Osiligi Charity Projects
Clean, local water
Provision of clean water
The benefits of clean water are obvious; less disease and in some cases death. In the Maasai areas, dirty drinking water is the norm. It is the women and young girls' role to fetch the water. A typical water container is 20L (20 Kgms) and this may be carried up to 7-8 miles each way, or 14-16 miles total. A girl who has the job of fetching water from 7 miles away will not have any time to attend school. There is a high correlation between closeness of water and school attendance for girls.
It is our intention to slowly rollout, across the community, a network of clean springs, boreholes or wells fitted with handpumps such that no person is further than 3 miles from a source of clean water. Work will be carried out by local people so they have the skills to construct and maintain their water sources.
In May 2010, we fitted a handpump and concrete cap to a well that had been disused since 2005.
Prior to this well and pump, the only sources of free water were dirty waterholes - the waterholes being shared between humans and animals. Many people in the community suffered from diarrhoea and dysentery.
In 2011, we converted one of these waterholes into a clean source of water for humans and a seperate source for animals
Converting dirty waterholes into clean water sources continues in 2011 and 2012.
Once all the waterholes have been made clean, we will be starting to dig boreholes and wells across the community.
All this takes much money. If you support our projects, please make a donation.
If you are interested in our building of the well, constructing the top and fitting the pump, the pump page has many pictures of the construction.
The cost of re-digging the well, adding the well cap plus deep-water pump was KES 130,000 approximately £1150. Around 100 - 200 families will be taking water from this well, so the capital cost is only £6 -£12 per family with a few pence per year running costs thereafter.
The cost of protecting a spring to give a source of clean drinking water is around £700 - £1000 per spring. This should be maintanance free for about 10 years.
Girls carrying the water
The well and hand pump
Clean drinking water from a tap