Lolkeringet Dispensary Water Project

Total Project Cost: $15,205

Project Location: Lolkeringet, Nandi County, Kenya

Community Background

The community of Lolkeringet consists of 150+ households (approximately 1,200 people) located in Nandi County part of the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. The community is rural with dispersed houses surrounded by gardens and fields. The composition is 60% female, 40% male, and the age bracket is 40% youth, 45% middle-aged, and 15% elderly.

The major economic activities of the community are sugarcane, maize, coffee, tea, poultry, and livestock farming.

Due to the proximity to Eldoret (approx. 42km), one of Kenya’s fastest-growing towns and home to higher learning and tertiary institutions, the community is growing very fast with a wide range of household income statuses. Many adults from Lolkeringet travel to Eldoret for work to sell farm products. The children in the community attend public or private schools, tertiary institutions, and universities depending on the households’ ability to pay.

Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH) Concerns

A few water systems exist in the area. These systems are primarily a group of houses sharing a well, unprotected springs, and one gravitational water flow stream. One school has a borehole and is shared by the neighboring schools. The healthcare facility relies on rain harvesting which poses a lot of challenges during dry seasons. The maternity wing cannot be opened until a reliable water source is available.

The wells in the area vary in water volumes with some wells drying up during the dry season forcing the community to source water from far away which is time-consuming and costly.

Proposed Project

The proposed project will expand the existing 20 houses to the adjacent 150+ households in the system service area. This will include constructing water storage of 6,600 gallons, de-silting of source, provision of new air valves, new buried distribution piping to the service area, and repair of cattle trough.

The project is anticipated to be completed within six months once the funding has been secured.

This expansion will help provide reliable water service daily eliminating the need for women and children to spend hours collecting and fetching water. This will improve the quality of life making it possible for family members to spend more time and increase school attendance. It will also enable the maternity wing to operate and serve the needs of mothers during delivery times.

The overall hygiene will be enhanced in schools, the Lolkeringet Dispensary, and the catchment population in the communities served.

Sustainability Considerations

Our in-country partners, along with the Lolkeringet Dispensary and community members will monitor the project in the construction phase and evaluate the project annually to verify the household use payments, operating revenue of the water committee, and operations & maintenance performed on the system.  

Community Engagement

The 150+ community households in the service area together with the schools and Lolkeringet Dispensary have committed 16,200 KSh ($120 USD) monthly as a subscription fee. These funds will be used for a portion of the project construction and for ongoing operation and maintenance of the system once complete.

The community served, the schools and the Lolkeringet Dispensary will also provide 25% of the total project cost in the form of materials and labor.

WEFTA Volunteers

WEFTA will donate engineering and post-construction follow-up to this project equating to 15% of the total project cost.

If you would like additional information about this project, please contact us.