Kenyan Borwells - not boring at all

The background to our story


“Everyone Has A Right To Clean Water
& Good Health”

Water Water Everywhere!

Yes, it is available, but not accessible!  Schools in Embu County Kenya suffer from a lack of clean water, affecting the health and prospects of the schoolchildren there.  There is abundant water in the aquifer underground in this area in the foothills of Mount Kenya.  But how to get to it?

The answer - Join with local organisations and the Rotary Club of Embu to dig wells at each school to deliver water. 

In the following web pages, Margaret Fowler talks about her work over 12 years with the local people, continuing to this day, and how she liaised with Lucy Mbogo headteacher of Ciamanda Primary School (and now chair of the Embu Head teachers’ Association).  She worked with all the above organisations, and signed them all up as partners.

A Cunning Plan

Les Sheppard describes how we devised his “cunning plan” plan to raise money from crowd-funding, and the effort and satisfaction of his involvement in the Crowd funding exercise. We signed up, did the training and prepared our case, but then delayed our participation from the September Programme to the December one.  The best decision we could have made.  It gave us more time to prepare, a longer program to raise money, and a brilliant result - raising over $16,000.

While last, but not least, Malcolm Acors tells how he developed and worked with the team to deliver the project.  He reports his satisfaction for the opportunity to develop the project and his thanks for the support of all our club members and our international Rotary Colleagues.

Where are we now?

The pilot well in Ciamanda was completed in December 2019.  Then COVID19 intervened.  We were locked down.  Embu county was locked down.  And everything came to a halt.

But we persevered and restarted in October 2020.  We were using the money from our “double triangular” Rotarians, and in the absence of the promised District Grant, money raised from our GlobalGiving crowdfunding to build six more wells. 

The first in Ena Primary School was completed just after New Year. 

The second well at St. Paul’s Magaca Primary School was completed in late February, 2021. 

As at mid-February the third well at Canon Herbert Ikuura Primary School is started.
Project completion of eight wells required us to use £3,000 from club reserves while we still waited for the District Grant, which has now arrived (February 12, 2021).

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Celebrating well No. 2 at ENA Primary School

Clean water - 10 Wells for 5,500 Children

back 5,500 children at 10 schools in Kenya, are benefitting from reliable, fresh, clean water for drinking, washing, cleaning, and watering of crops. This will make a huge difference to their lives for less than ten pounds per child.