Photo: Josephine Mueni Kingangi (a farmer, mother and member of Kyamuisu self-help ground in southeast Kenya), collecting clean water from a shallow well connected to a sand dam that was built in 2018 with the support of Excellent Development.
My son and my grandchildren who stay with me, we have all benefited a lot from the ease of not having to walk long distances and accessing this clean water closer to home. This water from the sand dam is helping us to grow fruit trees and additional crops, which will be a great boost for my family and I later on in the future
Josephine Mueni
Radio 4 listeners gave very generously to our appeal in February 2019 and raised £26,166. This fund will go towards further sand dam projects in Africa this year, helping to bring life-transforming clean water to thousands more people.
Excellent Development support some of the world’s poorest people living in drylands by helping them to transform their own lives through building sand dams, which provide clean water for life and the opportunity to develop livelihoods.
Currently, over 800 million people in drylands lack accessible drinking water, and at least 2 billion have to use a contaminated water source.
But, there’s a solution, one that can provide clean water close to home for life – it’s a sand dam, a concrete wall built across a sandy riverbed that can capture up to 40 million litres of water, replenishing every rainy season. That water is stored safe from disease and evaporation within the sand. It’s easily extractable via pipework connected to hand-pumps and taps, with one sand dam providing enough year-round water for over 1,000 people.
Sand dams free communities, putting their future in their own hands.
In February, as part of our appeal, our presenter and ambassador, Sarah Parker, spoke of meeting such community members in Kenya when she volunteered on the construction of a sand dam in July 2018. There she met Josephine, a hard-working 60 year old farmer, whose village was building its first sand dam. Josephine’s nearest water source was a dry riverbed, and because the sloping paths were rocky, the journey could take 5 hours. What’s more, the dirty water Josephine got from digging scoop holes in the riverbed gave her bilharzia; a disease resulting in chronic stomach aches, fever and bloody diarrhoea.
Unable to care for her son or her farm, Josephine’s crops perished, and with them, her ability to feed her family.
Now, that has all changed. When we revisited Josephine in March 2019, less than one year since her community built their sand dam, she was looking happy and healthy, collecting litres and litres of fresh, clean water from the sand dam’s shallow well; water she, her family and her community are now using for drinking, washing and growing new crops on their nearby farms. Josephine was proud, seeing her dream fulfilled as she gave us a tour of her farm of spinach, tomatoes, and a range of fruit trees including bananas, papayas and oranges.
And in time, Josephine and her community will be able to generate income from selling their surplus produce, money which they can then reinvest towards their farming and children’s education.
Thank you to all who gave to our appeal and for enabling further stories like Josephine’s to happen.
A sand dam costs between twenty to forty thousand pounds. All contributions can make such a difference. For example, £20 can provide 4 bags of cement whilst £200 can provide 40 shovels needed to mix the cement.
You can find out more about sand dams and Excellent Development .