Kenya Trip - Clean Drinking Water

Apart from a shortage of food, one of the big problems in Kenya, indeed Africa, is the lack of clean water to drink.

I have seen a few "gadgets" that allow people, particularly children, to drink dirty water through a special straw that filters the water instantly. I have seen others that the drinker fills with water and shakes, producing clean, clear water. But, will these ever get down to the grass roots? Who will pay for these implements?

SODIS is a means of purifying water using the UV rays of the sun. When a 1½ litre plastic (PET) bottle is filled with water and let in the sun for 8 hours, anything living in the water will be killed. No bugs, no germs, no live eggs.

So, we have started to show this to the children at the Twiga Centre. Now, they each have a bottle or two at the  centre, which they fill from the borehole and leave on the corrugated steel roof during the week. The following weekend, when they return, they can run around and then have a drink.

We are now encouraging them to do the same at home with harvested rainwater, so that they are sure the water is safe (they drink "raw" rainwater and sometimes pick up a tummy bug).

A small change in their routines, but, hopefully a big change in their health.