Water, Community Health Centre & Community Strategy

During GIVE’s first trip to Kanyawegi we took it upon ourselves to identify where the greatest need was in the community.  Through active discussion with community members the message was very clear: Water.  Approximately 8 months of the year the region does not receive much precipitation and during the rainy season the water holes, where many people fetch water, are grossly contaminated.  There are few bore holes within the community that do provide a clean source of water but they are difficult to travel to due to their distance.  It is also important to note that community does sit on the shores of Lake Victoria but not everyone has ease of access to this water.  It is commonplace for some children to take a full day off school to travel to the lake to fetch water in the dry season.   Time and time again the community expressed to us that acquiring water in the dry season was amongst their greatest challenges.

After this experience GIVE began fundraising in order to facilitate a community lead solution to this problem.  A special thanks must go out to all the team members that work so hard to achieve our goal and the incredible support we received from friends and family from our own community.  Once the money was fundraised it took a long time to work out all the logistics and complicating factors involved in providing a source of water to a community in need.  We had seen so many good ideas and good projects fall apart because they were rushed which unfortunately made them unsustainable.

In the end it was a partnership with the local health centre, the municipal counsel of Kisumu, the community and the community bank that made this project happen.  We worked with these groups of people to revamp the water system at the local health centre and had water flow out of its taps for the first time in over ten years.  The hope is that by effective community mobilization we have achieved a project that we will be sustainable.  A community tap, which is run by a local women’s group, where water is sold at market value has been running for a short while with the objective to generate revenue that will be used to maintain the system and improve services at the health centre.  GIVE’s financial development team’s effort with the community bank has truly made this project effective because it can be run and managed by community members.  

Summer 2010 was a challenging yet rewarding summer. The health team came to Kanyawegi with an ambitious list of projects and was able to assess and to see progress on most. The main focus was to implement Community Strategy (CS) in the community. This is a government initiative meant to help bridge the gap between the community and the healthcare system. We teamed up with a local partner, Pamoja, who has experience with CS implementation and along with the Municipal Government of Kisumu, we were able to complete a 2 week training program for 54 community health workers (CHWs) and 1 week training for the 12 community health committee (CHC) members. We also provided them with the materials necessary to carry out their duties. Prior to our departure, the CHWs were able to go out into the community and do the initial household registry (record of people, immunizations, bed nets, etc.) for which we are now reviewing the data.

Over the next year, we will remain in contact with our partners on the ground to continue running monthly training meetings and hold community dialogue and health action days for the CS project. We also continue to maintain contact with the staff of the Ober Kamoth Health Center and the Municipal of Kisumu Health Team for updates on the improvements to the center, the main health service centre in the community. Unfortunately, we were not able to secure a regular supply of drugs or malaria nets prior to our departure. However, we did receive some positive feedback and continue to follow up on the new directions suggested. Also, after assessment of the decline in level of HIV care at the center, we were able to reach out to some other local aid groups and will continue to advocate for improved services.

As we continue to evaluate and monitor the progress of the past summer it is difficult to say just yet what next summer will bring. However, we anticipate putting most efforts into current projects to ensure continued sustainability and to that end, potentially initiate income generating activities (IGAs) to support the CHWs.