This region receives an average of 300mm of rainfall, which not only occur in short periods during the short rains (in November) and Long rains (in March through May) but also is poorly distributed.
This little and poorly distributed amount of rainfall is worsened by the fact that there are virtually no reservoirs to tap this available water, which, as a result, let the rain water just flow away to bigger rivers, then to Indian Ocean in the south.
This not only causes land degradation via soil erosion, but also results to long dry-spells, leading to adverse scarcity of water.
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This scarcity has increased poverty hundredfold, leading to: High school drop out; Diseases; Increase in spread of HIV/ AIDS; hygiene being compromised; Lack of food; High rate of urban migration of the young people; Insecurity, et al
Most hit areas in the diocese are the northern, Eastern and southern parts
Due to this outcry for water, development office established water programme in 1984, in order to supplement the government's efforts through the ministry of water.
In its inception, the water office was only dealing with water tanks building, but to date, this has expanded, as more needs of the community continue to stretch the capabilities of the programme, and as more partners get more involved into the programme
The overall aim of the programme is to: “Improve health and productivity through provision of clean water supply through community empowerment for sustainable development”
The effort is made towards to improving water availability by reducing the distance to water sources to less than 5 km from the homestead; while creating awareness in water; soil and environmental conservation, for better utilization of available water resources.
In most areas especially in Mwingi and Mutomo, there are cases where women and girl-children (who most are burdened with search for water) have to foot for between four and six hours to and from the water points.
In most cases, they would walk such long distances with a donkey carrying four twenty-liter jerry-cans on the back, but if unfortunate, an individual may be forced to go the whole journey in a scorching sun, carrying a 20L jerry-can on her back.
Among the major actors in the water programme in the diocese have included: local Communities; Government (ministry of Water/ Health/ Agriculture); Other NGOs (supplementary efforts); Donor agencies (Cafod (1990 – today); GOAL (today); water ford (1984-1986); Irish Government (1986-1990)); Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis; CRS, et al
The activities in the programme include Sinking wells; Constructing earth dams; subsurface dams; fero-cement tanks; Rock catchments; spring protection; ‘Tankering’ (distributing water to people using water buzzers) as well as Provision of equipment for water conservation and management.
Others include Capacity building on water management; maintenance operations; environmental conservation and Gender mainstreaming.
On going water Projects
a) Water and schools programme
This GOAL (Ireland)/ Irish aid supported programme was started in June 2007 and will go on till June 2008. The programme targets Mutomo district
It is a project aimed at increasing water availability for domestic and farm use, while reducing distance and time taken to water points by the community. At the same time, it is meant to create safer and hygienic learning environment within schools while promoting hygienic education within the community.
Among the planned activities are plans to construct 15 Earth dams, 27 water tanks (already 11 water tanks have been completed, with the rest under construction), and 420 latrines (67 latrines have been completed).
Also, by the end of the project, 65 classrooms will have been constructed (or renovated). Currently, 7 of these classrooms have been done.
