December 19, 2006

"If you want to help improve the conditions of a pastoral community, the most important investment is water."

So instructs CWS's Disaster Mitigation expert Ephraim Kiragu (pictured) on the outset of a journey to Kenya's Rift Valley and the Narok District.

"The valley is made of volcanic soils rich in minerals. It just needs water," Kiragu continues. Indeed it does. The land is dry and gets drier when as a group of visitors traverses nearly 30 miles in from the main road to visit a Masai community who has benefited from a project of Church World Service's program Water for Life.

The community had long been affected by drought and the need to walk up to 12 miles to get water, a task of women and girls. Animals die. East Africa has recently seen such a drought, like the one in 1991-92.

This community had "missed out" on any help, says Kiragu, until a member of CWS partner National Council of Churches of Kenya visited to appraise its situation. "This area was not favored by the big NGO's," remembers Kiragu. "There were no relief operations. We found 102 churches struggling with the situation.

"Everywhere were dead carcasses… the report caught the eye of CWS-East Africa Director Daniel Tyler. The office prepared a proposal for recovery, and not for simple food distribution. This is the CWS key to sustainability.

"Sheep and goats were re-stocked in order to restore the community to a status where it didn't require ongoing help. The community was engaged to leverage partnerships."

A steering committee was created to involve local authorities, who then reached out to government counterparts in veterinary and agriculture departments. The committee prepared a comprehensive work plan with key activities and lobbied member churches to contribute. The group recovered earth dams that had been built by European settlers, as a start. And this year, Church World Service drilled a borehole for the community's use.

Joseph Paneiyio (pictured), with CWS partner Narok Conservation and Drought Management, is the secretary of the steering committee, and he is a force of enthusiasm and gratitude. He says the community describes its new borehole as "an oasis in the middle of its radius, the mother of all boreholes," he says with a laugh.

"The community had been marginalized because they are traditional Masai," he explained. "It's hard to move the Masai" to where water might have been more readily available. "God has created an oasis with CWS," Joseph said. "Thank you - long live CWS!"

The beneficiaries, who have worked out a schedule of days for various settlements to visit the well, clustered in different spots to greet the visitors along their journey. "Since you came faces are shining!" Joseph said. "You can see our women are happy."

Their chief (pictured) remarked, "Thank God for having brought you all the way from the U.S., brothers and sisters from another country." He told the group that the communities extended their gratitude by sharing their water with the wildlife and dogs, who had also suffered from the droughts, and by planting trees so that the water supplies do not dry up.

At the well, a crowd waited in the shade of acacia trees. The site consists of two boreholes, a well covered by branches to protect it from elephants, and a pumphouse.

At Lokumukumu, Joseph explained that the efforts had begun in 2004, with testing by the Kenya Ministry of Water. They drilled to 110 feet.

The site supplies 3,642 households and over 10,000 head of livestock. It is managed by the steering committee of 15 members, who raised the money to pay for the government permit to drill. The committee includes seven women. Said one, "If it were not for CWS, there could not have been a well like this. A well like this …," she paused, and continued, "Water is life. Long live Kiragu and Mary!" CWS East Africa staff member Mary Obiero (pictured) heads sustainable development programs.

Said water committee treasurer Honoria Naylishu (pictured), "Sick people would die because we had no water to swallow the medicine. We used to drink water that had typhoid. These days we don't need to migrate, because we have water. We have no sickness since the borehole opened."

An important result of not needing to migrate is that girl children, responsible for fetching water, can now attend school. In another CWS program, a nearby school has been established and supplied, resulting in two national student honorees.

Honoria continued, "Even when we were hungry, we could not cook the food - we had no water to cook it. People used to die. If people wanted to suffer, they would come to this area.

"So we pray for you and feel for you in our hearts, and we know as days go by, soon the water problem will be a gone issue."

The steering committee chairman gave his remarks. "My joy is to find assistance in this desert - because we have really gotten something that has lifted our living standards. On behalf of the community we thank you because you have helped us. Very long distances we used to travel to get water.

"God is great and is an almighty God that there is water here today. We see water coming from this rocky place."

Media Contacts: Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676; lcrosson@churchworldservice.org Jan Dragin (24/7), 781-925-1526; jdragin@gis.net

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