Conclusion of Mutoma Secondary School Rainwater Harvesting Project – Kenya

This project has been completed under the direction of Peace Corps Volunteer Alyssa McDermott.

To read about the beginning of the project, CLICK HERE.

The project was to build a rainwater water catchment and storage system for the school.

Alyssa reports:

The Mutoma Secondary water project has been successfully completed. The total time it took for construction was two weeks. This was more than expected but this was due to trying to find the best prices for the supplies. We had checked several nearby villages and luckily found one which was economical to our budget.

The first part of the project was the construction of the base for the water tank. This took about four days to complete to ensure that the cement was fully dried. Unfortunately, it rained a lot that week and the masons wanted to take caution so the base would dry correctly.

Then, after receiving the rest of the supplies, the gutters were attached along the back side of the building, and the pipe was run to direct the water into the 10,000 liter storage tank.

The students were extremely curious during the whole project and when asked said they are very excited. The agriculture teacher at the school was even inspired to teach the Form 1 students about the importance of harvesting water and used the water tank as practical example.

The principal was there the entire time making sure that the job was being done correctly. She is hoping that the school will one day become a boarding school, and has expressed that this project will be beneficial to the future students.

The cooks were also very happy because they now have convenient access to water where they used to walk very far each day to fetch water for cooking. The chairman of the school personally thanked Water Charity and the donors for providing the school with a sustainable project.

I am grateful for being given this opportunity to help my school and the local community. I believe that this project is not only solving the issue for getting water but it is highly sustainable. Thank you so much.

We are grateful to Alyssa for completing the project, and again wish to thank the Elmo Foundation and Alyssa’s friends and family for providing the funding.