Catch The Rain Program   

WEI’s clean water initiative, Catch the Rain, is focused in the Ukambani region of eastern Kenya, a semi-arid region of nearly 2 million people with an estimated 90% relying on subsistence farming. It is a region plagued by drought and famine, largely overlooked by government and NGOs.

The Problem

Lack of water for personal consumption and farming is the most urgent problem in Ukambani and is for most, a matter of basic survival. There, water is “women‟s work,” the lack of which takes the greatest toll on women and girls as they travel long distances to collect water for their families. The work is backbreaking, consuming four to six hours each day, and the water collected is typically dirty and unsafe, carrying diseases that cause serious illness. As of September 2009, the most severe drought in a decade has made their daily struggle a crisis, forcing women to travel miles farther to find water, if at all.

The Solution

Rainwater Harvesting & Matching Grants

According to a UN study, Kenya has sufficient rainfall for its population, even in drought years, but the rain comes inconsistently and often in bursts, so most is rapidly swept away and never collected.

Recognizing this, WEI women‟s groups are solving their water problem by harvesting rainwater. Their solution is simple, yet life changing - giant water tanks (cisterns), 10 to 15 thousand liters in size, connected to a simple system of gutters on the roofs of their modest homes, collecting rainwater during the spring and fall monsoons. These water catchment systems provide a reliable source of clean water, meeting the basic needs of their families from one rainy season to the next.

Although purchasing a system is financially out of reach for most families, WEI women‟s groups, incented by the promise of a financial match from WEI, are meeting the challenge. Group members pool their savings. When the group has raised enough for one cistern, WEI provides a financial “match” for a second. The financial match encourages the women to sacrifice for a dream they never believed possible.

Accomplishments to Date

Since its founding, WEI and partnering women‟s groups have installed water catchment systems, providing clean, reliable, sources of water for over 4,300 people in more than 875 families. Yet for these women, the benefit they derive extends far beyond water.

Participation in WEI’s disciplined, group oriented process is transforming how they see themselves and how they interact with the world around them. With every success, these women are realizing that they have the power to solve their own problems. Empowered and freed from the slavery of constantly finding water, they are providing income to their families and growing into leaders and trainers, equipped and passionate to extend the program to their neighbors. In addition, they are realizing that together they can, and are, tackling problems affecting their broader community including: providing water to a local school and church, planting trees to address deforestation, and caring for HIV/AIDS orphans in their midst.

Seeing the success of their neighbors, an ever increasing number of women are coming together, eagerly seeking partnership with WEI, to solve their most pressing problem, the scarcity of clean water.

The Opportunity

WEI installed its first water systems in 1999. During its first six years, WEI installed an average of just 12 systems per year as it refined its development model and gained the confidence of the initial groups and their neighbors. Since 2006, the number of water systems installed has exploded to a projected total of 122 in 2009, a 10 fold increase in demand.

A growing number of new groups, seeing that their hope can indeed become reality, are forming and petitioning to partner with WEI. Their commitment and initiative gives WEI the opportunity and challenge to bring clean water to more and more families each year, transforming the lives of thousands.