What a quarter we've had! With visits from our partner organisations CAWST and Transform International, partnership with EPAfrica to supply safe water to 10 schools in Kisii and Kakamega and the delivery of a 5 Day training in Uganda among many other activities. We're excited to bring you another update of our work.
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CELEBRATING OUR ACHIEVEMENTS
Aqua Clara Kenya becomes Awarded Best For The World Honoree 2019
In 2018, Aqua Clara Kenya became a Certified B Corporation, these are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
This quarter on September 5th, 2019 Aqua Clara Kenya was awarded the Best For The World Honoree 2019. Every year, B Lab recognizes the top-performing B Corps creating the greatest impact through their businesses. Honorees are recognized for having the highest environmental, community, customer, worker and overall impact by earning a score in the top 10% on the B Impact Assessment, as well as a list recognising B Corps with the greatest impact improvement (the changemakers).
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MAIN FEATURE
Creating Partnerships to Help School Children have Safe Drinking Water
In the Q2 Newsletter, we featured our School Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme and how it works. We ended the feature with a call to organizations interested in partnering with Aqua Clara Kenya to help fund needy schools to improve their WASH.
Students at a school washing their hands with one of our products.
A majority of schools in East Africa do not have access to clean and safe drinking water, and many of these schools already lack the capacity to fund most of their basic needs such as desks, chairs, chalkboards, books, just to name a few. When a school cannot provide its students with such basic necessities, one can only imagine what their WASH situation is like.
Through our partnership with Transform International, we have been able to reach over 200 schools in 2019 alone. Some of these schools have already bought a WASH package or are in the process of purchasing one. For many, however, there is need to provide financial support. Our plan is to build a network of partners who can help support schools to improve their WASH situation. We are grateful to already have some of these partners.
Aqua Clara Kenya Staff Douglas Makora, with EPAfrica team at a School in Kisii County, Kenya.
These include Education Partnerships Africa (EPAfrica), a UK NGO that sponsored 10 Schools in Kisii and Kakamega this quarter to acquire water filters and rainwater harvesting systems. We are also grateful to Roger Clarke and Elisa Cirone who supported two schools in Homa Bay County with Rain Water Harvesting and a Community Filtration System with the capacity of purifying 10,000 litres a day.
We have also partnered in the past with Kenya Health Care Initiative (KHCI) to support schools in Laikipia, Red Cross (Bomet, Taita Taveta and Kilifi), Agape Community Transformation (Uganda) and Waterlines (Bomet and Nandi Counties). We are also in discussions with DigDeep, an NGO supporting schools in Bomet County, to work alongside them in the schools they support.
DigDeep Country Director Justus Tanui (Right) and their Project Officer visiting our office in RIgoma, Nyamira County to see how we can partner with them to support schools in Bomet County.
We are calling gout to organizations, individuals, alumni of schools, and government members/departments. It is time we came together to help students in schools all over East Africa have access to clean and safe drinking water. It is time to expand solutions in combating water-borne diseases. It is time to make a difference to a young student life, by helping them drink clean water, eat food made using clean water and helping them stay healthy, so they perform well in school and be the best they can be by fulfilling their dreams.
Why don't you support a school now, contact us if you are interested in sponsoring a school or inquiring about partnering with Aqua Clara Kenya.
Get in Touch info@aquaclarakenya.com
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QUARTER 3 ACHIEVEMENTS
Filter Distribution
Through partnerships with SACCOs in Isebania, we trained 98 sales agents and sold 79 Household filters this quarter, enabling us to provide safe drinking water to 395 people.
We have also been able to provide safe drinking water to a population of 6,542 School Students this quarter through the sale of our school and community filters.
H2OPE Accelerator Services
In Quarter 3, we trained 277 people drawn from County Governments, NGOs, Community WASH Promoters, as well as individual WASH entrepreneurs. This group has the potential to reach at least 60,000 people in the community with WASH Training and Products.
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H2OPE Accelerator
Community WASH Promoters
Between 16-18 July 2019, we conducted a Community WASH Promotion training in Sotik, Bomet County. The training was to enable ACK to launch WASHiriki in the area. WASHiriki is an approach that brings community members together in clubs to learn and take action to improve their WASH. In total, 20 people were trained, with 13 of them being women. This group has already formed WASHiriki clubs with the goal of helping about 20,000 people to improve their WASH.
Delivering Effective WASH Training - KENYA
We hosted a successful workshop on Delivering Effective WASH Training (DEWT) at our Rigoma office, on July 23rd, 2019. The event had a good turnout including one trainer coming all the way from Malawi to attend the workshop representing Water Service Association of Malawi (WASAMA).
Delivering Effective WASH Training - UGANDA
This quarter we delivered a DEWT Workshop in Uganda, where Global Technical Advisor WASH, Parviz Pulotov (RIGHT) and Global Learning Advisor, Ryan Blyth (LEFT) were present representing CAWST.
Aqua Clara Kenya staff Jeremiah Ouko handing out certificates at the DEWT Workshop in Uganda.
Aqua Clara Kenya offers multiple training workshops in relation to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. For more information visit our website www.aquaclarakenya.com or email us at info@aquaclarakenya.com
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PARTNERSHIP
Capacity Development in Monitoring and Evaluation
We had the privilege of hosting Knowledge and Research advisors, Lemlem Kebede and Kelly James from the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST) in Kisii in July where they conducted a five-day training focused on Planning and Conducting a Survey.
Global Distribution Collective Event in Kampala, Uganda
The Global Distribution Collective (GDC), a network we joined this year, hosted Last Mile Distribution event together with Practical Action, alongside implementing partners Hystra and BoP Innovation Center in Kampala, Uganda from 22nd to 23rd July 2019. Aqua Clara Kenya was represented by Sijmen Weesie. Photo Credit: USEA
Partnership with new SACCOs in Migori County
A group of women being trained to be sales agents by Aqua Clara Kenya staff Benson Nyandusi,
in Isebania, Migori County
We partnered with 14 Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCO), where 98 sales agents were trained on the sale of water filters in the County, enabling more people to access safe drinking water. This is also one of the ways we help create employment, with agents making income from selling water filters.
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We recently partnered with Precious Plastic, a Kisii-based start-up, to recycle our plastic waste, converting it to useful WASH products such as soap dishes.
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New Staff Irene Murere joins ACK
July 2019
Irene joined Aqua Clara Kenya at the beginning of August to support in Community WASH Promotion, specifically in Sanitation and Hygiene. Irene previously worked with KIWASH in Kakamega County. All of us at Aqua Clara Kenya would like to welcome Irene to the team and wish her all the best in her new role.
Visit from Transform International
September 2019
In September we were visited by Dustin Wilson from our partner organization Transform International. Dustin and Aqua Clara staff, Betty and Josephine planted a tree at our office in Rigoma, Kenya.
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Our Company
Aqua Clara Kenya is a Social Enterprise whose mission is to increase access to safe drinking water in Africa by building local capacity, providing effective solutions and implementing sustainable approaches.
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