A school was opened about 10 years ago in Kaliluni, Kenya, to serve the village’s children and others from the surrounding communities. Before that, the only option had been a school three miles away—a long distance for children to walk every day, especially those as young as 3 years old.

Parents in Kaliluni desperately wanted a school in their village, but with that came the daunting task of constructing classrooms and latrines. Widespread poverty in the community meant that the school facilities that were built were inadequate, especially related to water and sanitation. The school only had a few latrines for more than 100 students. The teachers had no access to latrines and had to use one in a nearby home.

Easy access to safe drinking water was another critical problem, as the nearest water source was a hand-dug well miles away. The water level of this open well was insufficient to meet the needs of the 500 people who regularly depended on it, and it was often contaminated, causing waterborne illness among the population.

Children had to bring some of the water their families collected, which required hours in line at the well during the dry season. Often this meant parents were unable to send any water to school with their children because there was barely enough for their household needs.

Bringing Water, Restoring Hope

Such was the situation when a Samaritan’s Purse team first visited the school. They talked with teachers who shared the daily difficulties caused by a lack of water and latrines. In fact, on the day of our team’s visit, there was no drinking water available at all. The teachers wanted to buy bottled water at the nearby shops but there was none even there.

Our staff quickly got to work in Jesus’ Name. We installed a storage tank to harvest rainwater and trucked in gallons of water to fill the tank and meet the immediate need.

We also constructed five latrines at the school; two for girls and three for boys. Then our team trained teachers in how to promote proper hygiene among the students, which included starting a student health club for kids to help each other in the use of handwashing stations.

The school’s management team thanked Samaritan’s Purse for significantly improving water and sanitation. They said that no one else had come to their aid.

“We had almost given up on this school,” said a team member. “But Samaritan’s Purse has rekindled our hope.”