys.

After the drillng and construction of this boreholes,VoDA organises the local people into water and sanitation commitees to monitor the new boreholes that have been dug and newly trained  hand pump mechanics are on standby if one breaks down.This commitees meet regularly with village health teams to discsuss needs and the idea is that everyone who uses the boreholes and wells will conribute financially to their long term upkeep.

This financial contributions from the local members of the community are still not enough to ensure the proper maintenance of these wells.VoDA  comes in form of external support to cover the extra costs so as to keep these boreholes in a sustainable state.We ae able to do these through the generous financial support of our partners who are the volunteers that participate in our programs.

We need your help to bring clean safe drinking water to villages across Kenya.We believe that every supporter can become part of the story of water  by learning,acting,giviing and then seeing the difference they make.

We are looking for willing hands,are you ready