The project is located at Mwiyogo sub location of Kieni West Division , Nyeri. This location is on the leeward side of mount Kenya that gets 550 mm of rain per year with almost 8 months of no precipitation.
The 200 households in Mwiyogo area are recent settlers in the area and had to walk about 5 km to the nearest river. The main occupation is livestock keeping for milk which was always hampered by lack of enough water.
The project activities include:
a)Community mobilization
b) Excavating the dam site
c) Installing the wind pump
d) Fencing the dam perimeter wall
e) Building water troughs for animals
f) Building the community water tank
g) Laying pipes to individual compounds
h) Planting 3000 indigenous trees around the dam
i) Starting a community nursery for tree seedlings around the dam
j) Starting a contributing scheme at 50 shillings per household for maintenance kitty
k) Training for community for sustainability plan on the project.
In total 1000 people and 1000 animals benefit from the project .
Out of the 200 households 50 households have now got water in their compounds. The rest draw water either at the tap at the dam or another tap at the water tank. Farmers have started kitchen gardens to increase food security
200 women using 2 hours per day used to spend 115200 hours per year looking for water. This is equivalent to 2,160,000 shillings saved by this project per year if the saved time is calculated at 150 shillings per day.
About 1000 animals drink water from the troughs during the dry season. This gives increased milk.
Currently the community has 30,000 tree seedlings planted and ready for sale.