Marathon to supply water to Magunga schools, villages

World Vision Kenya's Lake Region Manager Joseph Tinkoi (right) and, Homabay County Agriculture CEC Aguko Juma flag off the Global 6K Run for Water at Sanjweru Primary School in Magunga. [Jeckonia Otieno, Standard]

Sanjweru Primary School of Suba South Constituency in Lambwe Valley has reason to smile.

The school which has a student population of 307 pupils has borne the brunt of water shortage over the years.

But this is about to come to an end in the next few months following an initiative by World Vision Kenya’s Lake Region to have water reach not only the school but over 1,300 other residents of Sanjweru village in Magunga Ward.

Josephine Okinyo, the school’s head teacher says the problem will help avert various challenges touching on education and health.

She says that the lack of clean water has led to less class time for studies.

“During the dry seasons, we are forced to ask pupils to carry water from home yet some of them have to walk for up to six kilometres to fetch that water and even then the safety of the water they bring is not guaranteed,” says Okinyo adding that during such seasons the pupils also have to leave early and go get water.

The challenge also forces some girls to stay out of school especially when they experience their menstrual flows due to lack of water to keep clean. This, Okinyo says, impacts heavily on the girls’ school time.

Other areas to benefit from the project include Nyasoti and Koyombe.

For this reason, World Vision, which sank a borehole in the village some years back decided to make piped water a reality for the residents through a charity run dubbed Global 6K for Water, a six-kilometre run for water.

Bringing together over 150 workers of the organisation’s Lake Region last weekend, the run sought to raise Sh5 million to place a submersible water pump at the borehole and construct a water tank on the hill as well as lay pipes that will allow water to gravitate to the village; World Vision workers alone managed to raise over Sh1.7 million with the remainder expected from well-wishers and local partners including the County Government of Homa Bay.

According to Joseph Tinkoi, the regional manager, this will ensure that the targeted residents do have to travel long distances to get water. He states this is an initiative seeking to locally raise funds for projects.

He says, “It takes about three minutes to fill a 20-litre jerry can with water using the manual pump and this forces others to wait and takes a lot of valuable time and energy that can be used for other duties.”

The initiative is expected to reduce cases of waterborne diseases like cholera which locals have to contend with at times. Tinkoi points out that this could be due to the fact that open defecation is yet to be fully eradicated.

Despite its proximity to Lake Victoria, Homa Bay remains a water scarce county calling for urgent initiatives to ensure all residents have safe water.

Aguko Juma, CEC for agriculture Homa Bay County praised World Vision for the great work to tackle community challenges.

“Earlier this year we invited organisations working in this county and asked them to share with us their budgets; to our surprise, only World Vision did so and we appreciate the work they are doing,” states Juma.