More than a hundred water drums have been distributed through the KenGen Foundation to vulnereable communities at Olkaria, Naivasha County, as a response for the need to provide water storage to households facing the current ongoing drought as part of KenGen PLC’s Corporate Social Investment.
Olomayiana Kubwa, Oloosinyat, Cultural Centre, Narasha, Oloirowua, Olomayiana Ndogo, and Oloonongot villages benefitted from the water drums, which have a capacity of 210 liters each. The drums are anticipated to reduce the problem of water storage being experienced in homesteads especially during the drought seasons.
Provision of clean accessible water for communities neighbouring its power plants has been one of KenGen’s key Corporate Social Investment programs over the last two decades. Through partnerships with corporates, central, and county governments, KenGen significantly contributes towards addressing Kenya’s water challenges.
Water storage in the Olkaria community has been grave to a notoriety level, and that got the attention of KenGen PLC. According to UNICEF, less than 10 percent of the population have access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation services leading to water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, one of the main causes of death for children under five years.
Following several assessments, the main challenges within the Olkaria communities identified were mainly inadequate clean water from existing hand-dug wells, especially during the dry season and more importantly, inadequate water storage capacity. KenGen Foundation selected the beneficiary villages based on recommendations from its assessment team during a feasibility study carried out earlier in the year.
Kenya’s water sources are unevenly distributed and at times plagued with community conflicts that further increase water access distress, especially among arid and semi-arid regions.
At the national level, the national government via the Ministry of Water, Sanitation, and Irrigation is intensifying efforts to achieve universal water security by initiating mega water, irrigation, and sanitation projects throughout the country.
Currently, the national access index is approximately at 64 per cent for water and 26 per cent for sanitation in urban areas with worse scores in rural areas according to a recent status report.
The efforts by the national government are in tandem with the provisions of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 in Article 43 (1), (b), (c), (d) that guarantee threshold sanitation and safe water access for all.
At the global outlook, Kenya’s urban non-revenue water stands at 41 per cent with an annual water per capita falling less than 500M3, placing the country at severe water stress according to UN’s global water security indexing, which mandates an annual minimum of 1000M3 per person.
The high rates of diarrheal diseases and childhood malnutrition, as well as frequent outbreaks of cholera in informal settlemnets, show how young children suffer when they don’t have access to the necessities of life. With the provision of the water storage drums and other meaningful interventions, KenGen PLC and its partners seek to positively impact the lives of Kenyans by creating opportunities, dignity, and hope in these communities.
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Ernest Nyamasyo,
Communication Officer
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