Samuel Lieta, CSJ Consociate, is the CEO of the IMBO Community Action Program in Kenya (ICAP) our NGO partner. Growing Community Roots (GCR) partners with ICAP to promote safe water and sanitation in schools in western Kenya. For this newsletter, Samuel provides a picture of the area of the eastern area of Victoria Lake, Kenya, West Karachuonyo division.
The poverty level in West Karachuonyo is 70%. Individuals, families, schools, and entire communities do not have access to a safe water source. Young girls have to walk miles to the nearest water source which often is contaminated. Drinking contaminated water results in illness, inability to attend school, and continuing poverty. There is not sufficient rain for the crops of small subsistence farmers. Deforestation plays a part in the water shortage as well as the lack of government investment.
Family income from farming and/or fishing in the area is less than a dollar a day. Families do not have the ability to raise funds for water catchment systems and sanitary toilets for the schools. Most of the families are in the Luo Tribe that have been in opposition with the national government party for the last 60 years. Thus, the local government receives less funding from the Kenyan national government.
The way of life of the Luo Community also hampers its growth. Traditional customs like wife inheritance, polygamy, and large extended families increase poverty. Lavish funeral celebrations, early marriage, and school dropout rates also contribute to persistent poverty.
In 2013, we saw first-hand the incredible needs of the schools, and the needs are as critical today as they were then.
Your generous gifts and prayers for more than 14 years have directly provided safe water for drinking and bathing, latrines that offer privacy and washrooms, and wash stands, fencing for community gardens that ensure children have nutritious meals at school and tree farms that help address the critical deforestation problem that exists in Homa Bay.
