Oloile Secondary School
Project Snapshot
Country: Kenya
GPS Coordinates:
Latitude -2.819528
Longitude 37.523381
Impact:
Total Served: 2000
Status: Completed (?)
Completion Date (or estimate): 09/14/2010
Share this Project
"I know we have a girl at our school whose parents live too far away for her to walk. So, her dad made arrangements for her to live with her uncle, who lives closer to the school.
Because she is not the daughter of this uncle, she is treated not so much as family but as a servant.
She must wake early in the morning and among other
chores, must walk a far
distance to get water for everyone. Only then can she can finally go to
school. After school is over she must again go fetch water for her uncle's family, cook, and help with the smaller kids. She can't finally start on her schoolwork until around 9:00pm - but of course, there is no electricity. She had to ask a teacher at school for money to buy a small lantern so she can do her homework alone at night.
This new well at our school will mean she can simply bring water back to her
uncle's straight from school and will save her about two hours of
fetching water every night. The well at this school has already had a
huge impact. It is hard for us to imagine. This is just one of countless stories of how this water will have a real impact on real people's lives."
- Jeff Spainhour, Director, Staff of Hope
The full well completion report can be found here: Oloile Well Report
How it Happened
About a year ago, three people stepped up to change lives. The first two helped fund the actual drilling of this very deep borehole in Southern Kenya. The cost was high, as was the risk, but they agreed to be a part of this very special water project with us. Within a year, we had great news to share. Water! Lots and lots of it... But, it was very, very deep. The hand pump they tried to install just couldn't manage the weight. And that's when one student, and a school helped change another school forever.
A 4th-grader (at the time), Nate Roberts, stepped to line, took a shot at raising funds and helped bring this life giving water to the surface. Nate raised $14,000 with his school and friends and paid for the deep well pump and water tanks needed to make this system work. His parents note that he simply came home one day and let them know what he was up to!
Through the process, he's changed the lives of his schoolmates and his community. And together the supporters of the new well in Oloile have changed the lives of hundreds of students and friends just like them, half a world away.
"I cannot believe we have water at Oloile – Wow" - Schoolmaster, Oloile Secondary School
Project Photos
Project Photos
Sponsors
1 individual donors
St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church
Nathan B. Roberts
Country Details
Kenya
- Population: 39.8 Million
- Lacking clean water: 43%
- Below poverty line: 50%
- Climate: Varies from tropical along coast to arid in interior
- Languages: English (official), Kiswahili (official), numerous indigenous languages
- Ethnic Groups:Kikuyu 22%, Luhya 14%, Luo 13%, Kalenjin 12%, Kamba 11%, Kisii 6%, Meru 6%, other African 15%, non-African (Asian, European, and Arab) 1%
- Life Expectancy: 57 years
- Infant Mortality Rate: 55 deaths per 1000 live births
Partner Profile
Staff of Hope
Staff of Hope's mission is to share hope by demonstrating God's love
through partnerships with communities of East Africa, empowering them to
meet their own spiritual, physical, educational and economic needs.Since Staff of Hope was founded, a hand full of people have grown in vision, uniting scores of churches, corporations, government officials and others throughout the US and east Africa. SOH has partnered to drill fresh water wells bringing water to thousands.
Staff of Hope is different than other organizations because their primary focus is on relationships. They work side by side, sweating together, not just to put up new buildings, but to cultivate neighbors, people who really know and care for each other. Their teams eat at the homes of their friends in east Africa, not as guests but truly as family. This is not just a project to us - we are neighbors - family.
