Water Harvesting

Africa Economic Foundation

Water Harvesting

Success stories #2 ---- Water Harvesting:

The baseline study that the community contacted in 2001, showed lack of water to be the greatest threat to any effort towards the transformation of Kilisa village or any other village for that matter. The community got to work applying multiple approaches to water resource development. Their effort is bearing fruits and there is evident impact. As demonstrated below by different approaches, there is a gradual progression towards ensuring access to adequate water and the recovery of environment (two of the Mid Decade Goals).

a) The sinking of the shallow well and its impact:One of the earliest projects undertaken by the community was sinking of a shallow well and installing a hand operated pump (with the assistance of the Danida CBNP project).

Danida team commends the Community effort

KVDC first water well with hand operated Pump

Patron and KVDC members admiring the Vegetable at the well

The rich vegetable garden by the well is a nice sight. The vegetable supports the community based Nutrition project since the vegetables are sold to the community at a subsidized price. KVDC is therefore realizing one of its objectives ----- promotion of food production and ensuring food security for their feeding program. In addition, the community has access to safe drinking water from the protected well.

Apart from improving access to safe drinking water and food, the vegetation by the well has improved significantly. Pawpaw trees have sprung up with good produce (left picture above) and the surrounding environment is richly covered with vegetation including Sugar cane. Next Step: The community plans to sink more shallow wells to ensure equitable distribution and access to safe drinking water in the area. Construction of wells in other corners of the village will enhance community participation.

b) Surface Dams:

The second project that the community successfully accomplished was the rehabilitation of a dam that had silted (left picture in the box below).The pictures below show members at work de-silting the dam.

Two years later the dam has kept water through out the drought season and the environment is recovering pretty fast as seen in the picture below. To prevent further silting the Dam has been fenced. Lately the villagers have introduced fish (fresh water – Tilapia) farming at the dam and bee keeping has been introduced within the enclosure.

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