By Matilda Atieno
The county government supported by Safe Water and Aids Project (SWAP) and the university of Illinois have successfully constructed a solar powered water project in South West Ward, Kisumu West Subcounty.
The 2.5 million water project dubbed ‘Sola Maji’ is funded through Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to benefit a total of 110 households in the area. The project is also an income generation venture to the community.
The high performance solar powered project collects its waters from the nearby River Mugruk and purifying it for safe consumption in line with WHO and KEBS drinking water standards.
The SWAP project director Mr. Aloice Mwaki flanked by Dr. Sam Dorovich of the university of Illinois stated that the project is a community based sustainable solution to the challenge of providing safe water drinking water to rural communities.
The county water infrastructure officers Ann Kombija and Eng. Reginald Olang were also taken through the new technology and projects progress. The officers encouraged the community led by the project committee members to responsibly embrace the project for sustainable use in the community.
Earlier in the day the SWAP officials paid a courtesy call to the CEC member for Water, Environment, Climate Change and natural resources Mr. Salmon Orimba. The department was also taken through the exposition of the technology and discussion on the project progress, its scalability and replication to other parts of the county, with similar project set up in Ahero.
Solar Maji is a technology that embraces a solar powered water supply systems to typically operate autonomously with close to zero running costs.
