Catching Hope: Transforming Lives in Kenya Through Clean Water

For Anyango, a wife and mother of three living in a mountainous region of Kenya, collecting water to take care of her family’s basic needs was an arduous task. Anyango would wake at four in the morning to trek one mile to the nearest lake. To collect enough water for daily cooking and washing, Anyango had to make the trip 3 times each day, and still needed to purchase additional clean water for drinking. This grueling daily labor left her and the other village women and girls too tired to do other needed work, and too exhausted to even eat by the end of the day. Many of the young girls didn’t have enough time or energy to complete their schooling and were forced to drop out, trapping the entire village in poverty.

Rosita Aranita, CSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph from Hawaii, traveled to Western Kenya with a desire to help find ways to make water more accessible.  There, she met two Grandmother-led organizations desiring the same thing.  Rosita shared her Hawaiian experience of water catchment systems which inspired great hope and vision among the Grandmothers.  They surface ways to prioritize who first receives the catchment systems as funds were raised.  The first families must be elderly or infirmed or taking care of orphans, have daughters who carry water all day instead of attending school, and other community outreach that addressed needs.  The need for catchments systems at home and school was enormous.  Sisters of St. Joseph, Consociates, and friends in St. Paul began to raise funds through arts and craft sales and some fundraising.  Sisters Rising Worldwide arrived on the scene and became able to help and raised large grants from across the United States. Today water catchment systems are collecting rainwater runoff that is used as a source of clean, local, water.  The community members can also purchase the collected water at low cost, and the raised funds help pay school fees for local girls in need. 

Anyango calls the catchment water, “A gift from God”. With clean water now a short walk from home, Anyango no longer makes the three daily trips to the lake. She now gets extra sleep every night, and has time and energy to tend her garden in the cooler hours of the day, so she is no longer too exhausted to take care of her family and herself.

Thanks to the Sisters of St. Joseph and Sisters Rising Worldwide, access to clean water has transformed Anyango’s community. The people live cleaner, healthier lives. Women like Anyango have more energy to provide for their families, and more young girls are be able to complete their education and change the course of their futures.