The Bucket Ministry has partnered with local churches and community leaders to distribute over 80,000 water filters to Kibera residents in Nairobi, an initiative aimed at providing clean and safe drinking water to curb water borne diseases.
The Bucket Ministry, a high impact Christian non-profit organization working to share God’s love through the gift of clean, safe drinking water, was founded in 2012 and has worked in more than 20 countries with its goal of spreading the Gospel of Jesus and providing clean water through its distribution of bucket filters wherever required.
This Bucket Ministry project has granted generational access to safe drinking water to over 408,000 residents in the informal settlement since its beginning in the year 2018 with an aim to provide 100 percent of Kibera residents with clean drinking water through distribution of water filters and its implementation by residents of the area.
Speaking at the event, the Bucket Ministry Founder and Director Chris Beth cited a case study that highlighted 52 percent of diarrhea cases in the Kibera area when he was commencing his project as compared to the recent case study where the rate of diarrhea has reduced to 2 percent after distributing the water filters.
“Five years ago, we found by overwhelming consensus that Kibera was indeed a place we needed to touch lives,” he recalled, adding that they were amazed at the unprecedented impact their work has had in the community.
Additionally, he revealed that the Bucket Ministry had begun Mission Mapping in 2019 to better understand the effectiveness of their efforts and the simple demographic information they used to receive allows them to not only monitor the physical and spiritual health of the filter recipients, but also to provide partners with details of how their generosity is making a difference.
“Our mission is for everyone in the world to have access to clean water,” maintained Beth, adding that the Bucket Ministry decided to partners with indigenous leaders and pastors to distribute Sawyer PointONE filters which has been connected to buckets to provide up to 20-plus years of clean, safe, drinking water since it is effective in removing all harmful bacteria, parasites, protozoa and cysts including E. coli, Giardia, Cholera and Typhoid.
Making his remarks, Public Health Office Langata Steven Otieno disclosed that the office took the water filtered from the filter by the Bucket Ministry to the National Public Health Laboratories for analysis and the latter ascertained that the water was safe for human consumption.
“Each individual who receives a filter from the Bucket Ministry has decided to keep it clean and also allow the ministry’s indigenous team to conduct three home visits in order to ensure that the water filters are properly maintained, hence building relationships and giving out opportunities to share the Gospel message to residents,” stated Otieno.
Meanwhile, a beneficiary from the Bucket Ministry Teresiah Mweke said that since she started using the water filter, she has never experienced stomach issues because the ministry equips each filter with a unique waterproof barcode to track its distribution, and then make follow up and discipleship efforts using a proprietary system called Mission Mapping.
The team constituted 98 percent of the area residents allowing the programme to run successfully which attributes Life in Kibera Slums that is characterized by poverty, overcrowding and inadequate access to basic services and lack adequate running water, social services with only 78 public latrines. This results in Kibera’s residents living among open sewers and piles of garbage making them highly susceptible to health hazards, many of which can lead to death.
By Sharon Atieno
