Over 8100 families set to benefit from clean safe drinking water in Machakos and Kitui counties

Irene Mwathi (Left) from Procter &Gamble observes Grace Mueni stirring turbid water during water purifaction outreach in Machakos County

Over 8,100 families will be provided with clean safe drinking water through Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Purifier of Water and ChildFund’s Safe Water system program in Eastern Kenya region aimed at reducing the occurrence of water borne diseases.

The program aims at providing water purifiers free of charge as well as education on safe drinking water to reach an estimated 40,500 direct beneficiaries in Wamunyu, Mwala, Migwani, and Ngwatanio areas all from Machakos and Kitui counties.  

“The Children’s Safe Drinking Water program has been around for about a decade now and has mostly been concentrated in Nyanza and Western Region. We are now expanding this program as we know the situation is quite dire and our sachets will offer the much needed solution,” said Ms. Miheso.

This follows an earlier commitment by P&G to provide over 10 million litres of clean safe drinking water in Kenya through an investment of over $1 million dollars. This is part of the company’s commitment to provide enough clean water to save one life every hour in the world by 2020.

The Safe Water System (SWS) is an inexpensive program of providing safe water at point of use through treatment, safe storage and behavior change. The system makes use of the P&G Purifier of Water sachet which is a powdered mixture which purifies previously dirty and turbid water making it safe for drinking. In Kenya, SWS has provided over 3.5 million sachets of water supplies translating to 40,571,180 liters of safe drinking water to over 18,000 families.

ChildFund’s National Director Ms. Virginia Vargas said that the project is mainly aimed at people who use water from earthen dams, sand dams and rivers by providing an easy, adoptable, simple, effective technology to purify water for affected populations.

“Water and sanitation improvements, in association with hygiene behaviour change, have significant effects on population and health by reducing a variety of disease conditions such as diarrhea, intestinal helminthes, and Guinea worm and skin diseases. We hope that the SWS program will lead to reduced water borne diseases in the region,” added Ms. Vargas.

Studies done on the P&G purifier of water show that the use of these packets can reduce diarrheal illnesses in children by an average of 50% and help save lives.

To date, P&G has delivered over 750 million liters of clean drinking water in Kenya and more than 8 billion liters globally

P & G announces 100m investment in providing clean drinking water

Nairobi City County Governor Dr. Evans Kidero together with SWAP Rose Odhiambo and Procter & Gamble’s Irene Mwathi during the 10^th anniversary celebrations of the Clean Safe Drinking Water program in Kenya

Procter & Gamble (P&G) has marked a decade of providing clean water by leveraging a tiny packet in a big way for the one billion people who still live without clean drinking water in Kenya. 

P&G has also announced an investment of 100 million shillings investment that will provide another 100 million liters of clean water to more than 100,000 Kenyan people in the coming year.  

“Through the Childrens' Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) program we will be expanding our school and health clinic work with CARE into Migori County in Western Kenya which has suffered a recent Cholera outbreak,” said P&G Managing Director Iacopo Pazzi.

Pazzi added that the CSDW will also expand its partnership with S.A.F.E. Kenya to educate more people about water and health issues in the Coastal Region through community theatre programmes as well as ChildFund which will focus on households in Eastern Kenya who have unsafe drinking water from open sources. 

Speaking upon receiving a donation of one million liters of clean drinking water, Nairobi City County Governor Dr. Evans Kidero said that donation would  help address the current cholera outbreak in Mathare and Huruma and future emergencies among the communities that cause water in this particular settlement  to be turbid. 

“I have instructed the County Executive for Health to work with Population Services Kenya to find the  most optimal way of distributing the sachets to ensure maximum coverage and protect the children of this County from diarrheal illnesses,” said Dr. Kidero.

Currently, of the about 3.6 million residents of Nairobi, only half have direct access to piped water. The rest obtain water from kiosks, vendors and illegal connections. Of the existing customers, about 40 per cent receive water on a 24-hour basis. Westlands, which has the highest number of its residents with access to tapped water in their dwellings, is at a low 34.5 per cent. Reliance on water vendors is at its highest Nairobi East and Nairobi West, which are at 22.2 per cent and 19.8 per cent, respectively.

P&G began providing clean drinking water in Kenya, Guatemala and Pakistan through powder technology that kills deadly viruses and bacteria and removes dirt, parasites and other pollutants, making contaminated water clean and drinkable. Since 2004, P&G Purifier of Water (formerly Pur) packets have been shared in more than 75 countries and the program has grown to include a network of more than 150 partners. 

Scientists trying to purify used laundry water developed the technology that puts the power of a water treatment plant into a tiny packet. Today, the P&G Packets enable families in developing countries to make clean drinking water in 30 minutes.

“The idea of billions of liters can be hard to comprehend, but when you meet the people whose lives have been changed by clean drinking water you understand just how important it is that we continue to invest in the future of Kenya through this program and brands like Always, Ariel and Pampers.” Pazzi concluded.  

P&G partnered with CARE Kenya to share clean drinking water with a 13-year-old boy named Boniface Otieno and his family. At his school in Bondo, Kenya, the 13 year old helps teach fellow students to use the P&G Purifier of Water Packets and about the importance of hand washing and proper sanitation. Through the support of P&G and CARE Kenya, children like Boniface Otieno became agents of change who take what they learned at school back home to transform the health and lives of their communities.

“We've been honored to be on this ten-year journey with P&G,” said Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE. “We’ve seen these tiny packets have a huge impact on health. Coupled with CARE’s community-based approaches for accessing clean water, improving hand-washing and creating behavior change, P&G’s technology is an incredible tool. It’s an innovation that is helping improve quality of life for millions of people.”

Working with Population Services International, CARE, ChildFund, Save the Children, World Vision, and others, P&G supports ongoing programs and disaster relief around the world. By providing clean drinking water for a decade, P&G and its partners have helped save an estimated 45,000 lives and prevented more than 340 million days of illness.

Visit the csdw.org to find out how you can be a part of this work and help provide clean drinking water to those who need it most.