GlobalGiving.org: Ablution block and Kitchen for 500 in Nairobi Slum

Donation from U.S. Embassy

Constance Hunt — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:22:21 GMT

KHDP Project Manager signing grant agreement

Dear Donors:

The U.S. Embassy, through its ambassador's self-help fund, has awarded a grant of US$4,000 to our local partner, the Kabiro Human Development Project. This grant is enough for us to finish the first phase of the project and open the project for use by the public.

We still need to raise money to complete and furnish the upper floor and to build a filtration plant for the effluent from the biodigester.

Thanks for your continued support!

Sincerely,

Constance

KHDP Chair signing grant agreement

Links:

web site

Partial Construction of Upper Floor is Complete!

Constance Hunt — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:01:01 GMT

Project as of September 2011

With money from GlobalGiving, we have completed the construction of about a quarter of the upper floor of our Kawangware project. With paint left over from the Safaricom Foundation painting project, we painted the columns Safaricom green! This construction, complete with a heavy door and a strong lock, will prevent anyone from breaking into the project and stealing the stoves. Now we need to raise the money to buy the floor tiles, stoves, kitchen sink and refrigerator and to hire a carpenter to build a work table and cabinets for the kitchen. Thanks again for your support!

Start of Construction of Upper Floor

Constance Hunt — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:24:58 GMT

Workers starting construction of the upper floor

Dear Donors:

Thanks to Globalgiving, KWENCH has enough money to begin construction of the upper floor of our project. This will be a hall where people can meet and consume snack foods prepared by women's groups in the kitchen on the lower floor. We predict that having a place for people to consume food will add considerably to the ability of kitchen users to make money. We hope to eventually add a refrigerator for soft drinks and a television to the upper floor, once construction is complete.

For now, we are adding the section directly above the staircase so that we can ensure security and no-one can force entry into the building. Then, we will feel safe to install the stoves and refrigerator.

Thanks for you continued support!

Painting and Keying Complete!

Constance Hunt — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:52:04 GMT

Exterior

Dear Donors:

We have completed the painting and keying work at the biodigester. The painting is solar yellow and Safaricom Green, the color of the foundation that paid for the work. The keying is the finishing of the outside so that it looks smooth. We have also installed window panes (the glass has been purchased, but we want to wait until the project is ready to open before we install it because someone could break it). Check out the pics!

Interior (stairs)

Interior (doors)

Painting!

Constance Hunt — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:54:13 GMT

Happy New Year, donors!

We painted the interior of the project with the Safaricom Foundation on December 7. Now we are planning to finish the exterior. We still need funding to place floor tiles, put glass on the windows, buy appliances (stoves and refrigerator), build cabinets and a work table and install a kitchen sink before we can open the project and provide jobs to the community.

More Matching Funds

Constance Hunt — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:59:10 GMT

Dear Donors: From October 12 to 21 2010, globalgiving will match all contributions to this project. Donations of $10 to $499 will receive a 30% match. Donations from $500-$999 will receive a 40% match and donations from $1,000-2,500 will receive a 50% match. Globalgiving will award a $1,000 bonus to the project that raises the most funds during this period and $1,000 to the project with the most donors. I hope you will support KWENCH during this fundraising drive. With the contribution from the Safaricom Foundation, we only need to raise money to finish the interior (floor tiles, window treatments, stoves, refrigerator, work table and cabinets) to have successfully completed the first phase of the project. The second phase will involve constructing an upper floor where people can meet and eat food cooked in the kitchen and building a filter system to clean up the effluent from the biodigester. Thanks much for your continued support.

Paint Job!

Constance Hunt — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:14:50 GMT

The Safaricom Foundation, the corporate responsibility arm of the mobile phone company Safaricom, has decided to donate a paint job to our project! Their staff will buy the paint and paint the project along with staff from KWENCH. We are just in the process of arranging their first field visit to the project site.

Security Fence!

Constance Hunt — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:15:11 GMT

Dear Donors:

I am pleased to announce that our local partner, the Kabiro Human Development Project, is raising money to construct a security fence to protect the ablution block/community kitchen. They estimate the total cost will be Ksh500,000 and have raised about a third of that amount. They have already started to purchase construction materials.

Also, kindly note that JUNE 16 is a matching day for globalgiving. Any donations made on that date will be matched. We still need money to finish the ground floor of the project (appliances, floor tiles, paint and window glass) and to construct a filter system for the effluent from the ablution block and an upper floor where people can meet. The upper floor will add substantially to the value of the project as women cooking in the kitchen will be able to sell their products on site.

Thanks for your continuing support!

Links:

Very modest web site.

March 16 Matching Funds:

Constance Hunt — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:42:53 GMT

Dear Donors:

GlobalGiving will match by 30% any money donated to this project on March 16. Please mark this date in your diaries as we still need to finish the existing structure; It needs a paint job, floor tiles, glass for the windows (to keep dust out), a work table, cabinets, a refrigerator and stoves.

Once we get this done, we can build the upper floor and a filter system to treat the liquid effluent as it is impossible to attach the biodigester to a sewer.

Thanks again for your support.

GlobalGiving Christmas Challenge

Constance Hunt — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:49:37 GMT

Dear Donors:

KWENCH's biodigester project is now listed on the Global Giving UK Christmas Challenge. We have one month, starting on the first of December, to raise additional money for the project.

At this point, the bathrooms are complete with functional hot showers and toilets. Once we open the bathrooms to the public, the biodigester will begin to generate methane for use in the kitchen. We expect it to take about 3 months for enough methane to accumulate to start using the kitchen.

We still need additional funding for finishing the kitchen, including buying the stoves, refrigerator and sink; putting terra cotta on the floor so that, if water gets on the floor the women won't slip and fall; and painting the interior.

We also want to build the upper story, which would enable women to sell fast foods to people meeting upstairs of the kitchen. This would add a lot of income-generating value to the project as women would be able to use less methane to produce more food. We also want to build a filtration system so that we can clean up the liquid from the biodigester on site. We have a design for the filter system that would produce drinking-quality water without having to transport the effluent to a treatments plant!

It would be great if you could contribute additional funds to our project during the Christmas Challenge. These finishing touches will really increase the value of our project to the community. Please look for our project at:http://www.GlobalGiving.co.uk

Best regards,

Constance

Finishing!

Constance Hunt — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:15:43 GMT

Dear Donors:

Our contractor disappeared from the project site for 5 months but now he's back. We hope that all the construction-related work will be done by the end of this month and that next month we will finish all the "extras" - water heaters, appliances, cabinets and painting. Then on to looking for money for phase two - construction of an upper floor where people can meet and eat food prepared by the women using the kitchen!

Thanks again for you support and please continue your generosity.

Sincerely,

Constance

Water Tanks!

Constance Hunt — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:16:15 GMT

Water Tanks!

Yesterday, UNICEF delivered two, 5,000-liter, donated water tanks to the KHDP site. The project is going very well.

Meeting Constance Hunt and seeing her efforts to rid slums of "flying toilets"

Kara Wevers and Gerald Cook — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:17:22 GMT

Kara Wevers and Gerald Cook visited over a dozen GlobalGiving projects in March of 2009.

Kara wrote:

"Constance Hunt, the founder, director and only staff member of KWENCH, allowed us to spend a few hours with her during our visit in Nairobi. She took us to visit her current project on GlobalGiving, where construction is underway for a creative, sustainable, eco-friendly building. Once finished, this building will have toilets, showers, a kitchen, and, hopefully, a community room in which to gather and hang out. The stoves in the kitchen will run on the methane gas collected from the sanitation system’s processes. It is a really innovative set-up. It was great to actually see people working on the building while we were there. It should be up and running within a matter of time.

The location of the building is especially exciting, as it is on the grounds of a school in one of the Nairobi slums. The headmaster was full of hope and smiles as he walked us through the construction site. The location of this site means that the school children will have the opportunity to use the new sanitation facility. Constance also hopes that this will become a spot where the community can gather, where women can use the kitchen to open a small restaurant on the second floor and earn an income this way. It is a great concept, and I hope it works out as planned."

Gerald Wrote:

"Today Kara Wevers and I visited “Kwench,” globalgiving project #1761, “Ablution block and Kitchen for 500 in Nairobi Slum.” We met Ms. Constance Hunt at her church. She was an amazing, quirky, American woman who has decided to stay in Kenya to build toilets and other facilities for impoverished schoolchildren. Upon meeting us we got into her vehicle and she began to lead us out into the field.

She led us into the heart of one of Nairobi’s largest slums. We passed by small shack after shack, small alleys and roads packed full of people. We saw fingers pointing and voices shouting “MUZUNGU!” (white person) as we passed. We visited two schools where Ms. Hunt had built or was building water facilities.

“Sanitation,” she explained, “is very important.” As we watched the construction of a structure that would house toilets, showers, stoves, and other facilities, she described for us how people now are using “flying toilets.” Apparently people defecate into small plastic bags, the type you might get from Wal-Mart, and then simply throw them out the window of their shacks onto the street!

Ms. Hunt is working on educating people on the health perils associated with this practice while also building facilities so that they are able to remain sanitary. She seems to be an expert in water and sanitation and described for us how EVERYTHING within the construction site was environmentally friendly and helpful for the community. The methane from the toilet waste was even to be converted into energy so that less charcoal (which is very dangerous to health and the environment) would be used.

Ms. Hunt was kind enough to introduce Kara and I to two school headmasters, and she watched as we played with the children and enjoyed ourselves. Constance Hunt is an amazing woman doing amazing work, almost entirely on her own."

When asked what they would tell their friends about this project, Kara said it was "Good" and Gerald said, "Great, they are making a difference!"

GlobalGiving is committed to incorporating many viewpoints on our 600+ projects. We feel that more information, especially from eyewitnesses helps donors like you continue to support organizations doing great work in the community.

Borehole!

Constance Hunt — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:22:21 GMT

Borehole!

Dear Donors:

Our CBO partner, the Kabiro Human Development Project, has obtained funding to drill a borehole at the site of our biodigester ablution block and community kitchen. The borehole is almost complete. This is wonderful news as water from the local utility is notoriously unreliable and in short supply.

Now our project will have PLENTY of water!

Please keep donating. We still need to raise the funds to build a second story as a meeting and eating facility.

Again, I sincerely appreciate your support.

Best regards,

Constance

Construction of Phase One is Finished!

Constance Hunt — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:25:01 GMT

Contractor in Unfinished Structure

Dear Donors:

Construction of Phase 1 is finished.The next steps are to install the plumbing fixtures, put in the doors and windows, lay the tiles, plaster and paint, construct cabinets and buy the other things we need for the kitchen (stoves, table, refrigerator, eg.).

You will note in the photo of the plumber on top of the staircase that we actually did construct a staircase in the hope that we will be able to add an upper floor for a meeting space. The meeting space would add a lot of value to our project as the women who cook in the kitchen could cook snacks and sell the snacks and drinks to people gathered in the meeting space.

Please help us add this value to our project! It will reallly help the community.

Thanks again for your support.

Sincerely,

Constance

Workers Casting Ceiling Slab

Visitor postcard: A walk through Kawangware slum with Constance Hunt

Marc Maxson — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:06:43 GMT

Typical slum dwelling. Note the Safaricom for sale

Today Michael Nolan and I visited globalgiving project #1761, “Ablution block and Kitchen for 500 in Nairobi Slum.” Constance Hunt, the project leader, met us and took us on a brief tour of one of Nairobi’s largest slums, Kawangware.

I handed her a microphone and MP3 recorder as just listened as we walked the two kilometers or so from the nearest transport into the heart of the slums. Endless shacks of rusty iron and cement lined the paths through this “informal settlement,” as euphemists prefer to call it. Walkers, bikers, and mothers glut the alleys as we weave a path to the community center she is helping construct.

Constance said, “If you tell them you are less likely to get cholera if you have a toilet. They don’t care. But if you tell them it will impress your guests… that’s the hook.”

“I heard the same about toothpaste,” I said, “People don’t brush to fight cavities, they brush because ads promise fresh breath.”

My visit was part of a larger listening tour of Kenya. We at GlobalGiving search for ways to let the people in communities like Kawangware speak to the world themselves. They are the experts on what they need. We believe everyone who uses globalgiving will answer their prayers if only there was a way for them to speak directly. I explained this to Constance. I mentioned that something as simple as twitter on a local cell phone could allow slum dwellers to begin a dialogue that will draw attention to their daily realities.

Constance looked a skeptical. “I’m just wondering does that mean that eventually it will add up to money coming into this project?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Few believe mobile phones can fight poverty, or that local people would text what they see so that visits like mine become superfluous. Looking just above her head I saw dozens of TV attenas poking through the rooftops. A block later, the familiar “SafariCom sold here” sign jutted from a shack. Poor they may be, but not isolated.

We entered the school grounds where the future community center will stand. Despite the short notice (I requested a visit by text message only the night before) a dozen or so Kenyans were piling on cement blocks and concrete.

“Wow! They work fast!” Constance said. “I was here just last week and they had barely a foundation. This phase is ahead of schedule but we’re still short of full funding for the project.”

As Constance explained, this community center will immediately provide toilets for the thousands that live nearby. There are NO toilets in this slum, period. The current practice is a “flying toilet” where a person deficates in a plastic bag and litterally chucks it out the window of the shack without regard to the mess it leaves in the community as a whole.

Down the road, the project will provide clean water with a new bore hole. Human waste will ferment into methane biofuels that will provide sustainable cooking facilities for the people nearby. If she can attract more funding, she even hopes to add a second floor for community activities.

“What one thing does this community need most?” I asked. “Sewers. The whole slum grew up without any infrastructure. Now it is expensive to lay them. But I wish we could add sewers to improve the health and livelihood of these people,” Constance said.

This tour, our twittering villages in Kenya, its all an experiment. As a scientist I know that most experiments are in a sense ‘failures,’ but ‘progress’ only comes after the last failure, and only for those who persist. Our goal: give people louder voices.

Groundbreak!

Constance Hunt — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:02:12 GMT

Breaking Ground

Dear Donors:

Last week, we started construction on the biodigester ablution block and community kitchen. Work is progressing rapidly and we have been blessed by an absence of rain during the excavation and initial construction phase.

The community has asked us to add a second story to the project to serve as a meeting and eating facility. We are thinking of putting a television there (which most poor Kenyans lack). The people who work in the kitchn could sell samosas, mandozi and other snacks and soft drinks to people gathered there. This component is not in our current budget, however and more funds are needed to make it a reality.

The second story would make the project much more profitable for the community. Please be generous this Christmas season.

In Sincere Gratitude,

Constance

Photo of Project Supervisors

Biodigester near completion

Training in Financial Management

Constance Hunt — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:10:44 GMT

Breakout Session

Dear Donors:

This past Tuesday we had a training session on financial management for the team from the community who will oversee the construction process and manage the project once it is built.

The session went extremely well. The trainers were well prepared and highly motivational. The trainees seemed very competent and excited to be part of the project. KHDP served tea and sandwiches at the break and everyone left with a smile on their face.

More good news! We have permission to start construction and plan to do so within the next week or so.

Thanks so much for your support.

Sincerely,

Constance

Trainer

Group Photo

Design Work has Started!

Constance Hunt — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:44:01 GMT

Dear Donors:

We have hired an architect and begun the design work for the project. The initial design, which has already been approved by the Kabiro Human Development Project (KHDP) board of directors, includes an open-air, roofed meeting/eating facility and an office on the first floor, above the ablution block and kitchen. The project will include a rainwater harvesting system. Existing pit latrines on the KHDP site will be connected to the biodigester so that the latrines can stay cleaner longer and the biodigester can begin to generate methane faster (a certain amont of human waste has to accumulate before the methane can start to flow). We also intend to connect the biodigester to an existing sewer line so that exhausting the remaining waste will be quick, easy and inexpensive.

Next steps include a meeting with the current users of the facilities at KHDP to get their feedback on the design, then a meeting with the broader community in the informal settlement of Kawangware to inform them about the project.

Kenya Emergency - Water needed for a Slum

Constance Hunt — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:16:20 GMT

Dear Donors:

In the wake of Kenya’s post-election violence, KWENCH is raising money to restore water connections in the informal settlement of Mathare, one of Nairobi’s largest slums. Water vending businesses in Mathare have traditionally been controlled by the Mungiki, a violent cult. Like most illegal vendors, the Mungiki break into the main water lines of the Nairobi Water and Sewer Company (NWSC) and run cheap, plastic piping known as “spaghetti” piping to kiosks inside the slum. The spaghetti ruptures easily, allowing contaminants, including raw sewage, to enter the water supply before it reaches the consumer. The water is also very expensive, partly because the Mungiki must pay bribes to the NWSC to avoid disconnection.

In July of last year, the NWSC cut off all illegal supply lines to Mathare, leaving residents without a source of water. From that time, NWSC has been supplying Mathare with free water from standpipes with the intention of establishing legal water connections by the end of 2007. Then the post-election riots broke out and all progress towards safe and legal supplies came to a halt.

Now that calm is being restored to the slums of Nairobi, neither the NWSC nor Mathare’s residents have sufficient funds to build water connections. In addition, during the post-election violence here, rioters ruptured the NWSC’s main pipes. Right now, because of the free water and broken pipelines, the NWSC is losing enormous amounts of revenue and the notion of providing legal water connections to the slums is a distant and receding dream.

KWENCH wants to rectify this situation by establishing safe, legal and inexpensive water supplies for Mathare. This will be accomplished by training registered Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to sell water. CBOs who opt to join this program will receive assistance from KWENCH in the form of fundraising for high quality equipment and training in operation and maintenance of equipment and business management. In return, the CBOs will be required to amend their constitutions to establish water vending as one of their objectives. They will further be required to include in their constitutions pledges to post their NWSC account numbers on their water tanks or kiosks (to assist clients in filing any complaints about their service), pay their bills on time, refuse to pay bribes, maintain uncontaminated water supplies and police their pipelines and equipment to prevent leakage and illegal water connections.

The water provided as a result will be safe because it will be transferred to points of sale in high-quality metal pipes and because the CBOs will know how to maintain their equipment. It will be inexpensive because the NWSC has a policy of charging only 10 Kenyan shillings per cubic meter to legal connections in informal settlements – one of the lowest rates in Africa, and because the large storage tanks we hope to provide will serve as a buffer against rising prices caused by scarcity when water supplies are irregular and unreliable.

Perhaps best yet, the CBOs comprise all the major ethnic groups in Mathare. KWENCH believes that by motivating these groups to work together to plan, construct and manage the settlement’s water supply, the groups will find common cause and help to restore lasting peace.

The cost of installing two water points in each of Mathare’s ten villages is approximately US$700,000, which KWENCH is trying to raise from a number of different sources. Donors to globalgiving can contribute to this project by supporting training, which will cost about US$3,600 for 100 people. Because the post-election violence has resulted in devaluation of the Kenyan shilling, your dollars can go quite far to help the destitute in Kenya.

Sincerely,

Constance

Design Work has Started!

Constance Hunt — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:38:30 GMT

Meeting Hall at Kibero Human Development Project

Now that we have some money coming in for the project, we have begun work on project design. On October 6, KWENCH met with the board of directors of the Kibero Human Development Project (KHDP), where the ablution block and kitchen will be constructed. The board enthusiastically endorsed the project and asked KWENCH to take them to see the biodigester ablution blocks that had been constructed in Kibera. The field visit took place on October 20. KWENCH took the board members to see two existing projects. The first was a three-tiered “biocenter” constructed by the NGO Umande Trust that had toilets and showers on the ground floor, office space on the second floor and an open-air terrace on the top floor where the community could hold meetings. The second project we visited was the first biodigester ablution block that had been constructed in Nairobi by Practical Action. It is one story with a shower, washbasin and four toilets each for men and women, a separate toilet for children and an area outside for washing clothes and dishes and selling water (unfortunately, my camera wasn’t functioning that day so I don’t have photos of the field visit). The board members agreed that, because the KHDP had plenty of space for meetings and offices the Practical Action design was more appropriate than the biocenter. Because the KHDP site is on highly compactable, organic soils that will need to be excavated to bedrock prior to construction, the KHDP board members suggested that the kitchen be built on top of the ablution block to cut the costs of excavation. We plan to start with designs from the Practical Action project for the ablution block and design the second floor, which will house the kitchen, from scratch.

Meeting with KHDP Board

Project Site at KHDP