Water
The Sterling Africa Foundation has worked from its start to make it easier for people to access clean, safe water. Over 7 boreholes, 9 water catchment systems, troughs for livestock and cisterns and storage tanks for people. 100's of Life Straws. The Hammack Foundation has worked from its start to make it easier for people to access clean, safe water. Personal Life Straws filter 99.9% of contaminants out of water which enables people to drink water where they find it, as they find it, without the need for sterilization by boiling. This makes it faster, easier, and saves firewood and all the time, troubles and dangers associated with it. Community Life Straws in schools provide water for students and staff alike. Catchment systems that collect rainfall from roofs stretch a days deluge into a month long supply.
Water is life, and you can help us supply it.
Water has been one of very first and ongoing areas of improvement in daily maasai life that we have attempted. We have put in 8 water wells (cost is about $35,000 each) in communities where ladies had to walk miles and miles to a spring to get water in a jerrycan and then lug the heavy item back home. There was never enough in these cans for cooking, drinking, etc. In addition we have run piping from some of the wells to build troughs for the cows and sheep and goats to drink from as they too need water.
We have also built about 8 or 9 water catchment systems, and MANY MORE are needed – we put gutters on the house roofs, the gutters funnel rain water into water tanks on the ground. We try to put in a 10,000 liter tank where the water first runs off the roof and at the top of that tank we put in a drain to a smaller 8 liter tank, and from there to yet a smaller one, perhaps a 5 liter tank. That way the rain water is not as wasted as it would be if we put in only one tank. We are in dire need of many 15000 liter tanks to save yet more rain water in more areas to save the grind of carrying a tank up a hill to a spring, filling it with water and bringing it back down again.
In addition to the above we have built three reservoirs which simply fill up from rain water and the water is primarily used for the cows, sheep and goats, but humans can also use it when needed.
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