A community well's second life
- John Chisholm
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
UKR has been expanding its networks and partnerships. In April, they worked with a local business to make a long-defunct village well usable once again.
In March a group of community elders and leaders from Eshibutse in our Shikoti zone, aware of UKR’s new presence, approached the organization to ask for help with a well. While UKR does not usually work in the area of water supply, the request was reasonable and the positive impact to be made was large.
In recent memory, Eshibutse has been a place where people walk long distances to fill jugs with river water, sometimes more than two miles each direction. This is despite living in a green region that generally has plenty of water.
There had been a shared well in the community, but it ran dry twenty years ago as the water table dropped. Then, disused, the metal pump was stolen one night. Eventually the well was covered by eroding soil and grass, all but forgotten.
The community’s request to UKR was simple: help them restore the old well as a water point for all.
After all was agreed, the well was located and uncovered, and soon local diggers went down to add ten feet of depth to the well.
In partnership with a local Kakamega business, which took on more than half the $1500 project costs, United Kenya Rising helped to purchase a metal hand-pump for the well. The community itself, however, now owns it and will maintain it.
Several hundred people from Eshibutse now have easier access to cleaner water because of this simple initiative. It helps a few UKR families and many of their neighbors in a manner that’s cost effective and suited to the unique needs of a community.
