Life in Kafunjo: Water

There’s a lot of history to cover regarding water at the Project! The children and staff members used to solely rely on river water for all their water needs (cooking, drinking, livestock, cleaning, laundry, etc.). The grueling daily treks up and down the hill to retrieve water from the river was easily one of the least favorite chores for everyone. In 2019, the Project finally got clean, running water from a local water company. However, the water company started turning off their water supply frequently and at random for long periods of time due to some problem or another while still requiring Bruno to pay for the months their water wasn’t serviced to them. The Project, eventually, had no choice but to completely stop paying the water company and had to return to their reliance on the river water.

Fast forward to 2021, the Project discovered a natural water spring on their land near the orphanage site. They then quickly and eagerly built a spring fed water system. While the Project used to fill water containers from this spring for most of their needs, unfortunately, they quickly learned it was impractical to use for much else besides drinking water. This is because the water comes out very slowly and there was always a long line of staff members and children waiting for a drink or to fill up water containers. Today, this spring is occasionally used for drinking water, however, Bruno has invited people from the village to use it and they are the ones who benefit from it the most.

Fast forward once again to 2023, Kafunjo caught the attention of a US based nonprofit named Poured Out who specializes in providing clean, filtered water in impoverished areas all around the world. Poured Out then sent a team of experts to Kafunjo and completed the build of a life-changing filtered water system for the Project. To this day, this water still is used for every water related need at the Project and has also significantly decreased the cases of typhoid among the children. This has been one of the greatest achievements in Kafunjo to date!

The first picture shown below is of the natural water spring shortly after its completion. The last two are of the newly built filtered water system - thanks to Poured Out!