Kenya: Drinking straight from the tap
In Kenya, around 28 million people have no access to clean drinking water. A start up has developed a way to harvest water from the air. Another purifies contaminated water from Lake Victoria.
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00:00Lake Victoria in western Kenya, the second largest freshwater lake in the world.
00:08There's no shortage of fresh water here, but it's not clean enough to drink.
00:13The people of Homa Bay mainly use it for washing clothes.
00:19We used to drink this lake water and disease was rife.
00:23Along the lake shores there were a lot of feces, even bloody feces.
00:27It has got a lot better since we got clean water.
00:30The disease rate has significantly dropped almost to zero.
00:37Drinking water has been coming out of these taps for four years now.
00:41The community helped the Kenyans set up Wable Mahi Safi Solutions to set up a water vending
00:46machine here.
00:47It works quite simply.
00:50Lake water is sucked up and purified in several steps.
00:53The filter needs to be changed once a month on average.
00:59Valeria Adiambo is chiefly responsible for marketing.
01:03Over 100 villages now have such facilities.
01:06The water comes in different grades.
01:09We have three different types of water.
01:11We have the raw water, we have the filtered water and we have the mineral water.
01:14Sometimes we give the raw water to people because for example the lake water has a lot
01:21of algae.
01:22So we give the lake water, it's just passed through one filter.
01:25The raw water you can use it to give cows or you can use it to wash.
01:30For the pre-filtered water it is relatively good but it is not for drinking.
01:35You can use it to do other activities such as cooking and the mineral water now you use
01:41it for drinking only.
01:44Lucia Ching only buys her water from here these days.
01:48She pays via an app the equivalent of about 70 euro cents, a fraction of what she would
01:53normally pay in a store.
01:58She still sells dried fish but now she also has a job promoting the water purification
02:03facility and is expending in other ways too.
02:13Now I opened a hotel and this water helps me a lot.
02:16Once my customers are done eating they can get clean drinking water.
02:20I also cook with it to prevent diseases.
02:28Water purification is a promising concept.
02:31Water expert Ken Ruto is also convinced of that.
02:34About 70% of Kenyans live in rural areas where getting access to clean drinking water is
02:39difficult.
02:40These technologies are very beneficial in remote and underserved areas where traditional
02:44water sources are very scarce and sometimes they are contaminated or sometimes you have
02:49to go through a long process to get it.
02:52And so I think by implementing such technologies Kenya can bridge the water gap by providing
02:58communities with sustainable access to clean water sources.
03:04Even in the capital Nairobi people cannot rely on access to clean water.
03:09The girls in this school are enjoying their break but it's also a pleasure to have refreshing
03:13drink afterwards.
03:15The first water dispenser was installed in this school last year.
03:24The main difference is that when you taste the water it is cool, refreshing and very
03:29okay.
03:30You can quench your thirst and go back to play again compared to earlier when the water
03:35was hot and you couldn't even quench your thirst.
03:38So this really helps a lot.
03:42Now the school has four dispensers.
03:44The French company AWA, Air Water Activity, sells mainly to Africa and Latin America.
03:50Wilson Kabuki is in charge of maintenance in Nairobi.
03:54The machine is able to make 20 litres of water every day and it is a very simple machine
04:00just for household and office use.
04:03It is just like a water dispenser but the only difference with a water dispenser is
04:07that now this one will make its own water now from the atmosphere.
04:13The special thing about this atmospheric water generator is that the water is produced from
04:18the air.
04:19It is drawn into the generator and then split into water and oxygen.
04:25One thousand litres can be collected in the tank every day to slake the thirst of about
04:29400 students and there is enough left over to be used in the chemistry lab.
04:35The water that is produced is also desalinated by the machine.
04:41The IMS water is the water that is mainly used in the lab so that alone cuts the cost
04:46for the school of purchasing the IMS water.
04:49The facility costs 10,000 euros, not cheap.
04:53A parliamentarian donated the money, much to the joy of the girls.