Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

There have been no harvests in the small rural community of Kangemi, southeastern Kenya for three years.

The earth dam, which provided the only source of water for the 400 families in the community, is silting up. There is less and less water becoming more and more polluted, and the open water provides a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

The able-bodied are leaving home in search of work in order to feed their families. Those left behind, mainly women and children, are forced to walk miles to collect small amounts of muddy water from springs and holes dug in riverbeds. In some cases it can be 12 miles to the nearest water.

While the situation is dire, there is fresh hope in Kangemi, thanks to the actions of a self-help group, supported by Excellent Development.

The people of Kangemi are now looking forward to a supply of clean water. Plans are also in place for a nursery with trees producing fruit and timber. A local extension worker will help farmers to terrace their land to improve water retention.

A seed bank is also being set up for species of maize, beans and sorghum that will flourish in the local dry conditions.

The able-bodied no longer have to spend months away from home, and the community is looking forward to a reliable supply of sand-filtered water.

The dire situation in Kangemi changed after almost 80 local families decided to tackle their own water-shortage problems by setting up a self-help group called Mukika.

Meanwhile, the plight of the people of Kangemi was brought to the attention of Excellent Development, which specialises in building small-scale dams and planting trees in Africa, in partnership with self-help groups.

Excellent Development and the Mukika Committee identified three sites around Kangemi where new dams could be built.

They had a ready-made workforce in the Mukika team, which made a start by collecting the sand, stones, and water required for building the dams as well as providing much of the manual labour needed for construction.

The first task was to replace the earth dam, with efficient, cleaner, and more reliable sand dams.

The difference between the two is that, with a sand dam, the water is contained within clean sand stacked behind the dam, where it is protected from parasites and animals and drawn out, through the sand, via a pipe behind the dam.

The local workforce had to clear the earth from the riverbed and dig trenches down to the rock base to provide a secure foundation for the new sand dams. This would prevent water flowing underneath and ruining the dams. All of the trenches had to be dug by hand. One trench was five metres deep.

Excellent Development applied to the Department for International Development (DfID) for a small grant of £10,000 towards the cost of materials, and set about building the dams with the help of the community.

The charity covered the other costs of the project, including project management, transport and skilled labour, but it soon became clear that they needed help to address the serious food shortage in the area.

Excellent Development needed to find away of preventing the local people travelling to neighbouring areas in search of work and food.

The charity approached the Mennonite Central Committee, an American NGO, and asked whether they could get support for a "Food for Work" programme in Kangemi.

The Mennonite Central Committee responded by arranging for 60 bags of maize and 30 bags of beans to be delivered in May, 2004. This influx of food was used to feed the workers at lunchtime and more food was also distributed to project members who worked on the dams at the end of each week. This stemmed the tide of local workers leaving for neighbouring regions to search for food. Instead, they were able to remain in Kangemi and work on the project.

Having finished the dams, there was a long wait for the rains in November. Successive famines meant that families had no food and Excellent Development again turned to the Mennonite Central Committee in September for help.

Thankfully, another Food for Work programme was arranged, this time enabling terraces to be dug to maximise the benefits from the next rains, both in people’s farms and in the valley of the dams.

Now that the three dams are built, the community is waiting for the next rainfall. There is a fresh sense of optimism in the village of Kangemi. Membership of the self-help group has doubled to 160 families, reflecting the new hope in the area.

The community is already planning to open a tree nursery in November after the rains have fallen and been trapped by the new dams. They are going to focus on planting trees for fruit and firewood.

Excellent Development will deliver 1,500 seedlings after the rains, giving the community trees that can feed their cows and goats.

Excellent is appointing one local community member to run the nursery and support the local community with advice on agro-forestry, agriculture and soil conservation. The terracing programme has reached an amazing 20km, surpassing the original ambitious target of 10km.

And then, there are the long-term projects. A seed bank of hybrid "short rain" species of maize, beans and cowpeas is being set up.

Following harvest in February 2005, all members will return twice the weight of seeds back to the Seed Bank. Next season Excellent Development will support extending the Seed Bank with sorghum, finger millet and green gram.

The Seed Bank initiative will help to improve crop yields and create a sustainable source of seeds, breaking the cycle of drought and famine.

This is just the start, but the community of Kangemi is now working together. It is not split apart by the search for food. It is able to capture its precious water, plan harvests and create local employment.

Most important of all, it is building a sustainable future thanks to simple solutions, which they have built themselves.