Yesterday, UNICEF delivered two, 5,000-liter, donated water tanks to the KHDP site. The project is going very well.

Pictures:

• Water Tanks! (JPG)

Kara Wevers and Gerald Cook visited over a dozen GlobalGiving projects in March of 2009.

Kara wrote:

"Constance Hunt, the founder, director and only staff member of KWENCH, allowed us to spend a few hours with her during our visit in Nairobi. She took us to visit her current project on GlobalGiving, where construction is underway for a creative, sustainable, eco-friendly building. Once finished, this building will have toilets, showers, a kitchen, and, hopefully, a community room in which to gather and hang out. The stoves in the kitchen will run on the methane gas collected from the sanitation system’s processes. It is a really innovative set-up. It was great to actually see people working on the building while we were there. It should be up and running within a matter of time.

The location of the building is especially exciting, as it is on the grounds of a school in one of the Nairobi slums. The headmaster was full of hope and smiles as he walked us through the construction site. The location of this site means that the school children will have the opportunity to use the new sanitation facility. Constance also hopes that this will become a spot where the community can gather, where women can use the kitchen to open a small restaurant on the second floor and earn an income this way. It is a great concept, and I hope it works out as planned."

Gerald Wrote:

"Today Kara Wevers and I visited “Kwench,” globalgiving project #1761, “Ablution block and Kitchen for 500 in Nairobi Slum.” We met Ms. Constance Hunt at her church. She was an amazing, quirky, American woman who has decided to stay in Kenya to build toilets and other facilities for impoverished schoolchildren. Upon meeting us we got into her vehicle and she began to lead us out into the field.

She led us into the heart of one of Nairobi’s largest slums. We passed by small shack after shack, small alleys and roads packed full of people. We saw fingers pointing and voices shouting “MUZUNGU!” (white person) as we passed. We visited two schools where Ms. Hunt had built or was building water facilities.

“Sanitation,” she explained, “is very important.” As we watched the construction of a structure that would house toilets, showers, stoves, and other facilities, she described for us how people now are using “flying toilets.” Apparently people defecate into small plastic bags, the type you might get from Wal-Mart, and then simply throw them out the window of their shacks onto the street!

Ms. Hunt is working on educating people on the health perils associated with this practice while also building facilities so that they are able to remain sanitary. She seems to be an expert in water and sanitation and described for us how EVERYTHING within the construction site was environmentally friendly and helpful for the community. The methane from the toilet waste was even to be converted into energy so that less charcoal (which is very dangerous to health and the environment) would be used.

Ms. Hunt was kind enough to introduce Kara and I to two school headmasters, and she watched as we played with the children and enjoyed ourselves. Constance Hunt is an amazing woman doing amazing work, almost entirely on her own."

When asked what they would tell their friends about this project, Kara said it was "Good" and Gerald said, "Great, they are making a difference!"

GlobalGiving is committed to incorporating many viewpoints on our 600+ projects. We feel that more information, especially from eyewitnesses helps donors like you continue to support organizations doing great work in the community.

Dear Donors:

Our CBO partner, the Kabiro Human Development Project, has obtained funding to drill a borehole at the site of our biodigester ablution block and community kitchen. The borehole is almost complete. This is wonderful news as water from the local utility is notoriously unreliable and in short supply.

Now our project will have PLENTY of water!

Please keep donating. We still need to raise the funds to build a second story as a meeting and eating facility.

Again, I sincerely appreciate your support.

Best regards,

Constance

Pictures:

• Borehole! (JPG)

Dear Donors:

Construction of Phase 1 is finished.The next steps are to install the plumbing fixtures, put in the doors and windows, lay the tiles, plaster and paint, construct cabinets and buy the other things we need for the kitchen (stoves, table, refrigerator, eg.).

You will note in the photo of the plumber on top of the staircase that we actually did construct a staircase in the hope that we will be able to add an upper floor for a meeting space. The meeting space would add a lot of value to our project as the women who cook in the kitchen could cook snacks and sell the snacks and drinks to people gathered in the meeting space.

Please help us add this value to our project! It will reallly help the community.

Thanks again for your support.

Sincerely,

Constance

Pictures:

• Contractor in Unfinished Structure (JPG)
• Workers Casting Ceiling Slab (JPG)

Today Michael Nolan and I visited globalgiving project #1761, “Ablution block and Kitchen for 500 in Nairobi Slum.” Constance Hunt, the project leader, met us and took us on a brief tour of one of Nairobi’s largest slums, Kawangware.

I handed her a microphone and MP3 recorder as just listened as we walked the two kilometers or so from the nearest transport into the heart of the slums. Endless shacks of rusty iron and cement lined the paths through this “informal settlement,” as euphemists prefer to call it. Walkers, bikers, and mothers glut the alleys as we weave a path to the community center she is helping construct.

Constance said, “If you tell them you are less likely to get cholera if you have a toilet. They don’t care. But if you tell them it will impress your guests… that’s the hook.”

“I heard the same about toothpaste,” I said, “People don’t brush to fight cavities, they brush because ads promise fresh breath.”

My visit was part of a larger listening tour of Kenya. We at GlobalGiving search for ways to let the people in communities like Kawangware speak to the world themselves. They are the experts on what they need. We believe everyone who uses globalgiving will answer their prayers if only there was a way for them to speak directly. I explained this to Constance. I mentioned that something as simple as twitter on a local cell phone could allow slum dwellers to begin a dialogue that will draw attention to their daily realities.

Constance looked a skeptical. “I’m just wondering does that mean that eventually it will add up to money coming into this project?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Few believe mobile phones can fight poverty, or that local people would text what they see so that visits like mine become superfluous. Looking just above her head I saw dozens of TV attenas poking through the rooftops. A block later, the familiar “SafariCom sold here” sign jutted from a shack. Poor they may be, but not isolated.

We entered the school grounds where the future community center will stand. Despite the short notice (I requested a visit by text message only the night before) a dozen or so Kenyans were piling on cement blocks and concrete.

“Wow! They work fast!” Constance said. “I was here just last week and they had barely a foundation. This phase is ahead of schedule but we’re still short of full funding for the project.”

As Constance explained, this community center will immediately provide toilets for the thousands that live nearby. There are NO toilets in this slum, period. The current practice is a “flying toilet” where a person deficates in a plastic bag and litterally chucks it out the window of the shack without regard to the mess it leaves in the community as a whole.

Down the road, the project will provide clean water with a new bore hole. Human waste will ferment into methane biofuels that will provide sustainable cooking facilities for the people nearby. If she can attract more funding, she even hopes to add a second floor for community activities.

“What one thing does this community need most?” I asked.
“Sewers. The whole slum grew up without any infrastructure. Now it is expensive to lay them. But I wish we could add sewers to improve the health and livelihood of these people,” Constance said.

This tour, our twittering villages in Kenya, its all an experiment. As a scientist I know that most experiments are in a sense ‘failures,’ but ‘progress’ only comes after the last failure, and only for those who persist. Our goal: give people louder voices.

Pictures:

• Typical slum dwelling. Note the Safaricom for sale (JPG)

Dear Donors:

Last week, we started construction on the biodigester ablution block and community kitchen. Work is progressing rapidly and we have been blessed by an absence of rain during the excavation and initial construction phase.

The community has asked us to add a second story to the project to serve as a meeting and eating facility. We are thinking of putting a television there (which most poor Kenyans lack). The people who work in the kitchn could sell samosas, mandozi and other snacks and soft drinks to people gathered there. This component is not in our current budget, however and more funds are needed to make it a reality.

The second story would make the project much more profitable for the community. Please be generous this Christmas season.

In Sincere Gratitude,

Constance

Pictures:

• Breaking Ground (JPG)
• Photo of Project Supervisors (JPG)
• Biodigester near completion (JPG)

Dear Donors:

This past Tuesday we had a training session on financial management for the team from the community who will oversee the construction process and manage the project once it is built.

The session went extremely well. The trainers were well prepared and highly motivational. The trainees seemed very competent and excited to be part of the project. KHDP served tea and sandwiches at the break and everyone left with a smile on their face.

More good news! We have permission to start construction and plan to do so within the next week or so.

Thanks so much for your support.

Sincerely,

Constance

Pictures:

• Breakout Session (JPG)
• Trainer (JPG)
• Group Photo (JPG)

Dear Donors:

We have hired an architect and begun the design work for the project. The initial design, which has already been approved by the Kabiro Human Development Project (KHDP) board of directors, includes an open-air, roofed meeting/eating facility and an office on the first floor, above the ablution block and kitchen. The project will include a rainwater harvesting system. Existing pit latrines on the KHDP site will be connected to the biodigester so that the latrines can stay cleaner longer and the biodigester can begin to generate methane faster (a certain amont of human waste has to accumulate before the methane can start to flow). We also intend to connect the biodigester to an existing sewer line so that exhausting the remaining waste will be quick, easy and inexpensive.

Next steps include a meeting with the current users of the facilities at KHDP to get their feedback on the design, then a meeting with the broader community in the informal settlement of Kawangware to inform them about the project.

Dear Donors:

In the wake of Kenya’s post-election violence, KWENCH is raising money to restore water connections in the informal settlement of Mathare, one of Nairobi’s largest slums. Water vending businesses in Mathare have traditionally been controlled by the Mungiki, a violent cult. Like most illegal vendors, the Mungiki break into the main water lines of the Nairobi Water and Sewer Company (NWSC) and run cheap, plastic piping known as “spaghetti” piping to kiosks inside the slum. The spaghetti ruptures easily, allowing contaminants, including raw sewage, to enter the water supply before it reaches the consumer. The water is also very expensive, partly because the Mungiki must pay bribes to the NWSC to avoid disconnection.

In July of last year, the NWSC cut off all illegal supply lines to Mathare, leaving residents without a source of water. From that time, NWSC has been supplying Mathare with free water from standpipes with the intention of establishing legal water connections by the end of 2007. Then the post-election riots broke out and all progress towards safe and legal supplies came to a halt.

Now that calm is being restored to the slums of Nairobi, neither the NWSC nor Mathare’s residents have sufficient funds to build water connections. In addition, during the post-election violence here, rioters ruptured the NWSC’s main pipes. Right now, because of the free water and broken pipelines, the NWSC is losing enormous amounts of revenue and the notion of providing legal water connections to the slums is a distant and receding dream.

KWENCH wants to rectify this situation by establishing safe, legal and inexpensive water supplies for Mathare. This will be accomplished by training registered Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to sell water. CBOs who opt to join this program will receive assistance from KWENCH in the form of fundraising for high quality equipment and training in operation and maintenance of equipment and business management. In return, the CBOs will be required to amend their constitutions to establish water vending as one of their objectives. They will further be required to include in their constitutions pledges to post their NWSC account numbers on their water tanks or kiosks (to assist clients in filing any complaints about their service), pay their bills on time, refuse to pay bribes, maintain uncontaminated water supplies and police their pipelines and equipment to prevent leakage and illegal water connections.

The water provided as a result will be safe because it will be transferred to points of sale in high-quality metal pipes and because the CBOs will know how to maintain their equipment. It will be inexpensive because the NWSC has a policy of charging only 10 Kenyan shillings per cubic meter to legal connections in informal settlements – one of the lowest rates in Africa, and because the large storage tanks we hope to provide will serve as a buffer against rising prices caused by scarcity when water supplies are irregular and unreliable.

Perhaps best yet, the CBOs comprise all the major ethnic groups in Mathare. KWENCH believes that by motivating these groups to work together to plan, construct and manage the settlement’s water supply, the groups will find common cause and help to restore lasting peace.

The cost of installing two water points in each of Mathare’s ten villages is approximately US$700,000, which KWENCH is trying to raise from a number of different sources. Donors to globalgiving can contribute to this project by supporting training, which will cost about US$3,600 for 100 people. Because the post-election violence has resulted in devaluation of the Kenyan shilling, your dollars can go quite far to help the destitute in Kenya.

Sincerely,

Constance

Now that we have some money coming in for the project, we have begun work on project design. On October 6, KWENCH met with the board of directors of the Kibero Human Development Project (KHDP), where the ablution block and kitchen will be constructed. The board enthusiastically endorsed the project and asked KWENCH to take them to see the biodigester ablution blocks that had been constructed in Kibera. The field visit took place on October 20. KWENCH took the board members to see two existing projects. The first was a three-tiered “biocenter” constructed by the NGO Umande Trust that had toilets and showers on the ground floor, office space on the second floor and an open-air terrace on the top floor where the community could hold meetings. The second project we visited was the first biodigester ablution block that had been constructed in Nairobi by Practical Action. It is one story with a shower, washbasin and four toilets each for men and women, a separate toilet for children and an area outside for washing clothes and dishes and selling water (unfortunately, my camera wasn’t functioning that day so I don’t have photos of the field visit). The board members agreed that, because the KHDP had plenty of space for meetings and offices the Practical Action design was more appropriate than the biocenter. Because the KHDP site is on highly compactable, organic soils that will need to be excavated to bedrock prior to construction, the KHDP board members suggested that the kitchen be built on top of the ablution block to cut the costs of excavation. We plan to start with designs from the Practical Action project for the ablution block and design the second floor, which will house the kitchen, from scratch.

Pictures:

• Meeting Hall at Kibero Human Development Project (JPG)
• Meeting with KHDP Board (JPG)
• Project Site at KHDP (JPG)