Water is Life Kenya celebrates deep well opening

Water is Life Kenya, a Delaware-based nonprofit, celebrated the opening ceremony for the Kuku Community deep well in southern Kenya.

Before the well, women in the community walked many hours every day to dig in a dry river bed to access barely potable water. Poor water often resulted in serious health issues for their families. In a community with hundreds of women, and each woman needing several cans of water to take care of her family, the water lines were long. The women were often forced to come at night in a group, with warriors to protect them from the elephants, hyenas and lions that gather around the watering holes to drink.

The 1,700 people in the community live in a remote area. No one had ever reached out to help them with their water struggles. That changed when Water is Life Kenya came on the scene.

The two-year Kuku well project involved digging a 570-foot well through hard volcanic rock to access reliable clean water. Water is Life Kenya raised more than $60,000 for the deep well, a special pump and power source, and water storage facilities. The well will succeed because the organization trained local operators to maintain the pumps and monitor the facility.

The Kuku well is the most productive of the deep well projects Water is Life Kenya has dug to date.

Joyce Tannian, founder of Water is Life Kenya, noted that now that the well is complete, community leaders call the area “Nalepo,” which means “place that is flowing with good things.”

Water is Life Kenya helps bring water and livestock training to the communities living on the northern fringes of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. In the last 10 years, the organization has completed 17 major water projects including deep and shallow wells, rainwater harvesting on schools, and pipeline connections that provide water to 50,000 people on a daily basis. In addition to clean water projects, the organization runs a livestock-as-a-business program and sponsors a Fair Trade Federation-listed handicrafts division that provides much-needed income for the families in the region.

For more information or to donate, go to www.waterislifekenya.org.