CLEAN WATER ACCESS AT THE CENTRE OF LOVE KIBERA

We have had a cholera outbreak in the last three months in Kibera and several informal settlements in Nairobi. This has been due to thousands of people drinking unsafe and contaminated drinking and washing water. Contaminated water threatens the lives of millions of young children and their families.  Contaminated water is responsible for 90% of deaths among children under the age of 5, and also contributes to very serious health problems including diarrhoea, intestinal parasites, and miscarriage.

In the last three months, we have made progress, connecting an additional 10,000-litre capacity water tank. This gives us an extra 10,000 litres of water beside the two 10,000 and 1,000-litre reservoirs totalling 21,000 litres of water. In the same period, we upgrades the Ultrafiltration Water machine piping from PVC  pipes to the recommended UPVC pipes. We are still running tests to ensure that everything is well-fitted and to the required standard before further steps. There are still more requirements to be met before we get approval for our water filtration income-generating activity. These include among other others; the taking of water samples for laboratory tests and facility visits by public health officers.

We have had challenges ranging from theft of water pipes and general vandalism. Water is a resource and costly in Kibera, competing for scarce commodities comes with enough challenges. Valuable time is spent in monitoring, and mending broken, disrupted pipes and sometimes correcting diverted water. These challenges are perpetrated by competing water vendors and the readily available scrap plastic market.

We have put in place measures such as uniquely painting our pipes with permanent black paint to protect them from theft and easily identifiable. A permanent lasting solution would be burying and cementing our pipes with concrete and this will be done when we have funds for the same.

We are providing routine community sensitisation on the significance of using safe clean drinking water. Our focus now is providing community training, targeting families and specifically women and youths.