MITIGATED WATER CRISIS IN AIC KANZINWA CYDC.
“If the earth is a mother then rivers are her veins.” Amit Kalantri. A river doesn’t just carry water, it carries life. Although two thirds of our planet is water, we face an acute water shortage. The water crisis is the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth. The two defining issues of this century are both universal but felt locally: the global water crisis and the resources boom. Poverty feeds into the clean-water crisis, which contributes to hunger, and so on. There’s undeniable interconnectivity among these issues. Just one of these problems can be deadly on its own, but in the most disadvantaged areas there is a perfect storm of problems. And it takes its greatest toll on children. It takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain. As water becomes scarce and countries are forced to divert irrigation water to cities and industry, they will import more grain. As they do so, water scarcity will be transmitted across national borders via the grain trade. Aquifer depletion is a largely invisible threat, but that does not make it any less real. ”Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.” Ban Ki-moon.
The combination of climate change and population growth is fuelling a global water crisis. As our numbers grow, aquifers get overdrawn, pollution increases, and the capacity to safely dispose of wastewater is increasingly compromised. Currently, a staggering 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safe drinking water and 4.2 billion lack safe sanitation services. In the UK, overexploitation and drought could lead to severe water shortages by mid-century. The UK population is expected to reach 73 million by 2041, with the fastest growth occurring in areas that are already the most water-stressed. Experts estimate that by 2050, 5 billion people – more than half the global population – will live in water stressed regions. The above is a summarized nugget for Sustainable Development Goal 6; Clean water and Sanitation.
Kitui County has a low-lying topography and the climate of the county is arid and semi-arid with very erratic and unreliable rainfall. The AIC Kanzinwa Child and Youth Development Centre (CYDC) project site lies at about 751 meters above sea level. The ground landscape is undulating with gentle hills. The climate of the project area is arid and semi-arid type in character with dry and wet seasons. The rainfall of the area is about 500 millimeters annually distributed in short and long rains of September to December and March to May respectively. The temperatures range from 16 degrees centigrade rise steadily to highs of about 35 degrees. Surface water sources are very scarce due to the limited rainfall received.
We have know-how about what water scarcity means and what menace it can cause to humanity as well as we have been victims of the same over decades until we decided to work towards solving this drawback in 2014! AIC Kanzinwa CYDC took a board step to dig a shallow well whose depth is 28 fits and 600 metres away from the church premises and whose topography is sloppy this was after Qavah concept was introduced to us by the Compassion International Inc. Kenya National office. We can now use solar energy to pump over 40,000 litres of water a day from Katse stream which is nearby and we have currently stored over 180,000 litres of water at our FCP/project ground.
We are in the process of installing 4 such systems in 4 respective farms of land where all 373 caregivers are about to commence intensive, extensive and mega horticultural farming to mitigate hunger, reduce increasing poverty rates in their respective homesteads, promote good health via balance diet foods and promote environmental conservation. This dream is about to be realized since everything is in place, meanwhile we will share the good news!
