Progress
Usalama Primary School gets a makeover
When the government located the villagers to Usalama, they were left with no infrastructure of any kind. The families contributed their own labor and funds to build the Usalama Primary School, an eight-classroom facility that must serve the needs of more than 450 K-8 students. In 2008, Mwikali’s Gift funded a renovation of the school building, which was carried out by the villagers. The school’s crumbling walls and dusty floors were repaired and upgraded, and the building was fitted with glass windows and a tin roof with rainwater catchment.
Usalama’s children get school uniforms for a third successive year
For three consecutive years, Mwikali’s Gift has conducted a uniform drive to buy uniforms for several hundred primary school children in the village. Primary education in Kenya is free, but children must wear a uniform, which leaves many poor or orphaned children unable to attend school. Through the efforts of Mwikali’s Gift and the children in New York who have participated in our Children Helping Children Uniform Drive, the children of Usalama are given the opportunity to attend primary school and thus receive the benefits of an education, a government-provided meal and a safe place to spend each day. Of the more than 450 children who receive one, more than 70 would not be able to attend school without the gift of a uniform.
Usalama water pipeline is completed
Mwikali’s Gift was founded with the express purpose of bringing a source of clean water to Usalama. With no safe or reliable water nearby, villagers had to travel miles by foot or bicycle to purchase their daily supply. Most often, this task fell to women and children – some as young as five – who would walk across a busy highway to lug water home to their families. We saw this firsthand when we first visited Usalama in 2005 and talked to the people there about their hopes for the village.
After commissioning a hydro-geological survey, it became clear that the most viable option was the construction of a 5 km pipeline that would connect Usalama to Umani Springs, a source of clean water. In 2007 we partnered with the African Medical Research Fund (AMREF) to build the pipeline, at a cost of $94,000. The pipeline was completed in May 2008, when clean water arrived in the village.
Currently, two of five village water kiosk distribution points are in operation and a water tank is under construction. An AMREF community health specialist is training hygiene and sanitation, pipeline maintenance, and business management committees. Ultimately, responsibility for the pipeline will be in the hands of the villagers.