Our Projects

The Problem

More than 72.9% of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas. According to a recent report by the Human Rights Watch, 63.2% of the said rural population is without proper water infrastructures. This forces many to resort to unsafe alternatives such as seasonal streams, earth ponds, and unprotected hand-dug wells. These sources are often exposed to an array of microbiological pollutants that spread diseases such as cholera, bilharzia and typhoid.

In the developed areas of Kenya where some form of water infrastructures do exist, proper maintenance to ensure upkeep is often neglected. This can lead to shut-offs, leaving thousands without water to bathe, flush toilets, cook, and drink. When tap water does flow, it is often contaminated with sewage.

HEALTH

663 million people globally lack access to safe water supply sources with 350 million people in Africa alone affected everyday. The health implications are staggering. 2 million people die every year due to water-borne diarrheal diseases, most of them children under the age of 5. The World Bank estimates that water-related illnesses kill more African children under age five than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.

EDUCATION

Water scarcity in Kenya like several parts of Africa prevents many young children, especially girls, from attending school and receiving an education as they are expected to aid their mothers in water retrieval and household chores. A lack of clean water means the absence of sanitary facilities and latrines in schools, resulting in absenteeism 10-20 % among girls who have reached puberty. Adequate investment in drinking water and sanitation facilities would result in 272 million more school attendance days per year.

WOMEN AND GIRLS

Women and girls are disproportionally burdened by scarcity of clean drinking water. In most African societies, women are seen as the collectors, managers, and guardians of water for household chores like cooking, washing, and child rearing. Because of these traditional gender labor roles, women spend around 60% of each day collecting water, which translates to approximately 110 million collective work hours every day and a decrease in the amount of time available for education, income generating activities, house-work, or childcare.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

The detriment water scarcity has on educational attainment for women in turn affects the social and economic capital of women in terms of leadership, earnings, and working opportunities. The lost number of potential school days and education hinders the next generation of African women from breaking out of the cycle of unequal opportunity for gainful employment, which serves to perpetuate the prevalence of unequal opportunity for African women and adverse effects associated with lacking income from gainful employment. With safe water nearby, women are free to pursue new economic opportunities and improve their families’ lives.

The Solution

It’s hard to believe that more often than not, clean safe drinking water a developing community desperately needs is right underneath them. And it’s amazing how when few people come together can make such a dramatic difference in so many lives. That’s why we partner with small groupings and schools to bring safe drinking water in rural communities across East Africa.

Below, you’ll find information on the types of water wells we have built and a brief description of the process.

OUR APPROACH

At Wellboring GroundWater (GWAKO), we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. GWAKO’s model can be described as bottom –up providing a local solution to a global problem. Our projects utilize local materials, local labor and ingenuity and ownership is transferred to the communities upon completion. More importantly, we focus on optimizing sustainability of our water projects by forming long-lasting, collaborative relationships with communities. We do not build water systems in isolation. Instead we work with communities to co-create programs that are appropriate for them and the environment in which they live. Learn more about our approach.

Project Identification	Community Engagement	Constructions ^ Education
GWAKO work closely with local county authorities – community development assistants, ministry of public health, education and water to identify schools and villages in the dire need. Through word of mouth, referrals and public barazas, Often times, neighboring schools and villages learn about our work in the region and appeals to us.	Community engagements are at the heart of GWAKO developments philosophy. This not only enable us to gain deeper understanding of the villages and schools needs but help implement home grown solutions, This means walking with locals, eating with them and even living in their midst.	We work hand in hand with schools’ leadership and involves them at every stage of the project, from planning, drilling, constructions, maintenance’s and monitoring. We ask each village/school to provide at least 10% of total project costs in local available resources {sand, gravel, murram etc} and labor.
Capacity Building	Monitoring	Impacts
With the goal of each project becoming community owned, we set up water users committee, train pump mechanics and equip them with the skills and tools to handle system maintenance’s and repairs	Working with the project beneficiaries, water management committee, we exhaustively monitor projects after every three months upon handing over the project and share the monitoring results to our partners, project beneficiaries and online sector ministries.	Since we began operations, we have had 100% functionality rate and vow to maintain a track record of project success. We take critical steps to ensure sustainability and leave a lasting impact on every community we serve.

Water Wells Constructions & Equipping

We are borehole drilling social enterprise that specializes in drilling boreholes in the toughest of environments. Wellboring Groundwater operates three water drill rigs namely PRD 650 drill, and two Ls 200 portable drill rigs. The PRD 650 is a robust DTH cum ROTARY combination rig that goes to depths of 180 meters, while Ls 200 are cost effective potable mud rotary drill rig that can be moved through any terrain and drills to a maximum depth of 60 meters. The rigs are suitable for various geological formation including consolidated laterite, highly collapsible alluvial formations and fractured granite. Please check our gallery to see some of our completed projects.

School Health and Hygiene education (SHHE)

SHHE programs works to jumpstart or develop health clubs in primary schools. Of the schools that do have little health Clubs, the majority are not effective. In order to increase participation in hygiene education activities at the primary school level, we train pupils “little doctors” who can play an active role in their schools.

Pupils in the Little health Clubs will be trained in washing their hands with soap; promoting messages about hygiene practices; supervising and helping their classmates with hygiene practices; and assisting their teachers with these activities as necessary. The pupils may also help by cleaning school toilets, classrooms, and the general premises at least once per week. Little doctors may also remind their classmates of how to properly wash their hands with soap and water during a weekly assembly