Restored Hope At Kwa Musele Community
Kwa Musele community is in Yekanga sub-location in kanthuni location in Mavindini Ward. The communities in the area used to fetch water in Kwa musele community earth dam which dries in the month of July or earlier if the rains are below normal. Therefore, people have to work over seven (7) kilometers to Athi river to fetch water from August until the onset of the October to December rains for domestic use. Catherine Ndungwa Mutisya aged 45 years, a married lady by Mutisya Wambua is a resident of Yekanga Sub-location. She has seven children with the first born in Yekanga Secondary school and the other six children in primary school.
Catherine Ndungwa is a member of Ndokanio self-help group which in July 2018, through the area chief was among the registered groups called and attended a baraza at Kanthuni chief’s office for vulnerability and capacity assessment of the area. Ndokanio self-help group, Uw’o wa w’o self-help group and Soko moyo pamba self-help group among other groups attended the baraza. The area groups participated in the Participatory vulnerability and capacity assessment, a process that identified the capacities that existed within the areas, vulnerabilities and came up with interventions to address the challenges. Members of the groups participated identified water scarcity and poor farming practices as major challenges of Yekanga sub-location. They proposed 2 interventions; sand dams with an off-take shallow wells along Kwa musele river to reduce the pressure at the existing Kwa musele community earth dam and a farm pond for small scale irrigation.
Over the project period, two sand dams; Kwa musele and Kwa Mbula sand dams have been constructed along the kwa musele river all with an off-take shallow well. Catherine together with other community members are enjoying water from the Kwa mbula sand dam shallow well as the community earth dam has dried up since both OND and MAM rains were below normal in the area. She is enjoying reduced distance and saving on time in such for water which could only be drawn from river Athi seven kilometers from her home but now she is getting it in half a kilometer from her homestead.