Grantee: Dukers Community Learning Center
Location: Embolioi, Kenya
Grant amount: $1500
Storing rainwater at the Dukers Community Learning Center has been achieved through joint efforts between Ustawi Global and the community, embracing our values of Agency and Impact.
Agency | Impact |
|---|---|
Awareness that the school can only be registered with access to water, even if temporary. | Dukers Community Learning Center became officially registered as a school |
Ustawi Global co-founders and the community advocated for gathering the materials needed.
| A sustainability committee has been formed, creating connections within the community |
The community took action to gather the funding for the materials. Co-founder Thompson Morrison provided funding for the rainwater tank itself. |
The Ustawi Survey has led both the community in Embolioi and Ustawi Global to a deeper understanding of the strengths held within the community. It has revealed the dimensions of life in which it is possible for the community to sustain ownership of their lives that will lead them to experience empowered dignity. We feel fortunate to share the many stories of the Maasai people achieving a sense of collective flourishing, click here to learn more.
While the Ustawi Survey has led us to see the assets held within and by the Maasai, it has also revealed where there are barriers to their capacity to achieve goals named on their Life Maps. The main goal named by the people specifically living in Embolioi is easier access to clean water. During the dry season, some families reported relying on unsafe sources, increasing their exposure to waterborne illnesses, and many reported that the existing source posed a time burden on women and girls, as it could take up to four hours to collect and bring back the water for their household.
Children in my community have to walk very long distances of around 10 kilometers to access education and water.
Neema Nosim, Daughter of the Embolioi Community
We came to understand that when there is access to water, many of the other areas of poverty flagged would diminish, particularly in relation to school attendance, hygiene practices, and participation in economic activities. Therefore, improving water access to the entire community is a priority for our work with them.
If they can get access to adequate water, it is going to be an opening, an opportunity for them to do many other things within the school.
Rose Poka, Ustawi Survey Team
Connections Coming Alive
In April 2024, the Ustawi Global co-founders were invited to participate in a community conversation to align aspirations, timelines and interim goals. This meeting was also an opportunity to officially introduce co-founder Thompson Morrison, his wife Mary Beth and Newtone Jagero (Rose Poka’s husband) to the community. The Ustawi Global team’s connection with the locally elected Assistant Chief and community leaders of Oltepesi and Embolioi is essential to move forward with the aspiration to gain access to clean water at the Dukers Learning Center.
Learning Coming Alive
The aspiration for access to clean water for the people of Embolioi was quickly established. During the community discussion, the Ustawi Global team shared that the school must be registered to directly receive funding from outside sources. Newtone Jagero shared with the group that, to become registered as a school, Dukers Learning Center would need to prove that sufficient water is available for the students to attend a full school day. His prior experience with the registration process for schools led him to explain that the water solution could be temporary, with a declared intention to follow-up with the installation of permanent water access.
As our visit occurred during a period of heavy rains, co-founder Kavita Tanna wondered if it would be sufficient to collect rainwater in one of the large tanks that the team had seen around East Africa. Within 24 hours, Mary Beth Camp and Thompson Morrison committed $1,500 from their Donor Advised Fund to meet this need, and within three weeks the community had built a foundation and installed tanks and gutters, allowing rainwater to be collected for the students and the school to receive its certification.
Communities Coming Alive
We have already seen the effects of this project in bringing the community together, as the initial funding for rainwater collection was a joint effort between community members who were passionate about getting the school open and running, and the generous donors to Ustawi Global. The community is expected to come further alive through the Rotary International Sustainability Committee which has been formed for the project; it is composed of recently university-educated community members, community leaders that have experience with public service, and elders. This committee creates connections between community members in a collaborative and rewarding setting.
Additionally, the community children have improved access to education, and, when the borehole is drilled, the strain on the community that inadequate water access creates will be relieved, providing stability that will allow them to focus on other goals and flourish.
What’s Next?
We are looking forward to [having] a permanent solution of water, and we are requesting our friends, they can source any funding to assist the community to have a permanent source that’s a borehole.
Paul Ukah, Mashuuru Area Chief
Using rainwater as a water source for the Learning Centre is not a permanent solution, particularly during the dry season. We are currently partnering with Rotary International to drill a borehole and purchase the required pumps, tanks, and solar panels. This initiative includes creating a sustainability fund so that the people of Embolioi can have water security in the years ahead.
If you would like to support Ustawi Global’s efforts towards working with the people of Embolioi to provide a water source for the children and the community at Dukers Community Learning Centre, please click the button below.
