In Northern Kenya, communities are small and isolated. To obtain a high school diploma, students must attend boarding schools. At the schools, chores are divided among students.
In 2006, Lifewater drilled a well at the Ngorika Secondary School–a boarding school for 280 girls and 32 staff. That’s an ideal number of beneficiaries to be supplied by one well.
When Lifewater Canada president Lynda Gehrels visited the school four years later, she was greeted by a puzzling sight: bushes and fences near the well were covered in upside-down buckets. The mystery was solved when the end-of-day school bell rang. The school doors burst open and spewed out girls in a full sprint for the “bucket trees.” The first to grab her bucket was the first in line for the pump!
Each girl was required to fill two buckets every morning for her hygiene and drinking needs for the day. Each girl was also required to fill another bucket at the end of the school day for mopping and cleaning washrooms, the dining hall, kitchen, dorm hallway, classrooms, etc.
All the girls arrived at the pump at the same time, and so even when everyone was pumping quickly, the morning line-up lasted nearly four hours! Girls started pumping water as early as 4:00 a.m.! Some ate supper cold because they were near the back of the after-school line.
It clearly highlighted the need for a second well to meet this school’s peak water needs.
