A Little help can go a long way in East Pokot

By participating in this project you will be changing the long term outlook for these girls and hundreds more by supporting their health and education - and in the process potentially changing their future.

A few months ago Chip Morgan (AWB CEO) was in East Pokot – one of the most impoverished regions in Kenya and East Africa. During his trip he was accompanying some people who were assessing health and education in the area. East Pokot has the highest illiteracy and preventable disease levels in East Africa. Female circumcision and early marriage for young girls are the norm. Chip visited Nginyang Girls Secondary School and discovered that 85 of the 120 students were already mothers. The needs of the school were so extreme that it could not afford toilet paper – girls were expected to provide their own – but extreme poverty prevented them from doing so. By the time the Deputy Principal - a wonderful person - realized the problem - the pit latrines were filled with rocks and had to be demolished. The girls were using rocks instead of paper. We sometimes forget how well off we are – but here was a stark reminder. He also discovered that the girls had to walk a round trip of 18 kilometres each day to collect water for drinking and washing. This had to be done before school each day and was seriously impacting the time available to fulfil their education requirements and therefore their academic achievement levels. The cycle of poverty was perpetrating itself.

We were able to sort out the toilet paper issue and build some new latrines with our existing resources – but meeting the water needs was going to cost about 20,000 pounds – the price of constructing a 250,000 litre water storage tank and providing suitable guttering for the 700 square metres of existing roof. Chip calculated that with this amount of roof space the school could harvest half a million litres of clean water each year.