In Kenya’s arid Makueni County, water is scarce. Residents have little running water and reliable alternatives are rare.
Faced with this challenge in 2012, residents decided to take charge of the situation by adopting the rock rainwater harvesting system, a method that allows water to be harvested from giant rock outcrops, standing hundreds meters above the ground.
With financial and technical support from the NGO Africa Sand Dam Foundation, villagers built a concrete wall around the rock to trap rainwater. They then installed large stones to filter the water and a pipe to carry the water to storage tanks.
Water collected from the rock catchment flows into the tanks via the pipe, then is distributed to a nearby water collection point where residents collect it from the taps.
Jefferson Mutie, communications manager at the Africa Sand Dam Foundation, explains how the system works: “Rock catchment is a simple technology consisting of building a concrete wall around a designated rock, which allows water to be harvested of rain to the tanks, the latter being the rainwater tanks”.
Before the system was implemented, Joyce Mule would walk about two hours to find water in her mountainous and rocky village of Syumbe in Makueni County.
Today, Mule goes to the rock catchment to collect water about five times a day, which only takes her about 30 minutes to bring it home.
“We were having major water problems before. We would walk long distances, about two hours, to find water. Once at the source, we would already find many people there. We would wait until 30 minutes to fill a water container, we spent most of our days looking for water,” she says.
Thanks to this new water source, closer, always available and clean, Mule is now satisfied. Its trees produce more fruit and its cows give more milk.
“In the past we thought these rocks were worthless, but today we see all the benefits they bring us,” she concludes.
This local initiative shows how the ingenuity of residents combined with external support can positively transform the lives of communities facing major environmental challenges. Solidarity and innovation are essential keys to improving resilience in the face of difficult climatic conditions and to ensuring a sustainable future for local populations.