Saving lives by providing clean water in Kenya

June, 2012 – Mwanajuma Omar remembers what she used to do to get drinking water.

Mwanajuma, a mother of two, and other women from her village in Kenya, would walk an hour under the scorching sun to the nearest river or they would hire a bicycle and rider to fetch clean water—and that would cost 60 cents for every 20 liters. Sixty cents isn’t much to Canadians, but it’s prohibitively expensive to impoverished people in Kenya, Africa.

Then Samaritan’s Purse arrived in Mwanajuma’s village (and dozens of others in drought-stricken Kenya) with emergency water supplies.

“Please bring this sweet water to us forever, because we no longer feel burdened,” Mwanajuma told us gratefully.

Thanks to your donations, and the financial support of the federal government’s Canadian International Development Agency, Samaritan’s Purse has been saving lives and providing families with clean water throughout Kenya for years. Our efforts intensified when drought conditions started threatening lives and livelihoods.

Through your donations, we have helped about 145,000 Kenyans by:

• Delivering almost 65 million liters of water to community storage tanks in 64 communities.
• Hiring nearly 500 community members to help enlarge water reservoirs to collect and store run-off water when the rains come again. These will help communities cope in future droughts.
• Distributing corn, beans, oil, salt, and sugar to families who also received thousands of hygiene kits, tens of thousands of soap bars and large rolls of plastic.

Without the clean water that Samaritan’s Purse provides, thousands of people who are already walking as much as 20 kilometers each day to get clean water would have to walk at least double that distance. The trek simply wouldn’t be possible for many of the most vulnerable people in these communities. Death from thirst and starvation would soon be a reality.

You can help us be the hands and feet of Jesus to people who have no water or food without our help. And when we help them, we can also tell them about the depth of Jesus’ love for them and about His desire to be in relationship with them.

Samaritan’s Purse provides emergency water and food to children and families affected by drought and famine in Kenya.

Save the life of a child or adult in a developing country by providing safe water along with health and hygiene education that will help protect them from deadly, but preventable, diseases. Simple and effective water filters, community wells and water storage solutions, and sanitation facilities can all drastically improve lives and open doors to share the eternal hope of Jesus Christ.