The Need for Water
Try this today: From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, count how many times you use water and note what you use it for. Write down details such as how far you have to walk to obtain the water you use, how safe you feel using the water you have access to, and how difficult it is to make the water hot or cold.
The list will astonish you. You use water more than you realize. Showering, brushing your teeth, making morning coffee, watering the lawn, cleaning the dishes, washing your clothes, cooking your food – usually, a simple walk to the next room will provide you with a full glass of purified water. We take for granted how we never have to wonder where our water will come from or if it will be safe to use or not. In the Rift Valley of Kenya they tell a different story. Each day continues the struggle for water – the struggle for life.
Finding safe, pure, and easily obtainable water in the Rift Valley is the biggest concern of the people who live there. Many groups of people are discussing ways to attain water and are implementing measures to do so without much success. The bore hole wells often break and do not provide drinkable water. The piping bringing water from the mountains has constant maintenance and security issues. The people are forced to purchase bottles of water at high cost. The use of each drop must be carefully rationed, as there is never enough for all their needs. Hopefully, we have stumbled upon a way to end this battle.
In May, Empower Dreams visited a company called Panda Flowers, the largest distributor of flowers in Europe. One of their missions is to use some of their profit to give back to their local community through humanitarian work. One of the ways they have chosen to do this is through the establishment of a water filtration plant. They have found a way to take the water from bore hole wells and run it through their advanced filtration system so it becomes drinkable. For the first time we have seen a successful operating model that we may be able to implement to benefit the IDP camps and Naomi’s Village.
We have no immediate plans to use this process as of yet. We are still searching for a method that is sustainable, efficient, and cost effective. We pray that a door opens soon in order to meet this basic need for the people of the Rift Valley. Ending the search for water will free time and energy to be spent on building up the community and the people it encompasses.
