A mother walks away with dirty water from a community pond. By Shay
Half of us met up with the new SWAP location in Kakamega. They only opened in February, but have already made significant progress in the area.
First, we visited a potter, Jacob, who is the third generation in his family to be producing clay pottery. With the education about clean water growing in Kenya, he has now broadened his makings to water pots that hold 20 liters of water after they have been purified. For 320 shillings, one can buy a traditional African refrigerator pot with a water tap (it keeps the water very cold despite the temperatures outside). The pots play into the safe water “behavior change” step where people stop putting cups and hands directly into their water container, which recontaminates the water. SWAP has commissioned him to make 20 pots so that they can disperse them throughout their offices.
We also saw another community, called Eregi Home-Based Care, which has now been trained by SWAP in safe water. One leader said if these women are trained, then the rest of the community will be trained. The community is made up of a widow’s group, care takers for orphans, and HIV counseling groups. They are still waiting for business training. During the PUR demonstration, they sang songs that translated to, “A good mother likes clean water, a good husband likes clean water, good children like clean water, so we should give clean water to the whole community.” We continue to see that PUR demonstrations not only show the magic of this new product, but also teaches safe/clean water education. With the PUR demonstration, people learn things that may keep their family healthy and active.
A couple of startling statistics that we were told: 60% of people are affected by dirty water and 50 million spent on teaching people about proper handwashing.Kakamega was a beautiful city. The ride there, though long, was scenic and green, with these interesting, large stones that populated the surrounding hills. Several of them had anti-ODM graffiti. It made me feel so estranged from this country and what has been going on for the past six months.
-Ange